Women

 

During the Carolingian times church began to have a significant effect on the famliy life and sexual relations. While women were expected to be faithful to their husbands, Frankish aristocrats kept concubines.
The church slowly intervened. It insisted that a woman over the age of 15 had to give her assent to a marriage choice of parent. The chuch in 789 the church stipulated that marriage was "indissoluble" .
The church also celebrated celibacy. It stated that complete abstinece was preferrable to marriage. If people had to have sex it was preferrable to do it within the confines of marriage, thus marriage was the lesser of two evils.