The Purpose of Marriage

[tonyrey]

There is no reason why children should not be accorded cash benefits if their same sex guardians have a civil relationship but nothing can compensate them for the needless loss of a father or mother figure - particularly during adolescence when they have same sex guardians. I know **from personal experience **

I’m sorry you were unfortunate but at least you had a bad example which is preferable to nothing at all. At least you learnt how a father should not treat his wife or children! I was left completely in the dark until I was eleven when my mother married again and I had an alcoholic stepfather who didn’t serve as a role model or give me any advice during my adolescence but locked me out of the house when I returned from my first term at university!

I believe that loving and caring and kindness tempered with discipline are more important for a child than the plumbing of the guardians.

I think that is a false dilemma. The vast majority of people who adopt children do so because they are loving, caring and kind. The point is that the psychological needs of an adolescent can never be fully understood or experienced by a member of the opposite sex. Co-existence is difficult enough without the additional handicap of ignorance of a child’s needs, desires, values and ideals.

We already have a legal construct that works well for a union between people who desire permanence and legacy.

Why experiment with some other thing that will be less, especially less protection for children?

Why would a civil relationship work less well or offer less protection for children than a gay marriage which does not have a natural biological foundation?

The basic function of traditional marriage is the procreation and nurture of children who blend and reflect the love and qualities of their father and mother. No other sexual relationship can compare with its unity, depth and beauty because the love of a man and woman fulfil each other and are the natural basis of family life. No matter how deeply two men or two women love deeply each other there is no point in giving their relationship the same title because it is necessarily infertile and radically different. It has no bearing on the question of equality at all because they all have the same basic human rights. What is in a name which does absolutely nothing to alter the fundamental purpose of marriage (especially in a society in which many people do not believe it is necessary to exchange vows)?

 

[mek42]

I’m sorry you were unfortunate but at least you had a bad example which is preferable to nothing at all. At least you learnt how a father should not treat his wife or children! I was left completely in the dark until I was eleven when my mother married again and I had an alcoholic stepfather who didn’t serve as a role model or give me any advice during my adolescence but locked me out of the house when I returned from my first term at university!

I think that is a false dilemma. The vast majority of people who adopt children do so because they are loving, caring and kind. The point is that the psychological needs of an adolescent can never be fully understood or experienced by a member of the opposite sex. Co-existence is difficult enough without the additional handicap of ignorance of a child’s needs, desires, values and ideals.

Why would a civil relationship work less well or offer less protection for children than a gay marriage which does not have a natural biological foundation?

The basic function of traditional marriage is the procreation and nurture of children who blend and reflect the love and qualities of their father and mother. No other sexual relationship can compare with its unity, depth and beauty because the love of a man and woman fulfil each other and are the natural basis of family life. No matter how deeply two men or two women love deeply each other there is no point in giving their relationship the same title because it is necessarily infertile and radically different. It has no bearing on the question of equality at all because they all have the same basic human rights. What is in a name which does absolutely nothing to alter the fundamental purpose of marriage?

So if a law said, Same sex people may be legally joined in a manner functionally identical to marriage but must instead be referred to in the legal system as a Buttercup Covenant, you’d be all for that?

 

[inocente]

Why is a civil marriage necessary if a civil relationship suffices to obtain state benefits?

As I understand it your government introduced the legislation, so they obviously believed that the recently invented civil partnership isn’t what is wanted, and your parliament agreed. No doubt the reasons were debated and you can get a transcript.

It seems improbable that many marriages in the UK have state benefits as their purpose.

Isn’t the purpose of a civil marriage to safeguard the family - especially children?

Some couples might marry for that but others have different reasons. Up until relatively recently the wife, along with any children, were in essence legally the property of the husband. Prior to that there were child marriages. Concepts of marriage and family have always varied, but as posted earlier the reason why civil marriage was introduced in the first place appears to be freedom of religion.

 

[1AugustSon7]

When did romance enter the picture? In the 17th and 18th centuries, when Enlightenment thinkers pioneered the idea that life was about the pursuit of happiness. They advocated marrying for love rather than wealth or status." - theweek.com/article/index/228541/how-marriage-has-changed-over-centuries

This is somewhat incorrect. I would argue that the Enlightened Ones certainly did impose a ludicrous and impossible (and so not only unrealistic but unfair) view and expectation of women as being porcelain dolls, but they were by no means the inventors of romance.

Romance was a Catholic cultural invention much like the Chivalric ideal was. You can read some of the most beautiful romantic poetry beginning in the 11th centuries of Western Europe onward; it was a high-culture/court favourite and it centred around courtship though, to be sure, not necessarily the marriage itself. Different poets would effectively weigh in on its possibility or scope or in what situations it is realistic or acceptable.

Shakespeare is another instance of romantic love well before the enlightenment though very sanely balanced with other realities and deeply Christian truths and views. Love was certainly ordered to and for marriage and providential; notwithstanding, love in this world is dangerous. This is very Christian because as many have noted Christ was essentially killed because He was Love: true, authentic love even unto death is typically seen as dangerous to the establishment. Loving men tend to be feared, persecuted and killed especially in or around the realm of politics. Again, to this day when parents see their children first come home star-struck and confess that they are in love, the usually thought and reaction is by parents is a sincere “Oh no.” Why? Because there is something unpredictable and really possibly dangerous about love. Only later or afterward do we think or reflect and take cognizance of the face that love is supposed to be a very good thing and that we want our children to be happy. Love, then, paradoxically can inspire both great fear and great gladness.

