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Edited on Wed Nov-02-11 10:44 PM by happyslug
The Council of Trent was the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation. One of the things the Church decided to "reform" was marriage. Prior to the Council of Trent, Marriage was based on whatever law applied to your village, and that could vary from Ancient Roman Law to Germanic Law even in Italy.
In most of Europe a man and a woman, who were single and above the age of consent (Which was 12 years of age, most men and women did NOT Marry till their 20s, just like today) announced to each other their were man and wife. Most couples did this on the Village's Church Steps in front of their relatives and other town people and then went into church to have the marriage blessed by the Village's Priest.
If that sounds like a Common Law Marriage, you are right. In Catholic Europe such marriages were outlawed by the Council of Trent after the 1550s, Protestant Europe took a little longer, England not doing so till the early 1700s (And then gave an exception for people over seas, thus the "Tradition" that a Captain could marry a couple aboard his ship, in relativity the Captain was NOT marrying the Couple, he was just witnesses them exchange vows as part of a Common Law Marriage).
Now, Common Law Marriages required just an exchange of vows, nothing more. Evidence that such vows were exchanged could include the fact that a Woman took her husband's name and he left her use his last name. That would imply he had exchanged vows with her. In cases where there were witnesses of such an exchange of vows, not a problem, but in cases where no one saw such an exchange (Not unheard of) the use of his last name by the woman was evidence to show they had exchange vows of marriage.
Thus, prior to the Council of Trent, where only marriages made in a church were ruled to be valid (This was changed starting with the French Revolution is the 1790s, replacing a Church Wedding with a License from the State), a woman could have a valid marriage without any license or church record or ceremony. The problem was providing evidence such a marriage took place. If vows were exchanged in front of a Priest (or on ship, a Captain) the Priest (or captain) would make a record of it in the Church's books (and the Captain would write down a comment in his ship's log).
The problem was when the exchange of vows did NOT occur in front of witnesses (and this did happen, this is how King Edward IV married in the mid 1400s, his wife would be the mother of the two princes that were recorded in the history books as being killed by King Richard III on his grab for the Kingship of England). Edward IV's council did not know he had married until he told them of the marriage when the subject of who he should marry came up (Edward's queen would not sleep with him until he had exchanged vows of marriage with her, thus he had exchanged vows).
The courts when confronted with a situation where a man and a woman had lived together for many years, holding themselves out as Husband and wife, held that was sufficient evidence to show that an exchange of vows took place. One way for a woman to "hold" herself as someone's wife was to use his last name as her own. Thus a wife taking her husband's name was most important in common law marriages, it helped shoe that a marriage had taken place. The tradition of a Woman taking her husband's name seem to come out of this tradition and that face the vast majority of marriages before the Council of Trent were what we would call Common Law Marriages.
Just pointing out WHY the rule came that a woman took her husband's name. As a wife, a woman had the right to claim a life estate in 1/3 of her husband's estate (if he had children, 1/2 if he had none). Given that woman tend to outlive their husband's, it was good practice for a Woman to take her Husband's name to show the world (and especially his relatives) that she had a claim to her husband's property on his death.
Please remember, if a woman lived with a man she was NOT married to, she inherited NOTHING upon his death. Worse, any children on the relationship were illegitimate and as such could NOT inherit anything upon either parent's death (This was the law till the mid 1800s when it was changed to permit such illegitimate children to inherit from their mother and more recently to inherit from their father, but we are talking of Common Law Rules NOT the Law of inheritance of today).
Thus is was extremely important that both a Father and Mother show the would that they were married, if they were NOT then their property went to their legitimate blood relatives NOT their children. This was a very harsh rule of the Common Law and why wives made in common practice to take their husband's name AND for the father of the mother's children to agree to her use of his last name. It is all tied in with inheritance laws of the Common Law of England and Europe (Most of which has been changed over the last 200 years, but I am commenting on HOW the practice of Woman taking their Husband's name came about).
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