Talk: Marriage
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- but homosexual marriage is beginning to gain acceptance.
- In recent years there has been a growing movement to extend the right to marry to gay and lesbian couples.
Where??? That seems like a very important piece of information to impart. Remember, this isn't just an encyclopedia about the United States. (I would supply the desired information but frankly, I don't know where it's beginning to gain acceptance.)
I think the article could also stand to have a bit more information about traditional marriage between members of the opposite sex, since that's by far the most common type of marriage practiced... For example, statistics on marriage in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, and other countries would be very interesting to consider. Moreover, some considerations of the purposes of marriage--the most obvious being to provide a home for children. Again, I'd add this information myself, but I think I'd have to do too much research to be able to do it quickly. --LMS
Try all over Europe: Netherlands has legalized full gay marriage, as I believe Belgium has as well. Germany, France, Denmark have introduced or are in the process of introducing domestic partnership legislation, which is often a step along the way. So it isn't just the US. Of course, this isn't happening without a lot of controversy, but you can see where the trend is heading at the moment. -- Simon J Kissane
- Yeah, but anywhere else? Europe and the U.S. is not the world.
- Here in Brazil Marriage is a lot more informal (even couples of high social class often simply don't bother with either a religious or a civil cerimony - any couple living together may well be called "weds" by immediate family). There is not much effort to legalize gay and lesbian marriage, largely because there is little point in doing so. Even Life Ensurance (sp?) companies are already making contracts that fully recognize homossexual "de facto" marriages.
I don't know, but I don't think so. As far as I'm aware the gay rights movement hasn't been particularly successful yet except in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. In most of the rest of the world they've still got too many more basic issues to be worrying about than gay marriage. As to Australia (where I live), while the gay rights movement has been successful in a lot of ways (witness the Mardi Gras), they haven't managed to get gay marriage on the political agenda yet -- the only stuff I have heard about in the Australian media is what is going on overseas.
But even if its only a sizeable movement in the US and Europe, I'd say that while the US and Europe are not the whole world, they are a significant portion of it. -- SJK
I don't know anything about the Oneida Community. Was its form of marriage the usually seen of lifelong procreative marriage or merely a religious ritual? --rmhermen
Procreative, I believe. I don't know enough to go into detail (19th century religious movements amuse me more than they fascinate me, but I live in Upstate NY, home of Mormonism (Joseph Smith found the golden plates within 10 miles of where I sit typing), the Oneida Community, the Fox Sisters and spiritualism, and other exciting flavors of American Religious Expression.
The Oneida Community was a utopian community that evolved (or devolved, depending on your committment to the founder's mission) into the Oneida Ltd. silverware company. --MichaelTinkler
Makes you wonder what goes on at the Oneida Ltd. board meetings...
- Funny. And yet, somehow rude....
I have qualms with the initial claim of this article. In anthropology classes (I have an A.B. in Anthro), we learned that the primary purpose of marriage in most societies is to establish familial ties for the children, *not* the people getting married. Another element was establishing ties between the families. That's why arranged marriages made sense for the society; you were going to let your young and impetuous children decide your familial ties? The whole "love" concept of marriage is largely Western, and makes sense in a society where people are more distant -- both physically and emotionally -- and thus the relationship between the two individuals is of overriding importance. (And as a result, more divorces -- the marriage is more dependent on that one relationship, and that relationship is under greater pressure.) -- Belltower
- If you've got an A.B. in Anthro and learned stuff to improve the article, by golly then, don't be shy about improving it! Go right ahead! --LMS
- I guess the current wording is more objective? However, it strikes me (from personal experience) that the article is now heavily slanted towards defining marriage as a social, rather than a personal bond, whereas most people I know (in the Netherlands) marry because it signifies the strength of the bond between the two of them, rather than the starting of a family. In most cases, the family has already started.
- Also, gay marriage is now effective in the Netherlands, so perhaps that weird comment can be changed? And why is gay marriage an oxymoron? Am I missing the ethymology here of either 'gay' or 'marriage'?