Chaucer (14th century) is an example of the not-naive side of romantic love: he believed in romance and romantic love but he thought it untenable and unsustainable in or for a marriage. It was something for lovers, day-dreamers (e.g., perhaps two responsible married people who are not married to each other but notwithstanding love each other) or restricted to the one that got away. Marriage ruined it though absolutely for Chaucer Notwithstanding, Catholics were romantics and believed strongly in love and even marital love but they were never naively so. Enlightenment romance was naive, in keeping with the tendency to idolize humanity and deny the realities of sin and original sin, concupiscence and their consequences.

To be sure, in Medieval times marriage suffered greatly from the influences of feudalism. Marriages were often in a sense politically or practically motivated and economical and so a more learn-to-love and respect each other ideal was offered for marital love. Romantic love was acknowledged but it was seen as improbable or unrealstic or something expected only during courtship; notwithstanding, it was something real or possible and a real good. Still, this by no means replaced a belief in romantic love as a popular cultural and artistic theme; if anything the rarity of this in practice fueled its rise in artistic demand.

There was a strong belief in woo’ing and courting and falling in love; it was just seen as rare or impractical for most people. There are many pre-Enlightenment poets in the English tradition who developed the theme of romantic love in the context of marriage and being for marriage and as a realistic ideal to be aimed at for happiness in this life. A happy marriage was possible and this even if coming from romantic love; a natural translation from that love to a more sober, habitual and responsible one but still present. This, of course, followed increasingly as society became more capitalistic and the feudal system was collapsing; with the rise of something like a middle class, that is. People were more free to marry whom they chose and, of course, they sought to marry the person they already loved or fell in love with.

The Catholic tradition is very romantic when it comes to love and marriage. It’s just more complicated and not naive. Catholics in the West, of course, were increasingly recognizing that marriage was a profound sign of God’s real presence amongst us and a sign of His abiding love and mercy on the human race. Love and marital love were increasingly percieved as something truly divine and a good and a blessing. The Church effectively teaches that it is in fact God who arranges marriages: a marriage is an instance of God’s providence and hence why it lends itself so naturally to being a sacrament. We are celebrating God’s active and living work among us when we celebrate a marriage: it is, after all, God who unites husband and wife. Moreover, the Church always taught that no one can be forced to marry against their consent: this liberated marriage for the possibility of being based on romantic love and was a bulwark against pressures to harness marriage as, and reduce it to, a strictly political or economic tool. This idea was absolutely radical to the pagan world and it took a long, long time for that idea to really take root in cultures. Pessimism against it there has always been; sometimes it’s just animated by faithlessness and, well, pessimism; other times it just takes cognizance of our fallen reality, the human experience as a whole and our very finite limitations.

 

[tonyrey]

Why is a civil marriage necessary if a civil relationship suffices to obtain state benefits?

What is wanted is not necessarily what is morally justified.

It seems improbable that many marriages in the UK have state benefits as their purpose.

What is the purpose of gay marriage if a civil relationship suffices to obtain state benefits?

Isn’t the purpose of a civil marriage to safeguard the family - especially children?

Some couples might marry for that but others have different reasons. Up until relatively recently the wife, along with any children, were in essence legally the property of the husband. Prior to that there were child marriages. Concepts of marriage and family have always varied, but as posted earlier the reason why civil marriage was introduced in the first place appears to be freedom of religion.

Do you believe the primary purpose of marriage is** not **to safeguard the family - and especially children? If so what is its primary purpose?

 

[tonyrey]

This is somewhat incorrect. I would argue that the Enlightened Ones certainly did impose a ludicrous and impossible (and so not only unrealistic but unfair) view and expectation of women as being porcelain dolls, but they were by no means the inventors of romance.

Romance was a Catholic cultural invention much like the Chivalric ideal was. You can read some of the most beautiful romantic poetry beginning in the 11th centuries of Western Europe onward; it was a high-culture/court favourite and it centred around courtship though, to be sure, not necessarily the marriage itself. Different poets would effectively weigh in on its possibility or scope or in what situations it is realistic or acceptable.

Shakespeare is another instance of romantic love well before the enlightenment though very sanely balanced with other realities and deeply Christian truths and views. Love was certainly ordered to and for marriage and providential; notwithstanding, love in this world is dangerous. This is very Christian because as many have noted Christ was essentially killed because He was Love: true, authentic love even unto death is typically seen as dangerous to the establishment. Loving men tend to be feared, persecuted and killed especially in or around the realm of politics. Again, to this day when parents see their children first come home star-struck and confess that they are in love, the usually thought and reaction is by parents is a sincere “Oh no.” Why? Because there is something unpredictable and really possibly dangerous about love. Only later or afterward do we think or reflect and take cognizance of the face that love is supposed to be a very good thing and that we want our children to be happy. Love, then, paradoxically can inspire both great fear and great gladness.

