Should we Abstain? Spousal Equality in Twelfth-century Byzantine Canon Law

Spousal equality was not an ideal to which medieval societies generally aspired. Discussions about social order advocated a strict hierarchical structure: the man was to be the head of the household and the master of his wife. Did this subservient state of the wife extend to all spheres of family life or was there a space where spouses could act as equals? In this article I focus on one aspect of Byzantine spousal relations: the marital bed. I argue that there was a difference between lay and clerical couples. Among the Byzantine laity, husband and wife were equally responsible for deciding whether to engage in sexual intercourse. Canon law addressed lay husbands and wives as a couple. Among the clergy, however, the husband's responsibilities towards his flock sometimes required him to decide unilaterally in favour of abstinence. According to the law, it was the cleric's duty to ensure that this happened. As such it was he who was addressed and asked to abstain from his wife. More generally, the clerical status of the husband complicated the situation and needs to be taken into account before any generalisations are made about gender inequality.