The Strange History of Marriage

Taking a bit of a break from All Baby, All The Time, thought I’d do a little strolling through human history to see what there is to see about the institution of marriage. I’ve been wondering why some people want to cling to exclusive cultural frames at a time when about half of traditional marriages end in divorce and the benefits of marriage are being denied to whole segments of the population altogether. Maybe understanding something of the history and traditions associated with the institution could help our society to figure out what marriage is in the modern world and who may claim the right to *be* married.

I was inspired to go looking by an op-ed by Stephanie Coontz in the New York Times entitled Taking Marriage Private [Nov. 26]. She begins the article with a question, and a historical observation:

WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.

Now, marriage seems an odd institution if you look at it dispassionately. Almost as if it became an issue only when humans invented a patriarchal type of society where men claimed the power to make all relevant decisions about everything, probably testosterone talking (not to mention sheer size). I mean, everybody always knows who the mother of a particular baby is - who would dream of questioning who gets her stuff when she dies?

Deal is, confidence of paternity isn’t such a ‘Duh’. Unless that baby looks so much like Elmo that only Elmo could be his father, there’s no real way to know - before the advent of modern blood and DNA testing, that is. So various cultures all over the world developed all sorts of odd rules, regulations and customs related to marriage and responsibilities in private households and private families. Some were quite weird by modern estimation.

When Christianity took over the church (which was the state) decided it had the power to decide who was married and who was not. Suddenly the parents didn’t matter anymore - their approval was not required. Oddly enough, for much of the 1600 years of church rule, the priest didn’t count either! Any male-female couple could claim to be married so long as they both agreed that they’d exchanged vows of some sort.

In 1215, nearly a thousand years after taking over, the church defined a “licit” marriage as one where the exchanging of vows happened in the church in front of witnesses. This made their children “legitimate,” as if any child could be considered an “illegitimate” person, which is total hooey. Still, people who didn’t get married in a church had the same rights - their children were legitimate, the wife could inherit, and prohibitions against divorce applied to them too.

States didn’t get involved until the 1600s, mostly by requiring that marriages be registered by the government. It started out as a way to prevent couples whose parents disapproved of the match from getting married, but there was no way for states to stop couples from eloping regardless of what the parents thought. States also had to recognize cohabitation as “common law” marriage for the legal rights inherent.

In the US the government got particularly ambitious to regulate citizen’s rights to marry whom they chose during the last part of the 19th century and this unbridled power-grab continued through the 20th century (and now the 21st century). in the 1920s there were 38 states that prohibited interracial or intercultural marriages. 18 states prohibited remarriage after divorce. Most of these laws were stricken in the latter part of the 20th century, even as the government began relying more and more on the legal marriage license to mete out resources to couples and decide who is a dependent of whom and who could access official records deemed “private” (like medical records).

In some cultures people were not allowed to be married (by whatever definition the culture provided on the rights and responsibilities end) until they’d proven themselves fertile. In other words, the woman had to be pregnant. Pregnancy has traditionally been a good excuse for marriage, and it’s the one my husband and I used back in 1969 when we eloped. Our parents were dead set against the match, so we just showed my belly to a judge and he waived requirements for parental consent.

That was the last of the “good old days” way of doing things, apparently. In this first decade of the 21st century a full 40% of children are born to unmarried people. Half of marriages end in divorce, spreading dependency, responsibilities and rights over several households. Nearly half of fathers never provide any support for any of their children through women they don’t live with. And it’s not strange at all anymore for couples to divorce because one or the other of them decides s/he is gay. Which means that lots of children have two fathers or two mothers in at least one of their homes.

In fact, things on the marriage front are so weird lately that I think the government would do best to just get out of the business of deciding who “deserves” basic human rights or contractual rights. Why should they care who partners up to buy a house or start a business (or family)? Shouldn’t the testimony of the people involved, their families, friends and neighbors carry more weight with family and probate courts than a piece of paper? Shouldn’t people who can establish by basic means (mailing address, joint bank account, home ownership, etc.) their working partnership be eligible for rights of survivorship and dependency? Does it matter what sex they are, or even whether they have sex? Why?

Marriage as a rite and a party and a way of life isn’t going to go away any time soon. But no one else - and no institution of government or religion - can make a marriage. That’s up to the people who make the commitment to each other and any children they have (together or between them). Your religion may not approve of two men falling in love, or two women falling in love. So what? Why should that dictate what rights those lovers are entitled to as citizens of their town, state and nation, any more than it should matter that one of them is black and one is white?

I personally think it’s well past time for the religious to pay more attention to their own marriages. They might not be so prone to divorce if they did that. They wouldn’t have time to worry about their neighbors’ love lives if they paid more attention to their own. If and when religious people become perfect exemplars of marital bliss, they might have something pertinent to say about what makes people happy together for a lifetime. Until that happens, they should just butt out of everybody else’s business!

[/rant]

Links:

Taking Marriage Private

Wedding Traditions and Customs around the World

International Wedding Customs… Different Strokes for Different Folks

Discovering Wedding Customs and Traditions of the Past

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Filed under Customs, History, Relationships, Marriage, Family Life |