Well Henry VIII made one or two changes apparently and I suspect a 6th century marriage was not the romantic idyl you have in mind.
Death by minor deceases also continued without change until we started to learn some important things about the world - like they're not caused by devils nor cured by prayer or superstitious potions.
Cultural Marxism my arse. Social progress, and thank god for it.
1. Arranged alliances
Marriage is a truly ancient institution that predates recorded history. But early marriage was seen as a strategic alliance between families, with the youngsters often having no say in the matter. In some cultures, parents even married one child to the spirit of a deceased child in order to strengthen familial bonds, Coontz said.
2. Family ties
Keeping alliances within the family was also quite common. In the Bible, the forefathers Isaac and Jacob married cousins and Abraham married his half-sister. Cousin marriages remain common throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East. In fact, Rutgers anthropologist Robin Fox has estimated that the majority of all marriages throughout history were between first and second cousins.
3. Polygamy preferred
Monogamy may seem central to marriage now, but in fact, polygamy was common throughout history. From Jacob, to Kings David and Solomon, Biblical men often had anywhere from two to thousands of wives. (Of course, though polygamy may have been an ideal that high-status men aspired to, for purely mathematical reasons most men likely had at most one wife). In a few cultures, one woman married multiple men, and there have even been some rare instances of group marriages. [Life's Extremes: Monogamy vs. Polygamy]
4. Babies optional
In many early cultures, men could dissolve a marriage or take another wife if a woman was infertile. However, the early Christian church was a trailblazer in arguing that marriage was not contingent on producing offspring.
"The early Christian church held the position that if you can procreate you must not refuse to procreate. But they always took the position that they would annul a marriage if a man could not have sex with his wife, but not if they could not conceive," Coontz told LiveScience.
5. Monogamy established
Monogamy became the guiding principle for Western marriages sometime between the sixth and the ninth centuries, Coontz said.
"There was a protracted battle between the Catholic Church and the old nobility and kings who wanted to say 'I can take a second wife,'" Coontz said.
The Church eventually prevailed, with monogamy becoming central to the notion of marriage by the ninth century.
6. Monogamy lite
Still, monogamous marriage was very different from the modern conception of mutual fidelity. Though marriage was legally or sacramentally recognized between just one man and one woman, until the 19th century, men had wide latitude to engage in extramarital affairs, Coontz said. Any children resulting from those trysts, however, would be illegitimate, with no claim to the man's inheritance.
"Men's promiscuity was quite protected by the dual laws of legal monogamy but tolerance basically enabling of informal promiscuity," Coontz said.
Women caught stepping out, by contrast, faced serious risk and censure.
7. State or church?
Marriages in the West were originally contracts between the families of two partners, with the Catholic Church and the state staying out of it. In 1215, the Catholic Church decreed that partners had to publicly post banns, or notices of an impending marriage in a local parish, to cut down on the frequency of invalid marriages (the Church eliminated that requirement in the 1980s). Still, until the 1500s, the Church accepted a couple's word that they had exchanged marriage vows, with no witnesses or corroborating evidence needed.
8. Civil marriage
In the last several hundred years, the state has played a greater role in marriage. For instance, Massachusetts began requiring marriage licenses in 1639, and by the 19th-century marriage licenses were common in the United States.
9. Love matches
By about 250 years ago, the notion of love matches gained traction, Coontz said, meaning marriage was based on love and possibly sexual desire. But mutual attraction in marriage wasn't important until about a century ago. In fact, in Victorian England, many held that women didn't have strong sexual urges at all, Coontz said.
10. Market economics
Around the world, family-arranged alliances have gradually given way to love matches, and a transition from an agricultural to a market economy plays a big role in that transition, Coontz said.
Parents historically controlled access to inheritance of agricultural land. But with the spread of a market economy, "it's less important for people to have permission of their parents to wait to give them an inheritance or to work on their parents' land," Coontz said. "So it's more possible for young people to say, 'heck, I'm going to marry who I want.'"
Modern markets also allow women to play a greater economic role, which lead to their greater independence. And the expansion of democracy, with its emphasis on liberty and individual choice, may also have stacked the deck for love matches.
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