Power Over the Body, Equality in the Family: Rights and Domestic Relations in Medieval Canon Law

The term "conjugal rights" has long characterized ways of speaking about marriage both in the canonistic tradition and in the secular legal systems of the West. This book explores the origins and dimensions of this concept and the range of meanings that have attached to it from the twelfth century to the present.

Employing far-ranging sources, Charles Reid Jr. examines the language of marriage in classical Roman law, the Germanic legal codes of early medieval Europe, and the writings of can...