Courtly Love In The Medieval Era

In the 12th century, there was written a set of rules that were known as the Rules of Courtly Love, based on the De Amore of Andreas Capellanus. The piece of work has a main purpose of describing common customs of that era, and are known today for trying to classify the rules of love. This ideal of courtly love, existed primarily between men and women of the upper class having some sort of romance experience with someone outside their marriage. Its’ fundamental notion was to help us understand relationships between men and women in the medieval time.
During the medieval era, both men and women were depicted differently in several ways. In this period the laws were set by men, and this significantly limited freedom for women. In the society,
men were considered highly valuable members and were treated with much respect. However, women were viewed as men’s property and were not permitted to do many things like in today’s world. Even the most privileged women, they hardly had any control over their own lives. Women’s limited freedom included not allowed to marry without their parents’ consent, could not own property or have a business of their own, and could not divorce their husbands, along with several other boundaries. Their only responsibilities involved just being a wife, having and raising their children.
The first courtly love rule is, “Marriage should not be a deterrent to love”, in simpler words, it implies that marriage should not discourage you from finding true love. Love is a force of nature, it’s an internal feeling that results of being extremely fond of someone for who they are, and caring for that person very deeply. In this period, noble marriages were almost never based on love, it was just a piece of paper that joined two people together, arranged by the parents to increase social status and economic reasons. Rather than being based on how the couple truly felt about each other, it was about political and financial gain. Thus, love in marriages was extremely unusual. Without love in the marriage, this caused both spouses to search romantic attachment elsewhere, outside their marriage. A married man could have as many mistresses that they wanted, and there was no consequences or punishment. On the other hand, if the wife was unfaithful, there would be a greater penalty to pay. The cost was to be killed for adultery