This is not to suggest that a preliberal era dismissed the idea of individual free choice. Among other significant ways that preliberal Christianity contributed to an expansion of human choice was to transform the idea of marriage from an institution based upon familial and property considerations to a choice made by consenting individuals on the basis of sacramental love. What was new is that the default basis for evaluating institutions, society, affiliations, memberships, and even personal relationships became dominated by considerations of individual choice based on the calculation of
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