The Legality of Marriages

[Mithras]

We see that there was a precedent for polygamy outside the blessing of the Faith as in the case of Maegor and Alys Harroway. And it was also outside the blessing of the king.

R+L=J

:leer:

[lareine]

Out of interest, do you know if it's possible to annul a marriage that's conducted according to a religion other than the Faith? Presumably, the hierarchy of the Faith have no juristiction over followers of other religions?

Spot on.

The Faith obviously draws a lot of inspiration from the Catholic Church. Annulment in the Catholic Church means a trial whether there were hindrances to the marriage from the start, making it invalid in the first place.

Probably not.

As I said, annulment is basically a trial, where you prove factors preventing a marriage existed during the marriage ceremony. Factors defined by the law of the Faith.

Anyway, other religions won't let the Faith handle their laws and ethics.

Sorry I'm a few days late responding to this!

If I recall correctly from my Catholic school days, a marriage conducted by another faith between two people who were both not Catholics the medieval church wouldn't have been considered valid to begin with and therefore wouldn't have any need for them to annul it.

In the case of a Catholic marrying a non-Catholic (what was then called a 'mixed marriage'), that was highly discouraged and would probably rarely have been allowed. In order for it to be valid, the couple would have had to get a dispensation ahead of time and agree to raise any children of the marriage within the Catholic faith.

A marriage between a Catholic and non-Catholic that was conducted by some other religion or authority would most definitely not be considered valid by the Church, though it could still be valid legally.

For example, even up until the 1960s if you were a Catholic who married a non-Catholic in a registry office, the marriage might be recognized by the law but to the Catholic Church it didn't exist and you were living in sin.

[Mithras]

Jaehaerys - Shaera case is also interesting. They eluded their guardians, secretly married, and consummated their marriage. Aegon had to accept that marriage.

[Lord Varys]

Jaehaerys and Shaera were both still minors. There is no way that this marriage was binding in any legal way. We see that this is the case when Tywin unmakes Tyrion's first marriage.

King Aegon V chose let it stand because anything else would disgrace at least his daughter, Princess Shaera, as she had been deflowered by Jaehaerys after the wedding. Egg clearly had a soft spot for all his children as he did also not annul the marriage between Duncan and Jenny - despite the fact that he must have been able to do this just as monarchs can force their subjects to marry. He could have tortured Duncan/Jenny until they were willing to say the words - or intimidate them as Tyrion and Sansa were.

Maegor and Alys is not necessarily polygamy as Maegor seemed to operate under the assumption his marriage with Ceryse was at an end. It was more 'a divorce' and a new marriage rather than 'look at me, I live with two women in matrimony at the same time'. That only began after he became and took Tyanna to wife, too.

Valyrian/foreign marriage ceremonies should in Westeros be as 'good and valid' as in the Westerosi are in Meereen. They are as good as the mainstream religion in charge of officiating Westerosi marriages considers them to be. The High Septon did not object against Aegon's marriages but he did oppose the Maegor-Alys match which made it illegal in the eyes of pretty much everyone, Aenys I included.

I think we are also mistaken that Aenys' ultimatum shows that he was accepting the marriage. It was 'return to Ceryse or go into exile' not 'return to Ceryse and go into exile with your second wife'. Maegor took Alys with him to Pentos but this does not mean that Aenys or anyone else in Westeros thought of Alys as Maegor's lawful wife. They most likely saw her as a paramour or mistress.

In that light we should also consider the possibility that no one considered Maegor's polygamous marriages valid after his downfall. His enemies certainly did not even accept them while he was alive as we know that they were a major reason why the Faith Militant continued to fight against him. I'd not be surprised if Jaehaerys I and the High Septon decreed after Maegor's death that the king's sister Rhaena Targaryen was never lawfully married to her uncle Maegor. The only Targaryen who got away with polygamy was Aegon I - and he wasn't married to two women for that long a time anyway. Maegor's desire for that many women was one of the reasons why he was thrown down.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

Jaehaerys and Shaera were both still minors. There is no way that this marriage was binding in any legal way. We see that this is the case when Tywin unmakes Tyrion's first marriage.

No, actually we don't see that. We have no idea what did happen to Tysha after the "sharp lesson". We only heard snippets from Tyrion, who in turn repeated what he'd heard from Tywin, and Tywin had fed him pure unapologetic bullshit. Mayhaps he just killed her? That would sound more like Tywin Lannister we all know and love.

But, with regard to minors, we have an extreme case of Tyrek Lannister and Ermesande Hayford. Nobody in-universe considers their marriage invalid.

[Lord Varys]

Tysha is a whore in Braavos. She is not dead.

