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Corey Megran
The Beast of Love

The institution of marriage has been an integral part of many functioning societies for
countless centuries. Almost every culture on earth has some process by which two persons are
joined together, in order to pool resources and create offspring. In a somewhat recent
development, the widespread acceptance of Judeo-Christian moral practices has attached new
rules to marriage, such as the dismissal of polygamy. These ideals have long been the source of
tension between those who believe in the letter of Christian law and those who are less
concerned with the commandments of a religious body, and certain cultural periods stand out as
a time in which this tension was extremely strong. One such period was during the Romanticist
movement in Europe, a time of stories in which knights and damsels and kings and serving girls
ran amok, seemingly oblivious to the sanctity of marriage and its righteous purpose. Despite the
powerful position of the Catholic church during that time, these stories were well received, and
did much to influence acceptable practices in that society. In order to reconcile these seemingly
opposed ideals, this essay begins with an explanation of both chivalry and courtly love, then
examining how the one engenders the other. From there it observes how the rules of courtly love
relate to marriage, and ends with an overview of how the two ideas find a peaceful coexistence.

Before courtly love existed, there was chivalry. In the modern day, chivalry has been
whittled down to simple acts like opening the door for someone else at a restaurant, but in the
days of romanticism, chivalry was much more. To the knights that were bound to follow its
codes, chivalry was a lifestyle, something that set them apart from the mass of peasants,
merchants, and clergymen. Chivalry was a code of both war and peace, of honorable combat and
table etiquette. According to Earle B. Fowler, “the system began as a code of manners, which