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Il y a quelques mois, nous avons rappelé qu'avaient existé au Moyen Âge des formes d'unions entre personnes de même sexe, qui n'étaient pas des mariages mais n'en manifestaient pas moins une capacité à créer de l'engagement affectif, social voire politique. Récemment, l'une des meilleures spécialistes des questions de genre au Moyen Âge a publié une bienvenue histoire de la diversité des formes d'unions entre hommes et femmes, qui là non plus ne se réduisaient pas au mariage canonique, loin s'en faut. D'où le titre facétieux de son livre : "Les non-mariages"Je reproduis ci-dessous le compte-rendu paru dans "The Medieval Review", en espérant que livre sera rapidement traduit en français et en attenant peut-être un débat prochain, qui pourrait bien être passionnant, sur le non-mariage pour tous...&#160;&#160;&#160;Karras, Ruth Mazo.  &#60;i&#62;Unmarriages.  Women, Men and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages&#60;/i&#62;. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.  Pp.  283.  $ 49.95.  ISBN-13: 9780812244205.Reviewed by Walter PrevenierUniversity of Ghentwalter.prevenier@telenet.beThis book makes me happy for many reasons. For years I have admiredRuth Karras for the outstanding originality of her former studies, butthis is certainly her most challenging. It has the sharpest analysis Ihave read on the complexity of the many forms of marriage andalternative companionship in the Middle Ages. Karras describes thephenomenon with a slightly ironical, convenient overarching term,"unmarriages." In the past many historians worked on formal marriages,others on clandestine unions, and others on concubinage and adultery.Here we get them all together in one global overview, and the varietyis much broader than these four formats. Karras' thesis is that therewas never one unique model of marriage, rather an impressive pluralityof alternative forms of cohabitation, displaying a lot of individualcreativity and some critical disrespect for the ecclesiastical ritualsand the civic rules of the game. I appreciate that Karras, more thanmost historians in the past, does not hesitate to reveal that herobservation of the contested nature of marriage in today's society washer source of inspiration. I also like her statement that looking intothe mirror of the past is a challenge for all current ideologicalgroups with opposing views on marriage, both those basing their claimson tradition and those claiming that cultural changes should provokechanges in the form of marriage: "only by historicizing marriage can wesee the inherent illogic of claims that there is only one 'real' form"(1).Secondly I appreciate Karras' fierce reaction against another falseperception that considers medieval society as a monolithic repositoryof tradition. This study claims that medieval communities focusedrather on adaptability, creativity, and flexibility. Many medievalwomen and men found indeed countless appropriate roads to escape allforms of interference in matters of marriage and sexual activities, andall ways to avoid calculations of parents related to family patrimonyand dowry regulations. Their intended, often discouraged, formatsvaried from socially mixed marriages, clandestine marriages,quasi-marital unions, interreligious and international unions,concubinage, living apart together. Karras warns us from the beginningthat she excluded two categories from a systematic analysis in thisbook: same-sex couples and spiritual unions with other persons or withChrist (chastity unions), because recent and exhaustive scholarship onthese points is available, respectively by James Brundage and DyanElliott.A third originality of this book is that it takes into account all the"powers" that had the ambition to regulate and influence humancompanionships in the direction of traditional and conservativemarriages: the Church, civic authorities, urban elites, parents, andextended families.How did Karras find the reverse side of the coin?  For chapter 1 ("TheChurch and the Regulation of Unions between Women and Men"), chapter 2("Unequal Unions") and the first part of chapter 3 ("Priests and theirPartners") she relies essentially on an impressive and well selectedcollection of specialized literature, secondary sources and printedprimary sources. For the second part of chapter 3, on priests, and forthe entire chapter 4, "On the Margins of Marriage," she turned tototally new and unexplored materials. She worked here in essence withthe civil and the criminal registers of the Archdeaconry of Paris from1483 to 1505, those of Brie from 1499 to 1505, and the register of theOfficiality of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris from 1486 to 1498.I consider this a justifiable selection, limited in time but fair,because it is a set of unedited and virtually unexplored documentarymaterials, and because these sources are superbly contextualized with arich collection of related secondary literature. The weakness of thischoice, however, is double. All