Wives and Concubines: Augustine and Marital Life

Aurelius Augustinus is the late antique individual who wrote the most about himself, and about whom the most has been written by others. More than any other early Christian writer, Augustine, who wrote extensively about marriage in treatises, letters, and sermons, has influenced the western view of the marital relationship. Without taking an overly ‘‘psycho-historical'' approach, one can still suggest that Augustine's views were affected by his own experiences, known primarily from his most autobiographical work, the Confessions.

Augustine devotes several chapters of the Confessions to a biographical sketch of his mother Monica. This narrative of a North African woman from a Christian family far below the senatorial aristocracy (but far above the hand-to-mouth existence of most inhabitants of the empire) can be contrasted with the laudatory accounts of wealthy ascetic women like Melania the Younger and the friends of Jerome. The ‘‘life'' of Monica is not objective reportage; it was written by the son who loved her deeply and was devastated at her death, despite his belief that such grief was inappropriate and displeasing to God (Conf. 9. 12. 29-33). Monica is portrayed as a ‘‘model mater-familias,'' using the ‘‘template of the ideal Roman mother, which Augustine modifies to incorporate his Christian and philosophic values'' (Power 1996: 71). She appears as a strict, upright figure, dedicated to imparting moral values to her children and anxious for the spiritual and physical safety of her son. After Augustine's father Patricius died when Augustine was 16, Monica used her own funds to help her son pursue a career in rhetoric (Conf. 3.4.7), and eventually even arranged his marriage. In all this she conformed to the ideal of the good Roman mother of classical times (Dixon 1988). The embodiment of both traditional Roman and new Christian female virtues, she was greatly praised, ‘‘for she had been the wife of one man only, had returned the mutual service to her parents, had managed her own home dutifully and piously [pie], and had testimony to her good works'' (Conf. 9. 9. 22).

Monica was married to Patricius ‘‘when she became nubile, at full age’’ (9. 9. 19), probably about 18. Patricius was not an easy husband, but Monica bore his infidelities patiently and was accommodating and agreeable, as befitted a Roman wife (Treggiari 1991: 238-41). She also hoped to bring him to Christianity, and this made her willing to tolerate his rough behavior, including the threat of violence. Augustine tells us how prudent and clever Monica was in handling the irascible Patricius, waiting until he cooled down before explaining whatever it was she had done to make him angry. Other wives, with ‘‘gentler’’ husbands but less adept at spousal management, bore the marks of blows on their faces and marveled that Monica was unscathed (Conf. 9. 9. 19). Augustine implies (though does not state outright) that Patricius did not beat Monica, but some scholars have assumed that he did (Shaw 1987b: 31-2; see Patricia Clark 1998: 114-15). Whatever Monica’s own situation, wife beating was, in the society described by Augustine, an unexceptional, indeed expected, feature of domestic life.

Whether this marks a change from the classical period, and if so, whether that change is due to Christianity, is debatable (Arjava 1996: 130-2). In the classical period, however, a woman could escape an abusive husband by repudiating him, assuming that she had funds of her own (such as the dowry which she could reclaim after divorce) and a supportive natal family (Treggiari 1991: 435-82). This does change in Late Antiquity: legislation, from the time of Constantine onward, restricted the causes for which a spouse, particularly a wife, could divorce unilaterally. Although a law of Theodosius II allowed a wife to divorce her husband if he ‘‘afflict[s] her with whippings - which are inappropriate for freeborn women’’ (Cod. lust. 5. 17. 8, AD 449), this applied only in the eastern empire and, at the time Monica’s peers were experiencing their husbands’ blows, divorce law was at its strictest. How much this legislation owes to Christian disapproval of divorce has also been debated by scholars (Bagnall 1987; Evans-Grubbs 1995: 225-60; Arjava 1996: 177-92). Imperial legislation probably had little impact, however; more influential were local mores, reinforced by the admonitions of Christian clergy that wives be submissive and endure beatings as well as infidelities and loss of money (Basil of Caesarea, Ep. 188. 9, but see Schroeder 2004 on John Chrysostom’s condemnation of spousal abuse).