Chaucer (14th century) is an example of the not-naive side of romantic love: he believed in romance and romantic love but he thought it untenable and unsustainable in or for a marriage. It was something for lovers, day-dreamers (e.g., perhaps two responsible married people who are not married to each other but notwithstanding love each other) or restricted to the one that got away. Marriage ruined it though absolutely for Chaucer Notwithstanding, Catholics were romantics and believed strongly in love and even marital love but they were never naively so. Enlightenment romance was naive, in keeping with the tendency to idolize humanity and deny the realities of sin and original sin, concupiscence and their consequences.

To be sure, in Medieval times marriage suffered greatly from the influences of feudalism. Marriages were often in a sense politically or practically motivated and economical and so a more learn-to-love and respect each other ideal was offered for marital love. Romantic love was acknowledged but it was seen as improbable or unrealstic or something expected only during courtship; notwithstanding, it was something real or possible and a real good. Still, this by no means replaced a belief in romantic love as a popular cultural and artistic theme; if anything the rarity of this in practice fueled its rise in artistic demand.

There was a strong belief in woo’ing and courting and falling in love; it was just seen as rare or impractical for most people. There are many pre-Enlightenment poets in the English tradition who developed the theme of romantic love in the context of marriage and being for marriage and as a realistic ideal to be aimed at for happiness in this life. A happy marriage was possible and this even if coming from romantic love; a natural translation from that love to a more sober, habitual and responsible one but still present. This, of course, followed increasingly as society became more capitalistic and the feudal system was collapsing; with the rise of something like a middle class, that is. People were more free to marry whom they chose and, of course, they sought to marry the person they already loved or fell in love with.

The Catholic tradition is very romantic when it comes to love and marriage. It’s just more complicated and not naive. Catholics in the West, of course, were increasingly recognizing that marriage was a profound sign of God’s real presence amongst us and a sign of His abiding love and mercy on the human race. Love and marital love were increasingly percieved as something truly divine and a good and a blessing. The Church effectively teaches that it is in fact God who arranges marriages: a marriage is an instance of God’s providence and hence why it lends itself so naturally to being a sacrament. We are celebrating God’s active and living work among us when we celebrate a marriage: it is, after all, God who unites husband and wife. Moreover, the Church always taught that no one can be forced to marry against their consent: this liberated marriage for the possibility of being based on romantic love and was a bulwark against pressures to harness marriage as, and reduce it to, a strictly political or economic tool. This idea was absolutely radical to the pagan world and it took a long, long time for that idea to really take root in cultures. Pessimism against it there has always been; sometimes it’s just animated by faithlessness and, well, pessimism; other times it just takes cognizance of our fallen reality, the human experience as a whole and our very finite limitations.

:clapping: A superb post!

 

[PRmerger]

Do you believe the primary purpose of marriage is** not **to safeguard the family - and especially children? If so what is its primary purpose?

I would like to see a def of marriage that includes 2 same sex individuals that can’t logically be applied to siblings, groups of individuals, best friends, parents and children.

It can’t be done.

Any new definition of marriage will, logically, have to be applied to the above groups.

 

[tonyrey]

So if a law said, Same sex people may be legally joined in a manner functionally identical to marriage but must instead be referred to in the legal system as a Buttercup Covenant, you’d be all for that?

Gays are free to choose any name they like but they do not need to pretend their relationship is identical to a relationship which normally entails the procreation and nurture of children who blend and reflect the love and qualities of their father and mother whose love and fidelity are the natural and rational basis of family life. No matter how deeply two men or two women love deeply each other there is no point in giving their relationship the same name because it is biologically different - and necessarily infertile.

In a secular society where the institution of marriage is already in decline the further dilution of its meaning by extending it to other sexual relationships will make it appear as no more than a human convention that is out of date and insignificant.

 

[1AugustSon7]

Up until relatively recently the wife, along with any children, were in essence legally the property of the husband.

Okay this demands a lot of attention and comment.

First, every marriage tradition implicitly acknowledges that somehow in marriage the husband and wife literally gift themselves over to the other, specifically or especially in the bodily sense. Their bodies especially are each other’s bodies (property). Logically there also seems to be a connection here between that and the sense of exclusivity. In a sense, the bodies of married persons are very much the other’s property. Common sense and nature also point to this reality by simply taking notice of how spouses are wont to consider each others’ bodies: usually very protectively and with a strong (to put it mildly) sense of belonging and exclusivity. Married people tend to look at their spouse’s body as their temple or home or where they belong and that they have a special right and entitlement to the other’s body. There is a certain sense of free access to it. The sense or idea of conjugal rights would also seem, again logically, to play a part in this.

Second, coverture. Coverture has certainly been abused and can easily be perverted into a sense of reducing women into legal property or chattel; but again this is really derived from something that is both natural to and implicit in all marriage traditions. The woman is brought under the husband’s authority and protection : she is obliged to obey him but he is duty bound to protect and provide for her. She is brought from her father’s protection to her husband’s - some traditions make this obvious enough in ceremonies. This is especially important and necessary in consideration of the real risks women take in marriage for their husband; namely, being pregnant with his children.