- Finally, through the public debate in the Netherlands over gay marriage it became clear that many Christians feel 'marriage' is a term that should be reserved for a religiously instigated marriage (although it never became clear to me why 'civil marriage' had been tolerated for so long then). In other words, they objected to the word 'huwelijk' being used to indicate a formal (sexual-familial) bond between to members of the same sex. I never quite got what it was about, but it seemed to be important to them, and therefor may deserve mention. -- branko
I also have qualms with the intro of the article. I think it presents one opinion on marriage as unvarying fact when there is controversy and change. I changed the first sentence from "Marriage is the socially sanctioned union that reproduces the family. It may do this biologically, through children, and/or socially, through forming a household. " to
- Marriage is the social institution by which people join together their lives in emotional and economic ways through forming a household. It confers rights and obligations with respect to raising children, holding property, sexual behaviour, kinship ties, tribal membership, relationship to society, inheritance, emotional intimacy, and love. These rights and responsibilities differ from culture to culture, and over time within a culture. Marriage is found in all societies, but in widely varying forms.
I thought the article as a whole presented marriage in a rather negative light, so I added a Religion section that attempts to summarize marriage as viewed by the five great world religions, and added some other comments here and there just to balance some negative aspects of marriage with some positive ones. I don't think I deleted much, if anything, and I've tried to be objective. Hope no one is too offended. --Wesley
- In most societies, marriage is monogamous, meaning that a person can be married to only one other person at once. Some societies however, permit polygamy, the having of multiple marriage partners at the same time.
Afaik the proportions are exactly opposite. Most societies allow small-size polygyny, only recently due to expansion of Europeans the proportions were changed. Taw
"In most of Europe, the first recognized legal union between a man and a woman was marriage by capture. A man would kidnap a woman from her home and rape her, afterwards she was considered his wife. That practice died out and the practice of marriage by purchase took its place."
- It would be nice if someone give some kind of references for this, as it sounds somewhat more like speculation than it does like well-established history.
- Seconded. Took the passage off the page until we get some refs.
- Homer is the earliest source I know, though not nearly the earliest available, and here we find both bridal prices and dowries, but nothing like formalized kidnap-marriage, and in contemporary tribal societies one usually hears about arranged marriages and special ceremonies instead.
- AFAIK "kidnap-marriage" has existed in some societies, but the idea of a semi-standardized evolutionary timeline of "marriage by kidnap" replaced by "marriage by purchase" replaced by "marriage by mutual consent" sounds very suspicious.
I propose splitting off homosexual marriage as it's a considerable topic in itself. Ed Poor
- Ed. No. Stop. There is no paper limitation here -- the article can be as long as it needs to be to be inclusive. You are leaning towards exclusivity.
- Otherwise, the article currently suffers from incorrect or at least faulty usage in terms of brideprice and dowry. They aren't the same. Brideprice (in Germanic societies, Morgengeld) is paid byy the groom. Dowry is provided by the wife's family.
Okay, I won't split it, 209.20.225.xxx (I generally avoid making major changes like an article split when others object). Ed Poor
- Thanks, Ed! ;-)
Someone linked Spouse to Marriage, but it's not defined there.
I've made a few changes to this page, and I intend to make more as I can pull the words together. I've made quite a study of the sociology and history of marriage as practised in the United States. I've listed my changes at other places on this /Talk page. Jim DeLaHunt (JDLH)
- I think the new opening is flawed in that it would not apply to marriage in all cultures. I put back the previous introduction, which I think provides the best general description of marriage, not only in the US but elsewhere. I did not remove any of the newly added material, but I did add some qualifying words. Slrubenstein
Removed this and replaced it with a description of how marriage varies from culture to culture.
- The most common type of marriage is the union of one or more men with one or more women. Marriage is usually heterosexual and entails exclusive rights and duties of sexual performance, but there are instructive exceptions (see Same-sex marriage).
I have big problems with the section on history of marriage. The view of the history of marriage seems awfully stereotypical.