When wives whose husbands had abused them complained, Monica, ‘‘solemnly admonishing as if in jest,’’ said that ‘‘from the time when they had heard those tablets, which are called matrimonial, read aloud, they ought to consider them as documents by which they had been made slaves, and therefore, mindful of their status, they ought not be prideful against their masters’’ (Conf. 9. 9. 19). Augustine often mentions such marriage contracts (tabulae matrimoniales, also called tabulae nuptiales or dotales), and clearly they were a regular feature of marriage arrangements in late Roman Africa (Hunter 2007). Only a small number of marriage contracts actually survive from the later empire, and none suggests that the wife was in the position of ‘‘slave’’ to her husband as ‘‘master.’’ Although Augustine calls tabulae matrimoniales ‘‘documents of purchase,’’ it is not clear that such phrasing actually appeared in marriage contracts of Augustine’s day. It may be his own interpretation, illustrating how he ‘‘shifts the basis of power relationships’’ in marriage, from partners to master and slave (Power 1996: 122).

Documentation of marriage was optional in the classical period, and was used primarily to record dowry or other property transactions, or to make provisions for divorce. In Late Antiquity, documents took on new importance as proof that a union was a iustum matrimonium (a legitimate marriage) and came to be required in cases where disparity in the status of the partners might suggest that the woman was a concubine rather than a wife (Evans-Grubbs 2007). This was a distinction with which Augustine was personally familiar.

The mature, ascetic Augustine was to criticize his parents because they did not marry him off when he was 16, but rather allowed ‘‘the madness of lust’’ to reign (Conf. 2. 2. 4). They were, he claimed, only interested in making him an accomplished orator, which required further education without the responsibilities of marriage (although his father, noticing Augustine’s sexual maturity, had rejoiced at the possibility of grandchildren). Instead, Augustine entered a long-term, quasimarital relationship with a concubine, whom he never names. The union lasted thirteen years and resulted in a son named Adeodatus (‘‘given by God’’). It did not require paternal consent, as marriage would have, nor did it have the legal consequences of iustum matrimonium. Adeodatus was illegitimate, and did not have automatic inheritance rights from his father as a legitimate son or daughter would.

As bishop, Augustine condemned this relationship, and readers of the Confessions have taken him at his word and visualized concubinatus as a promiscuous and even adulterous relationship. But traditional Roman concubinage was an alternative, not a supplement, to legal marriage (Treggiari 1981). Unlike a wife, a concubine was not taken ‘‘for the purpose of procreating children’’ (the purpose of marriage stated in the marriage tablets Augustine so often cited), and concubines did not enjoy the social prestige (dignitas) accorded wives. Indeed, for the third-century jurist Ulpian (Dig. 32. 49. 4), that was the only real difference between the two, although other jurists cited marital intent ( affectio maritalis) as an essential criterion for marriage (see 39. 5. 31, praef; 25. 7. 4). Concubines were usually of lower status than the men with whom they lived, and legitimate marriage was either legally impossible or socially inadvisable. Ambitious young men who wanted to establish themselves before taking on the ‘‘burdens’’ of marriage might enter a monogamous but temporary relationship until they were ready to marry a woman who could offer more advantages. This was what Augustine, whose talents fitted him for a high-flying career in imperial government, chose to do (Conf. 4. 2. 2; Brown 1967a: 61-72).

