Lipton's monograph focuses on the literary genre of sacramental marriage in late medieval England. For Lipton, the robust popularity of this subject in England is tied to both the growing "middle class" and lay piety. For both, Lipton suggests that sacramental marriage provided an ideological staging ground in which to discuss their respective "social values of lay authority and a horizontal vision of governance" (4). Lipton points to various shifts in the perception of sacramental marriage that started building an ideology of marriage as an institution of love rather than sex; rather than simply marrying to avoid burning, marriage for the sake affection for one's spouse was, forgive the pun, espoused by the laity. Furthermore, several clergymen accepted consent as the binding act of marriage, functionally reducing the control the clergy held over the sacrament of marriage. Lipton argues that this demonstrates a larger push for lay authority in clerical matters.
In regards to the "middle class," Lipton argues that the growing economic and social mobility of this group further fed into the narrative of sacramental marriage, using this shifting definition of marriage to support the horizontal social connections that were developing among a growing urban and mercantile population. Lipton thus argues that, as the values of the middle class aligned with those expressed in literature on sacramental marriage, the middle class saw this as way to further push their own social values as this emerging estate attempts to find a foothold of authority/relevance/importance in late medieval England.
Lipton's readings are interesting and her scholarship on the texts she parses out is very useful. As I move forward thinking more about marriage, it is interesting to consider how the values expressed in literature on marriage may mirror or represent the values of the groups for which said literature seems to have been popular.
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