Moved to talk:
- Other topics that could be mentioned on this page (or on pages of their own): criteria for validity of marriage, arranged marriage, differing laws on divorce, arguments for/against gay marriage, common-law marriage, annulment in the Catholic tradition, minimum legal age for marriage, polygamy, wedding ceremonies, honeymoon, mail-order bride
Many of these items have articles of their own by now. - Montréalais
I removed the following: Generally, but not always, religious marriages are also endorsed by the state.
This is absolutely and utterly wrong. Religious marriage is NOT endorsed by the state in the vast majority of states in the world. Many states allow the civil and religious ceremonies of marriage to take place together, ie the civil requirement (the signing of the register) is slotted in in a momentary break in the religious ceremony. But, and this is vitally important, the civil bit in a religious ceremony is not a recognition of religious marriage. It is that 'civil' bit that is recognised in law. The state couldn't care less what else happens that day in the church where the wedding ceremony takes place, once the civil bit of the ceremony takes place. And if it isn't done properly, then no valid civil marriage exists, even if religion sees the marriage ceremony as valid. At the moment where that civil bit takes place, the priest or minister ceases to be the employee of the church but becomes an agent of the state registering a civil marriage. In effect, though people take about one marriage ceremony and one wedding, there actually are two marriage ceremonies, the religious and the civil, with the state not recognising the religious ceremony, and the religion not recognising the state. Both ceremonies co-exist, with the civil one slotted in to what is in effect a break in the religious ceremony. For practical reasons the state does not require the taking of vows in such circumstances, accepting the vows used in the religious ceremony. But if the register ceremony is mucked up, there ain't no marriage, in the eyes of the law.
I am surprised such a fundamental error was not spotted earlier. ÉÍREman 02:18 May 3, 2003 (UTC)
In an effort to reword the line above, someone put in In most American states the marriage may be officiated by an minister, priest or religious authority and in such a case the religious and civil marriage have merged.
Again it is wrong and again it has been removed. The officiating cleric acts with two separate roles, religious celebrant of a religious ceremony, and state official registering a state civil ceremony. At a point in the 'ceremony', the religious element ceases and the civil element takes over, albeit only for a minute or two. At that point, the officiating minister changes his or her role from religious celebrant to state official. Under no circumstances is the state and civil ceremony merged, they co-exist with each taking 100% dominance at a particular point in the full ceremony. Apart from anything, the merger talked about would breach the US constitution on the separation of church and state. Please be careful to get the facts right. ÉÍREman 02:51 May 3, 2003 (UTC)
- I am not sure that I agree with the above interpretation. In most jurisdictions of which I am aware that allow marriages to be officiated by a religious authority the certification that such an event took place is often enough to cure any irregularities in the ceremony. In fact the statutes often state that the relgious authority (priest, minister, rabbi, imam, etc.) is empowered by the state to conduct the ceremony. As far as your separation of church and state argument is concerned, the state still has the authority to regulate religion otherwise it would be legal for someone to do anything in the name of religion. I really do not think that what you bring up here has any real significance, though I do beleive that I have stated the law correctly -- the state can allow ministers to act as their agents, if the ministers and the members wish, of course if the minister does not want to conduct a state sanctioned marriage then he can undertake one of these secret marriages. Alex756 03:04 May 3, 2003 (UTC)
The "History of Marriage" section is simply unbelievable. Besides being biased and plain awful, it's not even anything remotely like a history of marriage. More like "Feminist interpretations of marriage". It should maybe even be NPOV'ed. --VV Aug 12, 2003
I went ahead and reluctantly NPOV'ed the section (is this done?) in question. My reasons are that it provides a wildly negative view of marriage, both past and present, and is an obviously feminist perspective. (Also, it's not a history at all.) If someone thinks these are bad reasons they can undo it I suppose. Ideally, of course, I'd like to write something better, but I don't really know enough about the history of marriage to do so. Maybe even just tossing in ancient love poetry to balance would help. Comments welcome. Unrelated comment: the initial segment should probably be organized into a section (or more) so that the Table of Contents is not halfway through. VeryVerily 05:19, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The history of marriage section contradicts itself. It talks about dowrys and bridesprices as if they are happening at the same time. As I understand, they happened in different societies or at different times, depending upon the different availabilities of spouces. I think the "history of marriage" section should be moved to another page, possibly under the heading "Perspectives on Marriage"? M-Henry 11:54, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)
| Contents |
references to (Roman) Catholic Church
In the section "Marriage and religion", the RCC is first called the Roman Catholic Church and then called the Catholic Church (and elsewhere it is called the Catholic church) -- should these be made consistent (is there a prevailing standard) ? -- ll
Uncle Ed wades in
I hope I'm not rocking the boat. I'm no expert on marriage, as my wife would be sure to mention (avidly!). So I'll just stop for the day.