Moreover on this point, until very recently a woman was always believed to belong to some man (if not her husband then her father). Certainly in the biblical tradition this is so -or at least the biblical tradition’s ideal. This was again meant to protect women, especially from being merely used, tossed aside, neglected or abandoned -possibly also with children, which places her in tempation to desperation (even to degradation) for her children’s sake. The widow in the bible is especially seen as someone who is extremely vulnerable to exploitation -judicially and financially- exactly because she lacks male coverture. Hence God takes, as a consequence, coverture over her: doing wrong by a widow (e.g., defrauding her or cheating her or whatever) was to draw upon yourself none other than the perfect coverture of the perfect and most powerful Husband and Father there was: the Almighty Himelf. Likewise again with orphans does God cover them with His paternal protection and for the same reasons. The idea here is plain: you wouldn’t dare risk the ire of a woman’s husband or father who was powerful, how much more, then, should you avoid doing so to a woman who’s husband and father is effectively Almighty God? In fact the Church applies this to herself: to lay violent hands on the Church is to bring down God’s wrath.

Finally, it is debatable to what extent we can safely set aside or ignore these concepts. Traditional cultural widom would say that while historically men have no doubt abused these things -and the New Testament seems especially cognizant of this fact- nature was at least still there to at least limit and restrict these abuses (husbands and fathers had a natural desire to actually fulfill their duty to protect and provide for their wives/daughters). I am personally worried about the pendulum actually swinging the other way and we end up, however unwittingly, only making increasingly transparent the reasons for these practices and beliefs in the first place, which is to say the bible’s reasons for them: women without coverture might be increasigly degraded (e.g., reduced to sex objects), used, abused and left to rot and look entirely after themselves, with grave danger of exploitation. A woman’s sexual prime in terms of beauty is much shorter lived than a man’s: before and after that period she is vulnerable to neglect if she is prized merely for her beauty or just sexual desirability.

In conclusion, I think we should wonder to what extent these concepts are simply naturally a part of marriage or human nature. A Feminist’s fiat, for example, that not only does she not want or need a man’s “protection” or coverture is perfectly her right; to what extent the Feminist can claim this is absolutely an objective claim holding on all women as a fact of reality and that, morever, no woman even should -even in principle- participate in coverture or obey her husband’s or father’s “authority” over her is an entirely different matter. No one, after all, is forcing the Feminist to marry or marry traditionally.

 

[tonyrey]

I would like to see a def of marriage that includes 2 same sex individuals that can’t logically be applied to siblings, groups of individuals, best friends, parents and children.

It can’t be done.

Any new definition of marriage will, logically, have to be applied to the above groups.

Reductio ad absurdum! Why not polygyny and polyandry?

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

I’m bad at putting emotional stuff into words.

Love is not an emotion. Affection, desire, fear, lust, excitement; those are emotions. True love is not an emotion, it is a choice.

Is love the same between any two people? How can there be agreement if it expresses differently between people?

Emotions are separated by degrees, love is not. It’s the modernist understanding of love love as emotion which muddies the waters.

Once you clearly understand the difference between actual love and it’s emotional counterfeits the irrelevance of your question becomes clear.

The heterosexual relationship failure rate is greater than in times past.

Again, irrelevant. The fault has nothing to do with marriage but the failure of people to follow their own words.

If it keeps increasing, you must foresee a time when we’ll get rid of marriage altogether as then no one ought to marry.

Again, you prove my point as to the goal of the “gay marriage” movement.

The truth of the matter what is that such a world is impossible. Marriage, properly defined, no matter how much wishful thinking you possess, is in fact ingrained into human nature.

Why do you think success is not an indicator that something works?

It’s not “success” when one or both spouses either ignore or outright abandon their calling. The overwhelming evidence is that when the spouses are devoted, loving, and generous the marriage is successful and when one or both spouses are self-centered, loveless, unfaithful, and altogether egocentric they fail.

Again, the fault lies with the people, not the institution. To say otherwise is just intellectually dishonest.

Are you going to give a plain answer to the freedom of speech question or do you realize that you do hold differing personal and political thoughts on this issue?

False dichotomy…

You are not understanding my point on lack of universal acceptance of axioms. Hopefully the discussion I had about this after the quoted post with PRmerger and others clarifies things.

I’m understanding it just fine. I’m also pointing out that your line of reasoning is in fact self-contradictory.

Lastly, this is the second time you’ve accused me of atheism even after I’ve cautioned you against this.

I did not accuse you of being an atheist. I never said, “you are an atheist.”

My criticism was against atheism and materialism.

Please support your accusation or I will be forced to consider this a personal attack.

Do you or do you not espouse materialism in part or as a whole?

 

[inocente]

This is somewhat incorrect. I would argue that the Enlightened Ones certainly did impose a ludicrous and impossible (and so not only unrealistic but unfair) view and expectation of women as being porcelain dolls, but they were by no means the inventors of romance.

Romance was a Catholic cultural invention much like the Chivalric ideal was. You can read some of the most beautiful romantic poetry beginning in the 11th centuries of Western Europe onward; it was a high-culture/court favourite and it centred around courtship though, to be sure, not necessarily the marriage itself. Different poets would effectively weigh in on its possibility or scope or in what situations it is realistic or acceptable.

