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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Marriage is, but monogamy isnt, humans, indeed many apes, mate for life.

A relatively minor numbers of humans mate for life, even fewer with only one partner (see how many sexual partners the average person has in the western world and the divorce rate). Monogamy is more a sociological/cultural constraint that has evolved into what it is only very slowly and and is a relatively recent introduction (in terms of human lineage) and even in many parts of the world today is a relatively recent introduction.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
and even if we're partially inclined to be monogamous by nature, what does that matter for marriage as a legal concept?

Back in the day marriage consisted of Dad and Dad getting together, one payed the other in cattle, sheep or money, and the girl became basically the "property" of the son... It wasn't until the early to mid- middle ages when the nobility decided to seek greater prominence, along with the rise of the Church in Europe, that they'd seek "God's favor" for the union. The church in turn saw a money making opportunity, and started taking "donations" for the lay people to get married in "holy matrimony". At some point after the middle ages, and I honestly have no idea when, the Western Governments of the world decided it was a good idea to make people get a license to get married, thereby making more money. Often times, depending on your venue, if you get married, you are getting charged twice for the same thing.

Of course, depending on the society you're talking about, we weren't strictly monogamous. As many times, especially with the wealthy or the great warrior, they'd take multiple wives, or one "legal wife" and a bunch of concubines, etc. and if they were "good women" they'd be monogamous, however the man obviously wasnt, since he had a harem of women to choose from.

Whatever happen of "Separation of Church and State?"

 Jihadin wrote:
Whatever happen of "Separation of Church and State?"

The State, in this case doesn't care what religion you adhere to, only that you pay up front to be "married" in their eyes

 cincydooley wrote:
particularly when they can make a pretty solid claim that evolution (not god) and nature didn't intend for two people of the same sex to reproduce together.

Reproductive, no, but homosexual relationships are very common in the wild, and they serve very valuable, if different purposes. Many of which do help the survival of the species. One of our closest relatives, bonobos, engage in same-sex relations all the time (hell, that's how they say "hello").

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Marriage is, but monogamy isnt, humans, indeed many apes, mate for life.

Humans, gibbons and siamangs are the only monogamous apes, and humans are the only monogamous great apes.

I'm just pissed that the idea of marriage has been so perverted over the years. It's truly a disgusting thing, to see something so pure change into something so warped. I remember the good old days, when it was a business transaction where we peddled off our women as objects in exchange for familial or monetary benefits. Truly better times.

Bald Eagles mate for life.

Lets pull a new tail on this "marriage" and religion thing. Why is religion being infused into politics? To me it should be handle at state level. Have to pay for a marriage license right? Hence revenue for the state and the fed's get to tax a new couple. Win Win

 Ahtman wrote:
Bald Eagles mate for life.

And they are the symbol for america, so obviously god intended for monogomy to be the american way....
Am i doing it right?

 Fafnir wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Marriage is, but monogamy isnt, humans, indeed many apes, mate for life.

Humans, gibbons and siamangs are the only monogamous apes, and humans are the only monogamous great apes.

I'm just pissed that the idea of marriage has been so perverted over the years. It's truly a disgusting thing, to see something so pure change into something so warped. I remember the good old days, when it was a business transaction where we peddled off our women as objects in exchange for familial or monetary benefits. Truly better times.

I concur honestly. It's such a bother that actual courtship is required these days instead of a couple head of livestock.

Honestly? I wish I'd been in public when I heard about DOMA so I could collapse, screaming, "I can feel the sanctity of my marriage slipping away! It's like The quickening in 'Highlander' but with glitter and better shoooooooes!"

 Frazzled wrote:
1. Amazingly, there's no evidence to suport the claim that there were weddings before religion.

No-one said older than religion, just older than Christianity. And we've got evidence of marriage from before 2,000 BC, which is older than Christianity or Judaism. As such, the idea that either of those religions or any other can claim ownership of the term 'marriage' is really just kind of silly. And that's even if we buy in to the idea that having been around when an idea was invented means you can claim some kind of ownership of it today, which is also really silly. What actually matters is that marriage is a human concept that's widely in practice outside of religious groups, and it is valued by many, many people who aren't religious. Those people 'own' that word as much as anyone else.

And how very, very weird a concept it is that a religious group might be able to claim ownership of a word and how it should be used, and that the rest of us should back off and quickly remove that word from our laws, instead using some substitute word. In fact, it's such a strange and really kind of pointless argument that I'm left to conclude that it's basically a final, last ditch rear guard by the conservatives to avoid admitting they were completely, 100% wrong on the whole gay marriage issue. That instead of just saying 'actually, yeah, all that gay hating and fear mongering was really stupid, and we're sorry', they're instead trying to shift on to on last tiny, incredibly pointless position, about nothing more trivial than a word.


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 cincydooley wrote:
I agree with Frazzled, I think it was, in that all couples that want protection and benefits under the law should simply be called civil unions. Had this been the case in the first place, there'd have been no 'defense of marriage' to begin with.

That's not even slightly true. The arguments against allowing gay marriage ranged wildly, and most of them attempted something a lot more substantial than 'its our word and you don't get to use it'. People made claims that if gay marriage was allowed, then marriage to dogs and teapots and children would surely be just around the corner. And they made claims that marriage was supporting the raising of children, and so the benefits enjoyed by marriaged people shouldn't extend to gay couples as they couldn't have children. And there were others, all about as dodgy as those two.

The idea of the word marriage being the sticking point was always around, but the idea that it was ever the main one isn't true. I mean, how fething weird would it be, if all those millions were spent in political campaigns and legal battles by religious groups, because they were protecting a word?


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Well some point along the line we decided that mating for life was a good idea. It could have come with the advent of society and concept of ownership came into play, where you want to be sure the child you are giving your stuff to is indeed yours.

Yep, The idea of marriage came about largely as a way for wealthy and powerful men to ensure their heirs were genetically their own, yeah. And its worth recognising that it was a very one sided deal, the husbands were still free to go off and screw around with other women.


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 Vaktathi wrote:
A relatively minor numbers of humans mate for life, even fewer with only one partner (see how many sexual partners the average person has in the western world and the divorce rate). Monogamy is more a sociological/cultural constraint that has evolved into what it is only very slowly and and is a relatively recent introduction (in terms of human lineage) and even in many parts of the world today is a relatively recent introduction.

The idea that humans should mate for life, and be admired for such could be argued as a social construct. But the idea of monagamy within humans isn't a social construct, simply because even in a societies today in which there is no penalty for divorce, near to half of all couples remain married until death. We can't really explain that through anything other than the straight forward notion that those people simply want to remain with one person for their lives.