The moment against which the amorous physical encounters (and there are non-amorous physical encounters as well) should be measured occurs after the marriage liturgy of the two main characters. In a gesture that the male protagonist, Jamie, admits is somewhat pagan, the bride and groom have their wrists cut and bound together as they recite, in Gaelic, the following lines:
Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone.
I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.
I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done. (267)There are obvious correlations here to Christian marriage (and the narrative admits as much), particularly the central line, with the union of bodies through marriage joining two into one. Two become one in the sexual act, but also in the conception of a child--the creation of a new soul that is One from the Two of the married couple. The procreative meaning is implicit and explicit in the marriage liturgy and in Catholic theology of marriage. However, though the lines sort of rhetorically evoke that idea--tapping into the things we might already know about marriage--the novel's particular dramatization of the marriage rite does not evoke the possibility of offspring. Frankly, there's no time to consider it. The circumstances in which the marriage occurs--with both characters on the run from the English (and a sadistic bastard of an Englishman, to boot), the bride dealing with a coerced marriage of necessity, knowing that she is already married to a man who will not be born for 200 years (and that her two weddings will take place in the same church)--do not leave room for fruitful considerations. Claire's childbearing hips do receive some attention in the following chapter, but as her previous marriage has been sterile (the separation of spouses during the war receives partial blame), procreation just isn't an urgent concern.
In the first line of this presumably pagan vow, "Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone," there is (appropriately) an echo of biblical Creation. The creation of generic 'woman' from generic 'man' is echoed in the first line, which is predictable, as that particular verse from Genesis generally frames the Sacrament of Marriage, and is transferred to this particular man and woman. The Man and Woman recreate each other. In marriage, each, somehow, participates in the creation of the other.
Taken as a whole, the vow also evokes Incarnation and Sacrament--the physical manifestations of spiritual Truth. The giving of Spirit that accompanies the giving of the Body firmly connects the spiritual and the physical. There is no dichotomy--no split between Body and Soul in the Outlander novels. Sex--married physical union in particular--as the expression of a transcendent spiritual love, binds the body and the soul together. Love is Embodied. (Love is Incarnate.) The Soul is Embodied. And there's the hint that this embodied love--this complete connectedness--is the means by which the Soul endures.
This is particularly worth noting in a book with such... thorough dramatization of... enthusiastic marital sexuality. It becomes difficult to dismiss the scenes as gratuitous when they so very clearly represent what is right between Jamie and Claire. The Outlander books inundate the reader with physical unity. That's nothing special in itself--any romance novel might do the same. But there is something about the connection between the two that is desirable, and special, and different, and feels True. This novel tells the reader something about love that bears thinking about. The series is peppered with counterexamples as well. So here, in the first novel, in the context of a marriage--THE marriage--the reader is told explicitly: Love is Embodied. Love is physical. And to commit to Love spiritually and emotionally is to commit to its Physicality. That's a profoundly Catholic concept--even when we're not talking about marriage and sex. Love has a body. And when that Embodiment is denied, and when commitment to the physical union is incomplete or lukewarm--that's when the reader can expect conflicts.
2 comments:
I read the words of the vow as very Catholic but thought that what makes it pagan is the blood oath itself. It seems like it substitutes the exchange of blood via wrists as the means of sealing the marital covenant for the sexual union which in the Catholic understanding is what effects the union of persons. It's pagan because it doesn't quite trust the sexual union to be enough.
I like what you say about the embodiment of love.
Oh, I wasn't trying to say it wasn't pagan, by any means! The interesting thing is that the blood union isn't enough either. The consummation is necessary to prevent annulment, and that is a big deal in the book. One of her tropes is the blending of the Catholic and other spiritual traditions--developed through the other books with reference to Native American traditions. But here (and this is the first usage), I think the pagan rite reinforces and highlights what we understand as the Catholic theology. There are many who would see the physical as more important to the pagan tradition, but I would challenge that.
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