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Conclusion 205
to take a less tolerant attitude to sexual weakness by married males
than a clergy in the same position as laymen. Brahmins, rabbis,
muftis were married men and at some level must have sympathized
with the predicament of other men who wanted to change wives for
one reason or another. Celibate popes and bishops were more likely
to feel that if they were doing without any women at all, laymen
could make do with one. This explanation is an ideal-type. In so
far as clerics lapsed from their ideal, the reasoning sketched out
does not apply. Still, to say that clerical celibacy meant no more
in the early thirteenth century than the early eleventh would be an
extreme position. So the rise of celibacy would have given impetus
to the force of marriage symbolism. One cannot footnote it but to
many it will seem common sense.
In the case of ‘bigamy’, the sheer appeal of marriage symbolism
to legal minds like Innocent III and Hostiensis seems to have been
a considerable factor, paradoxical though it may seem. Alongside
this, one may set harmonious relations obtaining between popes
and English and French kings for much of the thirteenth century.
The monarchs wanted ‘bigamous’ clerics out of the ecclesiastical
courts, and churchmen could oblige because they were operating
in a co-operative mode. That was not the whole story, however.
Kings had learnt to use the language of ‘bigamy’ to put popes in
the right frame of mind to make concessions, and churchmen could
see the new rule about bigamous clerics in minor orders as a logical
consequence of the rationale of marriage symbolism.
With consummation, the role of canon law as troubleshooter for
theology is crucial. The position of consummation in marriage had
been uncertain for centuries. Sooner or later concrete cases would
turn on the theological questions. With the papacy operating at an
increasing tempo as supreme court for problematic cases, it is not
surprising that the question should be settled. If it was to be settled,
the logic of marriage symbolism would provide the rationale. After
it had been settled, the symbolic rationale was not forgotten.
Causal reciprocity of substructure and superstructure
Mary Douglas has written that ‘without the relevant supporting
classifications and values the material aspects of an organization
would not be viable, and, vice versa, without the appropriate or-