I’m no historian but this sounds a little revisionist. We should be careful not to impose our values on history or to romanticize romance.

For instance Juliet is age fourteen, Romeo fifteen to seventeen. their lightning romance might these days be called infatuation, and the man who marries them hopes it will reconcile their feuding houses. John Dowland’s song I Saw My Lady Weep is not about her as a person but about the good emotions her sorrows arouse in him (“Sorrow was there made fair / And Passion wise, tears a delightful thing”). Earlier still, courtly love is a secret romance between a couple who are rarely if ever husband and wife. In Medieval times most children were either married off at too young an age for romance, and just never got married at all:

According to Hostensius, once a girl was physically ready to consummate a sexual relationship, she was ready for marriage, and the same was true for boys. However, since puberty came earlier for females than males, they could marry at a younger age (usually, he said, girls were ready at age twelve and boys at age fourteen). As a result of arranged marriages involving exchange of property, many couples did not wed for love, or even for sexual attraction. Marriages were not infrequently loveless, unhappy affairs and this frustration is reflected in a popular saying of the times: “No man marries without regretting it” (Richards, 34). Only among the lower classes did people marry consistently for reasons of love or sexual desire. In general, however, peasant marriages were not common, as there was little need for a formal exchange of property among the poor. - brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/society/sex/sex-spouses.php

 

[inocente]

What is wanted is not necessarily what is morally justified.

The majority in your parliament does not share your morality.

What is the purpose of gay marriage if a civil relationship suffices to obtain state benefits?

Strange question. If the purpose of state recognition was to obtain state benefits then everyone would go for the simpler civil partnership and no one would get married. That’s obviously not the case, so if it’s not the case for heterosexuals why would it be any different for homosexuals?

Do you believe the primary purpose of marriage is** not **to safeguard the family - and especially children? If so what is its primary purpose?

You will need to explain how a civil marriage safeguards a family, and why that safety should be withheld from some but not others.

The purposes of a marriage is whatever the spouses believe about their marriage, but unless the traditional vows are superfluous nonsense, they are probably what most people starting out on married life hope for in purpose: to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death parts us.

 

[inocente]

First, every marriage tradition implicitly acknowledges that somehow in marriage the husband and wife literally gift themselves over to the other, specifically or especially in the bodily sense. Their bodies especially are each other’s bodies (property). Logically there also seems to be a connection here between that and the sense of exclusivity. In a sense, the bodies of married persons are very much the other’s property. Common sense and nature also point to this reality by simply taking notice of how spouses are wont to consider each others’ bodies: usually very protectively and with a strong (to put it mildly) sense of belonging and exclusivity. Married people tend to look at their spouse’s body as their temple or home or where they belong and that they have a special right and entitlement to the other’s body. There is a certain sense of free access to it. The sense or idea of conjugal rights would also seem, again logically, to play a part in this.

Second, coverture. Coverture has certainly been abused and can easily be perverted into a sense of reducing women into legal property or chattel; but again this is really derived from something that is both natural to and implicit in all marriage traditions. The woman is brought under the husband’s authority and protection : she is obliged to obey him but he is duty bound to protect and provide for her. She is brought from her father’s protection to her husband’s - some traditions make this obvious enough in ceremonies. This is especially important and necessary in consideration of the real risks women take in marriage for their husband; namely, being pregnant with his children.

Moreover on this point, until very recently a woman was always believed to belong to some man (if not her husband then her father). Certainly in the biblical tradition this is so -or at least the biblical tradition’s ideal. This was again meant to protect women, especially from being merely used, tossed aside, neglected or abandoned -possibly also with children, which places her in tempation to desperation (even to degradation) for her children’s sake. The widow in the bible is especially seen as someone who is extremely vulnerable to exploitation -judicially and financially- exactly because she lacks male coverture. Hence God takes, as a consequence, coverture over her: doing wrong by a widow (e.g., defrauding her or cheating her or whatever) was to draw upon yourself none other than the perfect coverture of the perfect and most powerful Husband and Father there was: the Almighty Himelf. Likewise again with orphans does God cover them with His paternal protection and for the same reasons. The idea here is plain: you wouldn’t dare risk the ire of a woman’s husband or father who was powerful, how much more, then, should you avoid doing so to a woman who’s husband and father is effectively Almighty God? In fact the Church applies this to herself: to lay violent hands on the Church is to bring down God’s wrath.

Finally, it is debatable to what extent we can safely set aside or ignore these concepts. Traditional cultural widom would say that while historically men have no doubt abused these things -and the New Testament seems especially cognizant of this fact- nature was at least still there to at least limit and restrict these abuses (husbands and fathers had a natural desire to actually fulfill their duty to protect and provide for their wives/daughters). I am personally worried about the pendulum actually swinging the other way and we end up, however unwittingly, only making increasingly transparent the reasons for these practices and beliefs in the first place, which is to say the bible’s reasons for them: women without coverture might be increasigly degraded (e.g., reduced to sex objects), used, abused and left to rot and look entirely after themselves, with grave danger of exploitation. A woman’s sexual prime in terms of beauty is much shorter lived than a man’s: before and after that period she is vulnerable to neglect if she is prized merely for her beauty or just sexual desirability.