Tyrek-Ermesande actually proves my point. If you can marry somebody against her will - and Ermesande wasn't asked - then you can also unmake a marriage against the will of the people involved. Ermesande clearly could object to the marriage she finds herself when she realizes what is going on. Not to mention that it hasn't been consummated yet.

[DasallmaechtigeJ]

When you are a ward of the crown, I don´t think that you can go marry whoever you like. The crown has the final say in matters, I think.

As far as Sansa's wardship is concerned, I guess she might theoretically be abl to marry whoever she likes, but pratically she is prisoner of the crown and totally depended on their will, so there isn't much room for her to choose...

[Lord Varys]

Sansa is a minor when she marries, and Joff is her daddy. He gives her away, she is his ward.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Lord Varys,

Maegor's marriage to Ceryse did not end when he married Alys.. Whatever he felt, legally, he was still married to Ceryse. And remained so, until her death.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Jaehaerys and Shaera were both still minors. There is no way that this marriage was binding in any legal way. We see that this is the case when Tywin unmakes Tyrion's first marriage.

...and whatever Tywin did, it was not legally binding. Because we know that either of the participants would have to personally request annulment. From the High Septon of a Council of Faith. Tyrion never asked, Tysha most likely neither, since Tyrion would have to testify at least, and nobody ever approached the High Septon.

Tyrion is still legally married to Tysha.

King Aegon V chose let it stand because anything else would disgrace at least his daughter, Princess Shaera, as she had been deflowered by Jaehaerys after the wedding. Egg clearly had a soft spot for all his children as he did also not annul the marriage between Duncan and Jenny - despite the fact that he must have been able to do this just as monarchs can force their subjects to marry. He could have tortured Duncan/Jenny until they were willing to say the words - or intimidate them as Tyrion and Sansa were.

Egg couldn't have done that. Only the High Septon or his Council of Faith. In a trial determining whether the marriage was invalid from the start.

Maegor and Alys is not necessarily polygamy as Maegor seemed to operate under the assumption his marriage with Ceryse was at an end. It was more 'a divorce' and a new marriage rather than 'look at me, I live with two women in matrimony at the same time'. That only began after he became and took Tyanna to wife, too.

Divorce doesn't exist. Annullment is something very, very different. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annulment_%28Catholic_Church%29 Ignore a bit of the modern stuff, but otherwise it's the model GRRM used.

Tysha is a whore in Braavos. She is not dead.

Tyrek-Ermesande actually proves my point. If you can marry somebody against her will - and Ermesande wasn't asked - then you can also unmake a marriage against the will of the people involved. Ermesande clearly could object to the marriage she finds herself when she realizes what is going on. Not to mention that it hasn't been consummated yet.

Nope. Ermesande can't. Nor can anybody unmake a marriage except for the High Septon or a Council of Faith - and that doesn't depend on the will of the people involved either way but solely on whether the marriage was invalid in the first place.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

Tysha is a whore in Braavos. She is not dead.

That's just a guess.

Tyrek-Ermesande actually proves my point. If you can marry somebody against her will - and Ermesande wasn't asked - then you can also unmake a marriage against the will of the people involved. Ermesande clearly could object to the marriage she finds herself when she realizes what is going on. Not to mention that it hasn't been consummated yet.

Err, no. An example of a marriage unmade this way would prove your point. A marriage, which you consider void by its very nature, but treated by everyone in-universe as a real thing, actually disproves your point.

[Lord Varys]

Rhaenys,

not as far as we know. But we don't really know what 'setting aside a wife/marriage' means. In essence it seems as if the king can declare that his wife no longer is his wife whatever anyone else says. We don't know yet whether a monarch has to go appeal to the Faith/High Septon for that. TWoIaF gives us multiple precedents from ancient times where kings put aside previous wives in favor of a new one. Renly even planned to arrange such a thing for Robert.

My guess is that Visenya/Maegor were trying to pull such a thing rather than full-fledged polygamy as Ceryse was useless as a wife anyway since she was apparently barren.

In 'The Sons of the Dragon' it is made clear that Aenys' ultimatum is that Maegor return to his lawful wife or go into exile for five years. And the whole Septon Murmison thing is about the miracle-worker making Ceryse fertile so that Maegor would have no need of Alys - which also seems to suggest that Aenys did not consider the marriage to be valid as he hoped Maegor would return to Ceryse.

BBE,

oh, I know the theoretical stuff about 'Catholic divorce'. It is their version of divorce and you can get it if you play your cards right.

In practice, you would use the official stuff only when other powerful people (i.e. nobles) are involved. If I was a lord and married a commoner and then eventually said 'no, this is not so' I could still throw her out of my house and treat her like shit because she was not worthy to be my wife in the first place and my peers (and hers) are glad that she has finally learned her where her place is.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

BBE,

oh, I know the theoretical stuff about 'Catholic divorce'. It is their version of divorce and you can get it if you play your cards right.

