By the sixteenth century, Alexander's rules about the formation of marriage were in trouble. There was, to begin with, the difficulty of proof of informal marriages, something that we saw in Dolling c Smith and in dozens of cases like it. Partially in response to this problem, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 had required couples to have banns of marriage proclaimed publicly before they married, but the council had not invalidated marriages that simply complied with Alexander's rules. Secondly, Alexander's rules encountered opposition in those portions of society where marital property was important. In particular, the Roman lawyers kept alive the tradition that parental consent was necessary for the validity of a marriage, and the Roman rules on dowry and customary rules about community property affected – adversely, it would seem, to women in particular – the equality that seems to lie at the root of Alexander's rules.

It would seem that the French proved particularly resistant to Alexander's rules. There was nothing that the French could do about the law of the universal church that said that informal marriages were valid, but, as we have seen, French local councils throughout the Middle Ages proclaimed that those who married without the usual ecclesiastical solemnities were automatically excommunicated. The reformers were quick to attack Alexander's rules. For both Luther and Calvin they violated the fundamental principle of the authority of fathers in managing the affairs of their families, including the authority to determine whom their children would marry.