Did people always marry for love?

No. For most of history, in most places, marriage was about families, property and alliances, not about two people's feelings. Arranged marriages were the norm throughout the world until the 18th century, typically arranged by parents, grandparents or other close relatives and trusted friends. In medieval Europe it was generally agreed that romantic passion had no place in a marriage.

The historian Stephanie Coontz has written a history of this change. She writes that in the 11th century, marriages were organised to secure economic advantages or political ties, and the couple's wishes were not considered important. She has argued that love marriages were not universal, but marriages based on love and personal commitment began to emerge as early as the 14th century and really began to flower in the 18th. Her book on the subject is called Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage.

That does not mean people never loved. Medieval Europe had a famous literature of love, 'courtly love', but it mostly lived outside marriage: the scholar Gaston Paris, who named it in 1883, listed among its features that the love is illegitimate, furtive and adulterous. Scholars still debate whether the term describes anything coherent.

The shift came in steps. In 1140 Gratian's Decretum made the couple's consent a requirement for marriage in the Church, which is consent, not yet love. In 1840 the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made love marriage more acceptable in Britain. By the 20th century, free choice of spouse was the norm in Western Europe. Marrying for love is a young idea in the long story of marriage.