Marriage brokering could be accomplished through private contacts or operated as a professional business. Neither Church nor State in Europe ever raised any objections to private marriage brokering through parents or relatives, but professional brokering was continually subject to a degree of criticism on theological, legal, and moral grounds. The boundaries between private and professional marriage brokering are sometimes difficult to discern, however, since in many regions it was customary to compensate even private arrangements when they resulted in a marriage.

Private m…