Friday, May 13, 2016

Brideless or Groomless "Marriage" is a Modern Invention

From that bastion of right-wing ideology, Wikipedia, comes this history of same-sex unions...


While it is a relatively new practice that same-sex couples are being granted the same form of legal marital recognition as commonly used by mixed-sexed couples, there is a long history of recorded same-sex unions around the world.


Emphasis mine. Throughout the entry until we get to the present years, these unions are presented as something other than marriage. It has only been within recent times that any culture, religious system of more than a handful of adherents, or government has started to call brideless or groomless pairings "marriage" and included those "marriages" as the same as the uniting of a bride+groom. The vast majority today still recognize that marriage unites the sexes. Same-sex unions in history were never a widespread and ongoing part of marital systems. If one cleric "married" two men in antiquity, it was an abnormality that wasn't sustained by the culture.

But of course, someone who is willing to deny that the differences between the sexes are significant enough to distinguish marriage from same-sex unions will have no problem spinning history.

3 comments:

  1. The article you cite includes this:

    "A same-sex marriage between the two men Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain occurred on 16 April 1061. They were married by a priest at a small chapel. The historic documents about the church wedding were found at Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova."

    Marriage is not, as you claim, something other than marriage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A woman "married" the Eiffel tower. That doesn't mean it is legitimately recognized by any authority or the culture.

      Delete
    2. What priest performed that Eiffel tower ceremony? And in what church record is it recorded?

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