he period 1541-1564 indicates a strong civil commitment to stable marital unions. On the other hand, the consistory tended to privilege male prerogative in marital issues, taking its cue from biblical passages that declare husbands' supreme authority in marriage. The overarching feature of the Calvinist marriage ethos was its intent to rationalize the structure of relationships basic to social organization.
The Anglican definition of marriage as commonwealth is not antithetical to marriage as covenant but has a different emphasis. By the seventeenth century in Protestant/Anglican England, "theology embraced earlier sacramental, social, and covenantal models of marriage, but went beyond them" (Witte, 1997, p. 131). A key part of Anglican marriage theology after Henry VIII was its hostility to Roman Catholic canons of clerical celibacy on one hand and rigid adherence to marital union even in the face of adultery or widowhood. Anglican marriage theology sought in general to enlarge opportunities for marriage with an eye on "so
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