In practice, you would use the official stuff only when other powerful people (i.e. nobles) are involved. If I was a lord and married a commoner and then eventually said 'no, this is not so' I could still throw her out of my house and treat her like shit because she was not worthy to be my wife in the first place and my peers (and hers) are glad that she has finally learned her where her place is.

Nope. Not a divorce. An annullment. It's a trial.

Of course you could do that as a noble - unless the High Septon is a fanatic who is keen on the "Law of the Seven" and got the power to do something about that. There hasn't been one for centuries, maybe millennia.

But there is one right now.

[Mithras]

Tysha is a whore in Braavos. She is not dead.

Tyrek-Ermesande actually proves my point. If you can marry somebody against her will - and Ermesande wasn't asked - then you can also unmake a marriage against the will of the people involved. Ermesande clearly could object to the marriage she finds herself when she realizes what is going on. Not to mention that it hasn't been consummated yet.

But is not Ermesandre a ward of the crown too? That means the king has the right to wed her to anyone he likes.

Besides, the Sailor of the Sailor's Wife is Gerion Lannister. It is known.

[Mal Malenkirk]

Marriage and religion in ASOIAF... It's all about power, though recognizing that traditions have power of their own. But these traditions can be broken easily with enough power of a more temporal nature.

For example, if toward the end of the serie there is a Stark restauration in the North, with say Bran, Rickon, a legitimized Jon or even Sansa herself in power and the rest of the territory firmly under control, Sansa could just marry again under the Old Gods, discarding the marriage to Tyrion and simply not acknowledging it.

People down south make a fuss about it being illegal because of a previous marriage under the law of the Seven? Three words: Go. Fuck. Yourself. Wanna go to war over it to defend the interests of the Lannister? Didn't think so.

I'd like such an outcome. It would say all that needs to be said about power vs law vs traditions in the serie and really in the world at large.

[The Great and Mighty Poo]

Jenny of oldstones

[Mithras]

If Cersi looses her trial, Joffery becomes illigetimate so his claim to the throne goes bye bye. So He had no claim to the throne so did he leagually have any right to marry Sansa to Tyrion. If he is not the true King, he cannot make decisions in place of her closest relative right?

So if Cersi looses her trial Sansa will theoretically be freed from her marrige because it was unlawful and unconsumated and will be free to marry whomever she likes.

That is an interesting notion. I guess the decrees of a king who was later identified as illegitimate would be null. However, marriage arrangements are not royal decrees. So, it can be argued that if Cersei loses her trial, Tommen becomes a bastard and his decree to remove Maegor's Law becomes null, which means the High Sparrow kisses goodbye to the legal foundation of his newly gained armed power. But it would not affect Sansa's marriage.

[Mithras]

In that light we should also consider the possibility that no one considered Maegor's polygamous marriages valid after his downfall.

Maegor is a monarch still accepted by all (unlike Rhaenyra) and he has some laws that are still standing. Even Jaehaerys didnot undo them. I think they never bothered to think about the polygamous marriages of Maegor, especially considering that he had no surviving issue from those marriages. If he had some issues, Jaehaerys would probably declare those marriages unlawful and the issues would be declared bastards.

[Lord Varys]

Marriage is a religious matter in Westeros, and the High Septon(s) and Faith never accepted Maegor as king and continued to fight against him because of his many marriages. That is explicitly stated in TWoIaF. This suggests that the High Septons either never accepted the black brides as queens, nor Tyanna or Alys (at least until Ceryse died).

It would not have been for Jaehaerys I to decide whether they were unlawful or not, it was the High Septon/Faith's call. And in the end it very well have been the Faith's continued refusal of polygamy which essentially led to its disappearance under Jaehaerys I - if the king shared the High Septon's view that polygamy is illegal when in the eyes of the Seven, the Targaryens could no longer practice it while they pretended or actually followed the Faith of the Andals - Aegon married his sisters on Dragonstone, before the Conquest, and the royal family is conveniently only descended from one of Aegon's sister-wives so the marriage to Visenya can actually be sort of ignored historically as it did not lead to a lasting bloodline.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

I disagree entirely about maegor's marriages. No where in TWOIAF does it even suggest that anyone did not acknowledge his polygamous marriages as valid. All of the women he took to wife are listed as his wives.

remember the World book is written as an historical account as written by a Maester. So this is written as a Maester of the seven Kingdoms understands the history. And all of maegors wives are listed as wives, they are not listed as false wives, paramours or mistresses. Nowhere Does Maester Yandel even suggest that these marriages were seen as invalid. he clearly lists them as wives.