In conclusion, I think we should wonder to what extent these concepts are simply naturally a part of marriage or human nature. A Feminist’s fiat, for example, that not only does she not want or need a man’s “protection” or coverture is perfectly her right; to what extent the Feminist can claim this is absolutely an objective claim holding on all women as a fact of reality and that, morever, no woman even should -even in principle- participate in coverture or obey her husband’s or father’s “authority” over her is an entirely different matter. No one, after all, is forcing the Feminist to marry or marry traditionally.

I agree with much of what you say. The liberation of women had a great impact on beliefs about marriage and family, but this is no longer the province only of feminists, it has become the natural order and there can be no going back.

Human nature is very adaptable. Serfdom was once seen as part of the natural order along with doctrines such as the divine right of kings, but as youngsters we are no longer taught that and cannot imagine how it could be ever have been thought part of human nature. Similarly we are no longer taught that girls belong to boys, so coverture is no more likely to reappear than feudal lords.

What we are taught is to look at the person behind their skin, gender, ethnicity or whatever. Equality and meritocracy are not just feminist mantras, freedom of the individual is the natural order of the day.

Imho this is the central difficulty for opponents of equal marriage. When the same laws and rights apply to girls who like girls and boys who like boys as for the rest of us in all circumstances across the board, on what possible basis should equality at all costs end at the door to the registry office?

 

[Ion]

The majority in your parliament does not share your morality.

This is something that should scare you, but probably for you “meaning” and “future” doesn’t matter to much; and there it’s a net of laws and rules and interests that strangle the beliefs

Strange question. If the purpose of state recognition was to obtain state benefits then everyone would go for the simpler civil partnership and no one would get married. That’s obviously not the case, so if it’s not the case for heterosexuals why would it be any different for homosexuals?

Again, pretending that homosexual marriage has other meaning than sticking one finger in his own a__e. There is no meaning in homosexual marriage.

You will need to explain how a civil marriage safeguards a family, and why that safety should be withheld from some but not others.

Again pretending they are the same thing…

The purposes of a marriage is whatever the spouses believe about their marriage, but unless the traditional vows are superfluous nonsense, they are probably what most people starting out on married life hope for in purpose: to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death parts us.

Now you say it plain and simple, for you there is no purpose in marriage; if some people make a joke from their marriage then voila, that is what marriage it is, so that is what we should teach young that a marriage is…

I do not believe you are a baptised and practicing baptist…

 

[1AugustSon7]

I’m no historian but this sounds a little revisionist. We should be careful not to impose our values on history or to romanticize romance.

If I recall you did claim that the Enlightenment philosophers altered and introduced a novel idea of romantic love That’s an historical claim and, necessarily, if it was something new or altered then there was something different that preceded it

For instance Juliet is age fourteen, Romeo fifteen to seventeen. their lightning romance might these days be called infatuation…

I think that’s a possible interpretation: I am not denying that Shakespeare clearly plaid on this aspect which rather builds into my whole point about the debate over love or romantic love historically. Is love at first sight something real or possible? Is it fated, perhaps? Two “star-cross’d lovers”? For Shakespeare, that reference to the stars is a referene to fate or destiny and, of course, for the Christian necessarily one of providence. No doubt Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet falling in love and marrying so quickly was absolutely unheard of contemporarily: courtship was supposed to be a very, very long and drawn-out process. I do not think, however, that we could argue authoritatively that Shakespeare meant to imply that their love was false or superficial. Certainly most people do believe that Romeo and Juliet is a love story.

, and the man who marries them hopes it will reconcile their feuding houses.

True. And that would be the practical benefits of marriage: marriage as a political utility. Saint Augustine does a wonderful job pointing out the benefits of consanguinity in his treatment of marriage in his City of God. Such factors in marriage are legitimate: European roylas frequently married for the sake of building peace or ending wars. It brought the two royal familes and, by extension, nations or peoples together: they shared blood now. This is somewhat extrinsic though to the debate about romantic love and marriage and their relationship: historically such marriages were seen as perfectly legitimate and realistic, and always had been. The newly married royal couples would literally have to learn how to love one another: often they had never even met before.

John Dowland’s song I Saw My Lady Weep is not about her as a person but about the good emotions her sorrows arouse in him (“Sorrow was there made fair / And Passion wise, tears a delightful thing”). Earlier still, courtly love is a secret romance between a couple who are rarely if ever husband and wife. In Medieval times most children were either married off at too young an age for romance, and just never got married at all:

Yes I know. That is why I brought up Chaucer and I did say that for the Medieval poets the concept was a highly illusory one. There was a debate about its possibility or practicality or if it would even work or last for or in the context of marriage.

According to Hostensius, once a girl was physically ready to consummate a sexual relationship, she was ready for marriage, and the same was true for boys. However, since puberty came earlier for females than males, they could marry at a younger age (usually, he said, girls were ready at age twelve and boys at age fourteen).

And we see this in Shakespeare. Hence Juliet’s father is already trying to arrange a marriage for Juliet.

As a result of arranged marriages involving exchange of property, many couples did not wed for love, or even for sexual attraction.

I have said the same.

