Fissures First: The Liminality of Marriage and Sociocultural Change

The following thesis argues against the contemporary verbiage of the “traditionality” of marriage. It argues that marriage, like other sociocultural constructs, exists in a state of consistent liminality: its very substance and meaning constantly changing with the times and people who impart to it such meaning. A primary mechanism used to prove this is a case study involving the marital trends of the Scottish Reformation, and how the Knoxian reformers demonstrated the intrinsic liminality of marriage by changing it through polity and ecclesial reform.