Years later, aged 30, Augustine turned his thoughts to legal marriage. At his request, Monica found a suitable wife, although Augustine was perfectly capable of deciding for himself and did not need his mother’s permission as he would his father’s. Augustine describes the process of wife hunting in curiously impersonal terms: although Monica could not determine God’s will, ‘‘Nevertheless, the matter was pursued and a girl was asked for, whose age was almost two years less than marriageable, and since she was pleasing, she was waited for’’ (Conf. 6. 13. 23). And the concubine had to go; it was poor form for a betrothed man to maintain a nonmarital relationship up to the wedding day. The separation was extremely traumatic for Augustine: ‘‘She with whom I was accustomed to sleep was torn from my side on the grounds ofbeing an impediment to marriage’’ (Conf. 6. 15. 25). Marriage to the concubine was evidently never considered, despite Augustine’s deep feelings for her, because career advancement was more important (Power 1996: 97-101; Shanzer 2002). Unable to remain celibate for two years, he took up with another woman in the interim.

Augustine’s concubine returned to Africa, ‘‘vowing to you (God) that she would not know another man’’ (Conf. 6. 15. 25). Surprisingly, she left Adeodatus with Augustine. Although children born in iustum matrimonium came under their father’s legal power and usually stayed with him after divorce, ‘‘natural’’ children had no paterfamilias and were their mother’s responsibility. Perhaps the boy was particularly close to Augustine and to his grandmother Monica (who was living with them), or perhaps Augustine’s concubine wished to make a new start back in Africa as a respectable, unmarried woman, and an illegitimate child would have complicated matters (Shanzer 2002: 174). We shall never know what would have happened to Adeodatus had Augustine married, since the boy died and Augustine broke his betrothal. But surely the family of a young, wealthy wife would have looked askance on her husband’s bastard child.

Augustine’s experience of concubinage informed his views on marriage and the relationship between men and women (Power 1996: 104-7; Shanzer 2002: 175). In On the Good ofMarriage, after stating that the most important reason for marriage is ‘‘friendship’’ and the bonding of human society, Augustine follows the traditional Roman view that the purpose of marriage is procreation. However, he goes further by claiming that spouses who have sex for any other reason (i. e., concupiscence) are committing a sin, albeit venial. Augustine then addresses the question (which he says ‘‘is often asked’’) of whether monogamous cohabitation, undertaken for sex rather than procreation, can be called conubium (marriage). He concludes that it can, if the couple remain faithful to each other all their lives and do not try to prevent children (by contraception), even if they did not seek them in the first place. But if a man has a long-term sexual relationship with a woman, intending to repudiate her for another who would make a more suitable wife, ‘‘worthy because of her rank or her resources,’’ he commits adultery with the first woman. And a woman who lived with a man faithfully and raised his children, knowing she was not his wife, also sins, although if she remains celibate after he has repudiated her, ‘‘I, indeed, would perhaps not easily call her an adulteress’’ (August. De bono coniugali 5). Many scholars have recognized that Augustine is referring to his own past conduct and condemning it.

In the late empire, the legal attitude toward nonmarital monogamy was becoming harsher, and laws made it more difficult for concubines and their children to receive anything under the will of their partners and husbands (Evans-Grubbs 1995: 277304). The laws were aimed at strengthening social and legal distinctions between elite men and lower-ranking women rather than at repressing relationships perceived as immoral. But legal disfavor toward concubinage reinforced, and eventually blended with, the ecclesiastical attitude that marriage was to be undertaken solely to produce children. The ecclesiastical view was expressed by Pope Leo around ad 458, writing in response to the bishop of Narbonne (who had asked whether a cleric could marry his daughter to a man who had a concubine by whom he had children):

Not every woman joined to a man is the man’s wife, since not every child is his father’s heir. Moreover, the marriage pacts between freeborn persons are legitimate and between equals; the Lord decided this very thing long before the beginning of Roman law existed. Therefore a wife is one thing, a concubine another; just as a slavewoman is one thing, a free woman another. (Leo, Ep. 167, response 4)

Status distinctions, the hallmark of the Roman legal system, are here attributed to divine decision, ‘‘long before the beginning of Roman law.’’ Despite the changes that Christian thinkers like Augustine brought to ideas of marriage and sexuality, some traditional Roman attitudes remained, now validated by religious teachings.