lizwilliams | Nine forms of sexual contact

I'm posting this because I find ancient Irish law interesting, and someone's just sent it to me. No 8 is particularly pertinent. Can't we just reduce it to this?

Most of the early Irish marriage law is preserved in Cáin Lánamna, part of the first collection of Sechas Már. There's a chunk on property distribution and rights in Crith Gablach. The best source for Early Irish marriage law is Donnchadh Ó Corráin's "Marriage in Early Ireland," in Marriage in Ireland. Ed. Art Cosgrove (Dublin: 1985): 5-24. For early Welsh marriage law, see T. Charles-Edwards, The Welsh Law of Women.

CL lists the following nine forms of sexual contract:

1. lånamnas comthinchuir The union of joint property, wherein both parties contribute movable goods. The woman is referred to as a "bé citchernsa," a wife of joint authority.

2. lånamnas mná for ferthinchur A union of a "woman on man-property," wherein the woman contributes little or nothing in the way of property.

3. lånamnas fir ferthinchur A union of a "man on woman-property" wherein the man contributes little or nothing in terms of property.

4. lånamnas fir thathigtheo A more casual relationship,the "union of a man visiting," wherein the man visits the woman, with the consent of her kin-group.

5. A union, under several names, wherein a woman leaves willingly with a man, but without the blessing and consent of her kin. The name of the union is, in part, determined by the relative rank of the man and the woman.

6. lånamnas foxail A union that begins with the woman consenting to an abduction, without the blessing of her kin.

7. lånamnas táidi A union without the blessing of the woman's kin, wherein she is secretly visited.

8. A union between the insane.

9. A rape.

Polygny was fairly common, with the unions usually being of different types, and one wife as the "primary" spouse, or a cétmuinter, contracted in one of the first three kinds of union, and an adaltrach (cognate with Latin aultrix), or dormun, a secondary wife or, really, a concubine.

The husband in tyes 1-3 purchases his wife (and the contract) from the woman's father via a coibche, a bride price, and the wife is usually entitled to a portion of that. If the union is dissolved for fault on the man's side, the coibche is returned to the woman's father.

It's pretty clear that in many historic marriages, substantial property was contributed by the womans' kin group; its disposal is less clear. There is no term for a "dowry" in Old Irish; in the fifteenth century the wordspré(idh) is used.