The marriage of Aegon to his two sisters was presumably performed under one of the many religions of Valyria. As it happens before they convert to the 7 on dragonstone. The faith however do not approve of both the Incest & the Polygamy. But they do not declare the marriage illegal, void, or invalid. They can't really though because they just conquered westeros and the Faith are in the position of accepting this marriage or being toasted. It is in their interests to accept it.

Then Maegor is offered Ceryse Hightower but her uncle who is the HS when he voices his protest over the suggested betrothal of Maegor to his own Niece. Which is interesting, because we know that the Starks married Uncle to Niece twice when Edric wed his half brothers daughter Serena,& his brother Jonnel wed her sister Sansa. That is two men wedding their own brother's (though half brother) Daughters.

Obviously the Faith can say Jack Shit about the Old Gods marriages as it is none of their damn business, but the fact is that in Westeros the two religions exist side by side and both recognise the marriages of the other as valid & binding.

Maegor marries ceryse hightower in 25AC,

"he soon grew tired of Ceryse's failure to bear him an heir, and began taking other brides."

Note, maester Yandel writes down that he took other brides, he does not say that Maegor took mistresses whom he styled as his brides/wives but which were never recognised as such by the people, the faith or anyone else.

These women were his wives, Alys Harroway married him on Dragonstone under the faith of Valyria officiated by Visenya. So this marriage was not a marriage performed by a Septon in a Sept nor by a Tree, but it was recognised as a marriage and no one names her paramour, she is a wife, as are Tyanna of the Tower, and the Black brides.

When Maegor wed Alys in 39AC, and the nation was outraged, but not once does Maester Yandel say that the Faith declared the marriage void. Aenys thought it enough to exile Maegor and he even took a Septon as his hand as a means to placate the faith, but when he then wed his son Aegon to his daughter Rhaena matters were made worse with the faith. (but they are married and no one denies it.)

Maester Yandal notes that as incest and polygamy were Valyrian traditions and were abominations according to the 7 that conflict between that Targaryens and the faith was in hindsight inevitable. But he never says that the Faith declared the marriages invalid.

Because of this union between his children, the Faith denounced him as King Abomination. This is the closest we get to them attempting to declare the Targaryens not the monarchs, yet they still address him as King. And they don't say that the marriage of his parents or his children or his brother are unrecognised. Septon Murmison is expelled from the Faith for performing the ceremony but it does not say that the marriage is declared void.

This act is what made the 7 take up arms against the Targaryens, and they did try to remove Aenys from his throne, and many Lords took up arms against him. So it seems that the incest really was problematic, But when writing down all of this Yandel never not even once says that the marriage was called into question in its validity.

Nor when Maegor returned does he say the faith declared his polygamous marriage unrecognised. The reason maegor was opposed as King, was not his polygamous marriage but the fact that Westeros recognised Aegon as heir as by the laws of the land a Son comes before a Brother. The Faith sided with Aegon it seems as they opposed Maegor, but Yandel does not say why? Was it over the fact a Son comes before a Brother, or did they prefer Incest to Polygamy? Either way I'll say it again Maegor's marriage to Alys was never declared void. yandel calls Alys QUEEN Alys in his account, indicating that the realm recognises that she was indeed his wife & Queen, not a mistress.

Prior to the wedding between Maegor & Tyanna Yandel refers to her as his Lover, and after the wedding as his Wife. This tells us the state of things in Westeros. That the marriage was acknowledged and she was not seen as a mistress AFTER the wedding.

The HS opposed Maegor's rule, but Yandel doesn't recall that the HS declared his marriages invalid. Yandel tells us he took many Wives, he does not say Maegor took many mistresses whom he styled as wives.

The new HS even told the Faith Militant to put down their swords, and they were outlawed. Which means the Seven officially accepted King Maegor and his many wives.

Septon Moon and Ser Joffrey Dogget led the Poor Fellows against the King, so we know that whilst the seven officially now support Maegor (and his wives) that the church is split. So we still can not say they refused to acknowledge his polygamy, because they officially accept it (the HS has outlawed the faith militant) but factions still oppose him as King. Yandel does not say anyone did not recognise the marriages. Nor that the Marriages are why the Faith initially opposed him as King, it seems from the text that this was in fact due to his usurpation of his nephews throne. And then continued mostly due to Maegor's tyranny.

They were unified by Jaehaery's claim. The Faith and the Lords this is, Yandel then tells of how Queen Rhaena fled to her brothers side on her Dragon taking Blackfyre with her, Yandel does not call Rhaena his mistress but his Queen and she is his 3rd wife.(assuming she as a Targaryen comes before the other Black Brides who were all wed in one ceremony)

I think given all of the above that we can safely say that Maegor's polygamous marriages were recognised and the women seen as real wives. Yandel is writing a historical account of the events. Why would he continuously fail to mention it if things were as you say? I think you've assumed far too much, because the text directly contradicts your opinion.