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Edited on Sun Nov-09-08 11:24 PM by jobycom
Christians then took it over as their own.
But it's a lot more complicated than that, because we call just about any family arrangement "marriage," when the various institutions throughout history vary widely. In pre-Islamic Arabia, for instance, neither gender was limited in marriages, so you could have a man with several wives, each of whom could have had several husbands. Since the father wasn't as important in such an arrangement, wives lived with their father's extended clan, and the kids were raised by the mother's family. Often "marriage" was little more than a system of alliances between nomadic tribes.
In ancient Greece and Rome, marriages weren't religious, and didn't have ceremonies. There was no concept of monogamy for the man, and for the woman the only purpose of monogamy was to ensure the parantage of any children produced. Marriage was mostly a property arrangement. Since Greece had no qualms about sex--with either gender--men visited prostitutes or priestesses when they wanted. Many also kept younger male lovers (or older male lovers, depending in perspective, I suppose). Often an older man would take a teenage as an apprentice in his business, and this was almost expected to be a sexual relationship. Again, Greeks did not see sex as a moral issue, only a legal issue involving parantage of children. This apprenticeships were similar in most respects to marriage. Most of us have read "Plato's Symposium" and heard the romantic ideas of love between the lover and his beloved.
Romans had two types of marriage--one was little better than slavery, the other was based more on equality between two property owners. The legal arrangement didn't have to be between men and women, since it was more of a property and family arrangement than a sexual arrangement, though the sexual aspect was expected.
When Christians took over the functions of the Roman government in Europe, they did so through the Roman bishops and priests in European cities and towns, and so marriage came to be seen as a religious sacrament. This may have blended with the Jewish roots of Christianity, and maybe even some pagan ceremonies, but basically, since Roman civil government pulled out of Europe, only the Christian government remained, and many public functions became religious.
None of that really matters, except as an example of how marriage is not one monolithic institution that all cultures have practiced the same way since time began. Even in our own history, divorce used to be difficult and in some places polygamy was allowed. Both divorce and monogamy were fundamental redefinitions--civil and religious--of marriage. Yet many men on their second or third marriage don't seem to grasp that they once would not have been allowed, or would at least have been shunned by church and society, for the marriages they enjoy today.
The bottom line is that however you define marriage, religiously or civily, discrimination should not be allowed.
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