Marriages were not infrequently loveless, unhappy affairs

Again I reported Chaucer as an example of this.

and this frustration is reflected in a popular saying of the times: “No man marries without regretting it” (Richards, 34). Only among the lower classes did people marry consistently for reasons of love or sexual desire. In general, however, peasant marriages were not common, as there was little need for a formal exchange of property among the poor. - brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/society/sex/sex-spouses.php

Yes and this reflects the pessimistic views that I mentioned. This does not deny that the concept of romantic love and loving marriages was not, so to speak, debated at all. The idea was a radical one for humanity, as I said, and it had a long and up hill battle. Still, for Christians, marriage was an arrangement of providence and show of divine grace, mercy and favour. Moreover in spite of all the arranged marriages no one could, technically at least, be forced to enter into a marriage against their will, even if this was practically speaking almost impossible to realize during the middle ages, especially for the naturally more politically concerned and ambitious nobility.

Now, finally, I mentioned the rise of capitalism and the middle class. This is important because yonder peasants from your source were now increasingly *able to read *and able to afford to buy things (like property but also romantically themed poetry) and, of course, free and inclined to marry whom they would. It was a real and open possibility for them, as it had been when they wer peasants, as your source confirms. As I said, it was these who indulged increasingly in -and demonstrated their belief in- romantic love and marriages arising from it.

So I am not sure how your source here could claim I am revising history. Your source actually confirms and substantiates what I said.

 

[1AugustSon7]

I agree with much of what you say. The liberation of women had a great impact on beliefs about marriage and family, but this is no longer the province only of feminists, it has become the natural order and there can be no going back.

That is highly debatable- especially your prophetic climax. In fact you ignored everything I said; therefore, I am not sure how you can possibly say you agreed with “much of what” I wrote.

Human nature is very adaptable. Serfdom was once seen as part of the natural order along with doctrines such as the divine right of kings, but as youngsters we are no longer taught that and cannot imagine how it could be ever have been thought part of human nature.

Every system tends to capitalize on or manipulate some parts of human nature and inclination while repressing others and all of the consequences this has and will have for the lives of the people.

Our modern system, for example, does a wonderful job of mass producing extremely high numbers of deeply dysfunctional people, who tend to have rather broken lives and produce rather broken homes; and they suffer from a wide variety of dis-eases, such as addictions, depression, suicide, etc. That is not an indicator that is indicating that we moderns are acting in keeping with our nature.

Similarly we are no longer taught that girls belong to boys, so coverture is no more likely to reappear than feudal lords.

No one was ever taught that girls belong to boys. They were taught that girls belonged to their families, especially to their fathers. And so did the boys, for that matter. Hence until very, very recently the natural sense and custom for young men was to ask a girl’s father for permission to date or take out his daughter and again, finally, to marry her. A few people to this day will at least do or show the girl’s father at least this latter courtesy, or at least announce to him his intention to marry his daughter.

What we are taught is to look at the person behind their skin, gender, ethnicity or whatever. Equality and meritocracy are not just feminist mantras, freedom of the individual is the natural order of the day.

Now this is really confused. In fact I am not sure what bearing this even has. And individualism, nice as it sounds on paper, is tempted by atomism, which wreaks absolute havoc on invididuals and society. Human beings are rational, moral and social animals. We belong, by nature, to families. I think your confusing our objective nature with idealism: idealism is practicable based ultimately on nature: it can succeed only in agreement with nature, otherwise it is desctructive and ruinous.

Imho this is the central difficulty for opponents of equal marriage.

I don’t find anything difficult about opposing that absurdity at all. It is frankly rather easy to oppose it: it is irrational and unnatural.

When the same laws and rights apply to girls who like girls

Laws are for criminals and most enumerated rights are political rights, especially because that is what a State is chiefly concerned with: they are concerned with and written in the context of the relationship between a people and their government.

All rights and justice flow from nature, and this is why life is the most basic one. That is where they get their source and how we can argue for them: i.e., they are objective and can be known by and to reason. Nothing contrary to nature is intrinsically a right.

and boys who like boys as for the rest of us in all circumstances across the board, on what possible basis should equality at all costs end at the door to the registry office?

“Equality at all costs”? Even murder? Or would you object and reply, “No, I meant within reason, of course”?

Okay, so let’s listen to reason. And anyone who does realizes that there is no reason to even act on or indulge in homosexual thoughts or behaviours, let alone subsidze them by groundlessly claiming that two men or two women can get “married” even contrary to the definition and universal understanding of what a marriage actually is.

 

[inocente]

If I recall you did claim that the Enlightenment philosophers altered and introduced a novel idea of romantic love That’s an historical claim and, necessarily, if it was something new or altered then there was something different that preceded it

You quoted the the article without keeping the layout. On the web page it is:

*When did romance enter the picture?

In the 17th and 18th centuries, when Enlightenment thinkers pioneered the idea that life was about the pursuit of happiness. They advocated marrying for love rather than wealth or status. This trend was augmented by the Industrial Revolution and the growth of the middle class in the 19th century, which enabled young men to select a spouse and pay for a wedding, regardless of parental approval. As people took more control of their love lives, they began to demand the right to end unhappy unions. Divorce became much more commonplace. - theweek.com/article/index/228541/how-marriage-has-changed-over-centuries*

The claim is not that Enlightenment thinkers invented romance but that it was only then and later that marrying for love became both desirable and possible for most people.