the material comes from ecclesiasticalauthorities and gives a limited and one-sided approach to the picture.More importantly, while the comparative focus is present, especiallyfor France and England, it is not prominent enough for Germany,Mediterrenean Europe and the Low Countries, where a lot of solidanalysis is available that would have allowed Karras to discover thespecificity of the "unmarriage" sensibilities in the Parisianmicrocosm. The limited use of material from the Low Countries isespecially unfortunate. One article by Monique Vleeschouwers VanMelkebeek has been used (249), but this author produced several otherbooks and articles in which she develops exactly the same themes whichare crucial in the Paris officiality registers. Some of these wouldhave been wonderful in the comparative mood, such as: MoniqueVleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, "Aspects du lien matrimonial dans le LiberSentenciarum de Bruxelles (1448-1459)," &#60;i&#62;Revue de l'histoire duDroit&#60;/i&#62; 53 (1985):  49-67; and "Classical Canon Law on Marriage. TheMaking and Breaking of Households," in Myriam Carlier and Tim Soens,eds., &#60;i&#62;The Household in Late Medieval Cities. Italy and NorthwesternEurope Compared&#60;/i&#62;, Louvain and Apeldoorn, 2001, 15-23. A thirdarticle ("Bina matrimonia: matrimonium praesumptum versus matrimoniummanifestum," in Serge Dauchy et al., eds., &#60;i&#62; Auctoritates xenia R.C.Van Caenegem oblata&#60;/i&#62;,  Iuris scripta historica 13 (1997): 245-55)would have been helpful for decoding the rather cryptic Parisian texts,such as the one on "presumed marriage" on p. 170.  I give one otherlacuna: the materials of the magnificent collection of marriagecontracts from fifteenth-century Douai analysed by Martha Howell in&#60;i&#62;The Marriage Exchange. Property, Social Place, and Gender in Citiesof the Low Countries, 1300-1550&#60;/i&#62; (Chicago and London, 1998). Douaishows a very typical variant of marriage conditions and couplerelations, as it was a city with a preponderance of small familybusinesses and nuclear households, in which couples' commonresponsibilities were considerable, and greater than in most othercities. Interesting contrasts with the Ile de France have beendeveloped by Philippe Godding in "La famille dans le droit urbain del'Europe du Nord-Ouest au bas moyen-âge," in Myriam Carlier and TimSoens, eds., &#60;i&#62;The Household in Late Medieval Cities. Italy andNorthwestern Europe Compared&#60;/i&#62; (Louvain and Apeldoorn, 2001). Anyway,I consider Karras's case study on the Parisian area a significantmonograph that will be a cornerstone for a later synthesis within abroader European frame. Karras refers indeed to that futureperspective, and very wisely warns us that the patterns of behavior inParis are not necessarily typical for the rest of medieval Europe (172).However erudite and solidly professionally documented it may be, thismarvelous book reads like an exciting novel.  It is full of unexpectedand challenging information and wonderful anecdotes. I quote a few ofthem. The long chapter on "unequal unions" (68-114) reveals the factthat socially mixed marriages were not such an exceptional phenomenonas many historians presumed in the past, but it also displays theincredible variety of mixed conditions. Especially unions includingconcubines present the most sophisticated forms of statutes and ofdowry regulations. The sexual use of servants, and even more of slaves,was regular conduct for men of the master class; especially for theiryounger family members it was an appealing and cheap alternative forthe relatively impersonal visits to prostitutes (90). Marriage bymembers of the elites with their servants was, however, another story;most families found servants unsuitable as partners. Those mixed unionswere mostly considered as "shameful, infamous and vile" (97). In allthese conditions one could never escape the notion of honor. Alower-class free man marrying a former slave might not lose much honor,but an upper-class man certainly would. The adultery of a wife,especially with a slave or a person of low status, was considered amuch bigger dishonor for her family than similar activities by herhusband (98). Don't miss the statement "sans façons" of PierretteFlatret about her partner Aimery de Beauvais, who had left her fourteenyears earlier, nevertheless maintained Pierrette for twelve of thosefourteen years during which they had five children together. All thistime he promised to marry her, but refrained. In Pierrette's complaintabout this failure before the official of Paris, apparently in a ratherindecent terminology, she used one unforgettable expression of perfectfemale self-consciousness: "that no man would be the master of her cuntand that she would do what she wanted with it" (206).A well developed section in this book is the rich chapter on thebehavior of "priests and their partners" (115-164). I fully agree withthe remark: "the church did not speak with a unified voice" (25). Therewas indeed no one