My aim was to balance and neutralize what looked like rhetoric favoring the gay rights POV of marriage. If I've gone to far, please chastise me; I'm actually rather easily teachable. :-) --Uncle Ed 19:18, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
What's the name for a same-sex wedding?
I too hope I'm not rocking the boat, and am no expert on marriage. But, the definition of Wedding on the page seems not to apply to same-sex marriage ceremonies. Maybe. Moriori 20:37, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)
- It all hinges on whether a marriage really is a "union of a man and a woman" as US federal law states, or not.
- Gay rights activists want same-sex unions to be regarded as the equivalent in every way of marriage. Having the same legal rights or privileges is not enough: they want others to conceded that they ARE married.
- I suspect the next step after gaining legal recognition for same-sex "marriage" would be to make it illegal for opponents to place scare quotes around the word (call it hate speech).
- There's a very heated battle going on over this. --Uncle Ed 20:59, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Sorry Ed, I wasn't clear. I was asking about wedding (ceremony), not marriage (state of union). Wiki's wedding ceremony entry seems to me to specify opposite sex partners. Therefor, when Bill and Ben are off to be married, what ceremony are they going to? Moriori 21:24, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)
- It still hinges on the definition of "marriage". If, as most people think, marriage is only "a man + a woman" then they're going off to a fake wedding ceremony, like a mock trial conducted by people who don't have jurisdiction. Some might even accuse B&B of deliberately "making a mockery" of the institution of marriage, for some ulterior motive.
- But if "marriage" is defined as a "socially-santioned institution" and some society (like Canada) sanctions it, then they're participating a a "wedding ceremony". I guess there would be 2 grooms... :-( --Uncle Ed 14:25, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Then we need to remove reference to gender in the wiki Wedding page. Moriori 01:00, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)
Marriage in the USA
In the United States, a marriage is typically a formally declared, officially recognized, and ostensibly permanent relationship existing between a man and a woman. Indeed, 36 states have laws defining marriage as "a union between a man and a woman". On closer examination, "marriage" has four main facets:
- a personal commitment between the people who are married to each other,
- social recognition and acknowledgement of that commitment by the community of the married people (family, friends, and religious community),
- religious treatment of the relationship and rules for how that relationship is entered into (referred to as "religious marriage"),
- a civil status defined by law and recognised by society generally (referred to as "civil marriage")
The above text, originally under "variations" section heading, mixes specific and general descriptions of marriage in a misleading way. I daresay this was intended to make "gay marriage" seem more logical. Let's rewrite it so that the POV is clearly distinguished from the facts (if any).
It is an argument of the form:
- You said one thing, but
- A closer examination reveals these other things, so
- You are wrong!
Let's fix this, or just leave it out. --Uncle Ed 15:05, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hmm. Perhaps we should say:
- Some advocates assert that the same kind of relationship between a man and a woman (i.e., "marriage") could also exist between two men, two women.
If we say this, we should probably name one or two advocates of this POV. --Uncle Ed 15:09, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with your above statement, and I think you are providing a great service that I could not. For the record however, I feel that this point of view, that the kind of relationship "marriage" could exist people two people of the same gender, is, depending on your definition of relationship and marriage is fact, as, statistically, some POVs must be.
