ABSTRACT
Such was the defi nition of Portuguese marriage according to the Ordenações Filipinas (Ordinances of Philip), a compilation of law published under Spanish rule in 1595 and reconfi rmed half a century later by Dom João IV (1640-1656); it would remain valid well into the nineteenth century. The Ordenações Filipinas were based on former compilations of Portuguese royal legislation dating back to the thirteenth century. Dom Manuel (1469-1521) had sought to abolish informal or “clandestine” marriages in his Ordenações (1514), but Philip I reinstituted the medieval defi nition of marriage as a de facto partnership characterized by property sharing.2 By stressing joint ownership as both the result and the defi ning feature of a marital relationship, and by actively disregarding the new marriage rules of the Council of Trent (1545-1563)—which declared clandestine marriages invalid and required in-church celebration-Portuguese marriage practices retained their earlier private, egalitarian, and profoundly secular character throughout the early modern period.3 Acknowledging that aristocrats preferred the Roman style separation of goods, the Ordenações Filipinas legitimized marriages by dowry and arras (the husband’s countergift), but not without mentioning that such unions were against the custom and laws of the reign (tit. 47).