behavior within the clergy. The general theory wasone of celibacy and sexual abstinence. The practice was a lot ofcohabitation and &#60;i&#62;de facto&#60;/i&#62; marriage of priests. Since theCouncils of 1123 and 1139 declared clerical marriages invalid, theseunions became automatically concubinage, a situation that was welcomedby many parishioners, but perceived with hostility by others. Thefifteenth-century Parisian theologian Jean Gerson declared thatclerical concubinage should be tolerated for the same reasons as publicprostitution. Protestants, in later times, equally showed tolerance formarriages of priests as a lesser evil. Karras makes here an interestingcomparison with the contrasting reactions to gay couples in many partsof the United States in the twenty-first century (116).  In theoryadult priests' sons were denied access to holy orders, as was generallythe case for all illegitimate children; but for both categories escapewas possible, by papal dispensation and by intervention of lay patrons(140-141). The rich variety of terms for priests' wives or former wives(servant, hearthmaid or handmaid to whore, domestic, prostitute orconcubine) are a perfect mirror of a dominant negative public opinionabout these women (134-135). Karras rightly insists on the legalinsecurity of priests' partners: they risked being repudiated at anytime (164). But I would add that even greater was the social handicapof a former priest's concubine on the marriage market as a result of astigma that is well documented by sources from the Low Countries.A table on page 154 presents interesting statistics on the differenttypes of clerical sexual offenses in the register of the Archdeacon ofParis between 1483 and 1505: 299 cases in 22 years. I regret that asystematic comparative approach is omitted here, and that no effort ismade to confront the amount of offenses for each type of misbehaviorwith similar lists available for Tournai (and Cambrai) and Canterburyfor the same period, mentioned on pages 151-152. That approach wouldhave shown if the methods and norms for repression of clerical offensesin the Parisian area were specific to that region or not. I regret asecond omission: Karras brings the crucial question to the table of howthese clerical offenses came to the attention of the episcopalauthorities (151-2), followed by a very short comment on realistic andfalse reports by parishioners to bishops. In fact a very formal andeffective structure had been active in these matters in several partsof Europe, the parochial synod (Sendgericht in the German areas), alocal institution composed of the parish priest (at least if he was notaccused himself) and a group of "honorable" burghers, acting as awatchdog and a moral commission. It existed since the Merovingianperiod, and it remained active in most parts of Europe, at least untilthe end of the Middle Ages. For the later Middle Ages there is anexcellent monograph by Daniel Lambrecht, &#60;i&#62;De parochiale synode in hetoude bisdom Doornik gesitueerd in de Europese ontwikkeling, 11deeeuw-1559&#60;/i&#62; (Brussels, 1984) with a well developed internationaloverview and discussion of the Archdeaconry of Paris on pages 272-273.This ecclesiastical technique of denunciation is close to that of somecivil institutions, like the Onestà, active in Florence since 1403(Richard C. Trexler, "La prostitution florentine au XVe siècle,"&#60;i&#62;Annales: Économies, Sociétiés, Civlisations&#60;/i&#62; 36 (1981):983-1015). We should also refer to a systematic analysis of therepression of moral transgressions by episcopal courts in France and inthe Burgundian Netherlands: Véronique Beaulande, &#60;i&#62;Le malheur d'êtreexclu? : excommunication, réconciliation et société à la fin du MoyenÂge&#60;/i&#62; (Paris, 2006), especially on pages 107-128.Karras has a fine empathy for the use by contemporaries ofpsychological arguments, as in the case before the Archdeaconry ofParis in which the judge strangely fined two partners, although livingtogether in the same conditions under one roof, for different offenses.The woman was fined for clandestine marriage, her husband for carnalknowledge. Karras suggests that the court fined them in essence forwhat each had confessed, and that the court apparently did not careabout and did not make a decision regarding the type of companionshipthe couple had (170).  We should not be amazed. So many formats ofliving together were available in the fifteenth century that not onlysimple contemporaries but even well-educated judges completely lost thescent in this imbroglio, and had doubts about how to determine theexact quality of the cohabitation. Very often the line of marriage wasnot clearly drawn and the formal rules were not applied, particularlyif no dowry or financial arrangements were on the table (201). Thismagnificent book explains perfectly well why between concubinage andclandestine marriage there was often no more than a very fine line.The Medieval Reviewhttps://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/3631