- Now that that's out of the way: My problem with the statement "Some advocates assert that the same kind of relationship between a man and a woman (i.e., "marriage") could also exist between two men, two women," is that is is horribly vague. I, myself, would assert that, "the romance, commitment, monogamy, financial and other interdependence, security, and mutual child-rearing aspects of the relationship marriage can and do occur between people two of the same gender." Does this help?Hyacinth 23:49, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- If you phrase it as some advocates assert that the romance, etc., can and do occur then it helps. But if you want the Wikipedia to agree with your POV, then it won't help. --Uncle Ed 17:59, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Please add something like the following to the appropriate place in the article (as I can not find the appropriate spot). I'm looking for examples of advocates, but they may be hard to find:
- "Some conservative advocates, such as ___ and ___ assert that same-sex couples are not capable of marriage-like relationships. However, civil rights advocates such as ___ and ___ assert that the romance, life-commitment, monogamy, financial and other interdependence, security, and mutual child-rearing aspects of the relationship marriage can and do occur between people two of the same gender. Some conservatives, however, such as Andrew Sullivan argue that support of legal same-sex marriage is a conservative stance that will strengthen families, gay, lesbian, and straight."
- Possible sources: http://www.cc.org/, http://www.hrc.org/, http://www.pfox.org/, http://www.exodus-international.org/, http://members.aol.com/Hawebpage/index.html, http://www.godhatesfags.com/, http://www.family.org/. However, Dr. Dobson of Focus On the Family said recently on Larry King Live that at least a minority of lgb people are capable of loving life-long monogamous relationships.
"Marriage is found in all societies" - are you sure of that? Won't there be some obscure tribe in the Amazon where children are all brought up in common and people have sex without a one-to-one relationship? 82.225.77.14 03:41, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Marriage between a man and a woman
To the person who keeps changing "marriage is usually (but not always) between a man and a woman" to something else; note as discussed on this page that marriage is sometimes between a man and several women; between a woman and several men; or between people of the same sex (and it doesn't say so, but it is also sometimes between two children, more historically than now). It is incorrect to say that it is always between a man and a woman, and this is an encyclopedia, so if you want to discuss some of the issues in an NPOV (neutral point of view) manner, you're welcome to. Elf | Talk 19:50, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
external links
I removed the external links from this article because they were all highly POV. Buddhainabucket 11:25 AM Aug 19, 2004
origin of marriage
It might be interesting to include some information regarding theories about the origin of marriage, and analogues it has in non-human animals. --NeuronExMachina 08:16, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Adraeus' view on marriage
Marriage is a process which two individuals use in order to form a contract that legally binds their assets for legal, logistical, and governmental purposes (e.g., taxes.) While the social aspect of marriage can vary in meaning, an officially sanctioned marriage is merely a contract devoid of romantics and morality. From that perspective, I am not troubled by supporting homosexual marriage. There lacks a reason why a class of people, determined by sexuality, should be restricted from entering into a marriage contract. Nobody benefits from that restriction. Adraeus 01:59, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Stereotype?
Quoted from this article-- "In Judaism, marriage is so important that remaining unmarried is deemed unnatural." I have two problems with this- Is there any culture/religion that deems being unmarried "natural"?? I think even in Christian and Muslim societies, it is also deemed "unnatural" to not be married. Secondly, the fact that Judaism is singled out makes the statement seem like it is based on a Jewish mother stereotype of calling their unmarried daughters "spinsters," and sons...well, they just get nagged, "Why can't you find yourself a girl?" (This statement of course, is also a stereotype). In any case, I find this statement in the article troubling and recommend it be removed unless someone can find a reputable source that can support it and its nature of singling out Judaism. — Aurora (Say hi!) 20:35, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)
- I agree. There are so many flavors of judaism (as there are christianity,etc.) that I think it would be hard to make a statement like this & have it be accurate in any but a small number of cases. Elf | Talk 21:14, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I have removed the statement and after a little researching, replaced it with another fact about how marriage is a bond between two families, prolonging the religion and culture. This, of course, also applies to the Islam, though in Islam, there is an additional emphasis on material exchanges. — Aurora (Say hi!) 13:35, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