Now, finally, I mentioned the rise of capitalism and the middle class. This is important because yonder peasants from your source were now increasingly *able to read *and able to afford to buy things (like property but also romantically themed poetry) and, of course, free and inclined to marry whom they would. It was a real and open possibility for them, as it had been when they wer peasants, as your source confirms. As I said, it was these who indulged increasingly in -and demonstrated their belief in- romantic love and marriages arising from it.

So I am not sure how your source here could claim I am revising history. Your source actually confirms and substantiates what I said.

So just like the article, you’re saying that marrying for love became both desirable and possible with the Industrial Revolution. Thus if we leave aside whether “entered the picture” in the article’s sub-heading is intended to mean “invented” or “emerged” (I think the latter is the usual meaning) then it seems we agree that the purpose of marriage has, for most people, varied through history.

This won’t do at all, agreement is very disagreeable on internet forums.

 

[inocente]

That is highly debatable- especially your prophetic climax. In fact you ignored everything I said; therefore, I am not sure how you can possibly say you agreed with “much of what” I wrote.

Nope, I agreed with most of it, we only parted company in your final paragraph.

*Every system tends to capitalize on or manipulate some parts of human nature and inclination while repressing others and all of the consequences this has and will have for the lives of the people.

Our modern system, for example, does a wonderful job of mass producing extremely high numbers of deeply dysfunctional people, who tend to have rather broken lives and produce rather broken homes; and they suffer from a wide variety of dis-eases, such as addictions, depression, suicide, etc. That is not an indicator that is indicating that we moderns are acting in keeping with our nature.*

It doesn’t alter the fact that what was once taught as the natural order (serfdom and the divine right of kings) is no longer considered the natural order. Beliefs about what is the natural order and what is human nature are not absolute but vary with culture.

*No one was ever taught that girls belong to boys. They were taught that girls belonged to their families, especially to their fathers. And so did the boys, for that matter. Hence until very, very recently the natural sense and custom for young men was to ask a girl’s father for permission to date or take out his daughter and again, finally, to marry her. A few people to this day will at least do or show the girl’s father at least this latter courtesy, or at least announce to him his intention to marry his daughter.
*

As the head of the family was always male, girls belonged to boys.

And agreed that nostalgia is not what it used to be.

Now this is really confused. In fact I am not sure what bearing this even has. And individualism, nice as it sounds on paper, is tempted by atomism, which wreaks absolute havoc on invididuals and society. Human beings are rational, moral and social animals. We belong, by nature, to families. I think your confusing our objective nature with idealism: idealism is practicable based ultimately on nature: it can succeed only in agreement with nature, otherwise it is desctructive and ruinous.

Not sure what this has to do with the price of fish. I said we are taught to look beyond skin color, etc., and that is what we are all taught at school. Whatever we think of it, the order of the day is UDHR Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

I don’t find anything difficult about opposing that absurdity at all. It is frankly rather easy to oppose it: it is irrational and unnatural.

No doubt a feudal lord would also find equal rights and meritocracy irrational and unnatural, but the vast majority of us don’t find it at all absurd since it is what we are taught. After all, it was majorities who voted a woman into 10 Downing Street and a black man into the Oval Office on merit.

Laws are for criminals and most enumerated rights are political rights, especially because that is what a State is chiefly concerned with: they are concerned with and written in the context of the relationship between a people and their government.

All rights and justice flow from nature, and this is why life is the most basic one. That is where they get their source and how we can argue for them: i.e., they are objective and can be known by and to reason. Nothing contrary to nature is intrinsically a right.

You can debate that with feudal lords. Feudalism lasted for five centuries in one form or another, rather longer than modern capitalism. Does that make it more natural?

*“Equality at all costs”? Even murder? Or would you object and reply, “No, I meant within reason, of course”? *

Strange you should find equal rights such a difficult concept, by any chance are you posting from a tenth century castle? And you only just quoted me saying “the same laws” and rights apply to everyone.

Okay, so let’s listen to reason. And anyone who does realizes that there is no reason to even act on or indulge in homosexual thoughts or behaviours, let alone subsidze them by groundlessly claiming that two men or two women can get “married” even contrary to the definition and universal understanding of what a marriage actually is.

It’s very easy to tell others to do the impossible. When all opponents of equal marriage prove that they can abstain from their own sexual orientation by become life-long celibates, they may earn the right to ask others to do so.

And it is mighty strange and unusual that homosexuals are assumed to be marrying to “indulge” while heterosexuals are never asked whether they will “indulge”, and if they do intend to “indulge” whether it is deemed “natural” or no one else’s business.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente
**
It’s very easy to tell others to do the impossible. When all opponents of equal marriage prove that they can abstain from their own sexual orientation by become life-long celibates, they may earn the right to ask others to do so.**

This is yet another instance of your silly-putty type logic.

We can never tell others or force others to the lifelong celibates. If homosexuals want to ride each other’s sex organs, there is nothing and no one who can stop them.

The objection to making a mockery of marriage is another matter altogether. Never in the history of the world has this happened until we let loose the insanity of it in the last 10 years.