L'objet de cette recherche était d'analyser, à travers les modes d'expression symbolique du rituel de mariage, les représentations collectives qui fondent les relations du groupe familial avec la société environnante et le pouvoir ecclésiastique en France, entre le XVIe siècle et le XVIIIe siècle. Le folklore nous fournit, à cet égard, un matériau abondant. Les ethnographes ont souvent souligné, comme un trait particulier à l'Europe, la richesse et l'abondance des pratiques ceremonielles liées au mariage, alors que les autres rites de passage y sont passablement négligés.

Il n'est pratiquement aucune monographie locale, dans l'abondante collection de traditions populaires rassemblées par les voyageurs, les administrateurs, et, surtout, les folkloristes (depuis les enquêtes de l'Académie celtique au début du XIXe siècle, jusqu'au manuel de folklore de Van Gennep), qui ne comporte une minutieuse description des coutumes de mariage (cadeaux, costumes, rites propitiatoires ou divinatoires, etc.).

In France, the ecclesiastical and popular rites of marriage were closely linked to each other in their forms as well as in their functions until the XVIth century. During which time, the liturgical ordinance of marriage in North-West France was seen to have certain differences from that in South France. These differences were reflections of differences in the inheritance practices in the two regions: in North-West France, the juridical attitude of the priest expressed the “spirit of lineage” underlying the egalitarian distribution of inheritance; in South France, the sacramental intervention of the priest emphasized paternal preeminence within the family, expressing the “spirit of the household”.

At the beginning of the XVIth century, the popular practice of marriage was focused on the magical efficiency of the symbolical exchange of certain objects or formulas: the people seemed uncertain at what instant during the ceremony, and to what extend the church could make a marriage legitimate and irreversible. After the council of Trent, the Catholic Reform tried to standardize the liturgy of marriage and to eradicate all folk customs which habitually occurred during the ceremony. From the church's repressive attitude came a redistribution of roles: the popular rite guarded its right to integrate the newly wedded into the community: but gave over to the church entirely its administrative and juridical right to make the new family nucleus legitimate.