2007-02-05 02:49:33 · 6 answers · asked by Year of the Monkey 5 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
A little perspective on marriage
Katherine Heine
Cox News Service
Nov. 1, 2005 12:00 AM
WACO, Texas - "Traditional marriage," touted by social conservatives as the antidote to decades of moral decay, can mean many things, depending upon where one sets the yardstick.
Through most of Western civilization, according to "Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage" by Stephanie Coontz, matrimony has been more a matter of money, power and sheer survival than of dainty emotions. It has only been little more than 200 years since people started marrying for love.
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The evolution of marriage: a timeline
Prehistoric - Marriage basically turns strangers into relatives, decreasing tribal tensions.
3,000 B.C. - Marriage first becomes the way the upper classes conclude business deals and peace treaties, cementing socio-political alliances. Ancient societies experiment with polygamy - and in the case of Egyptian royalty, incest among siblings - to forge strong bonds of civilization.
500 B.C. - Short-lived experiment in democracy in ancient Greece actually worsens the status of women. Love is honored - but among men only. In marriage, inheritance is more important than emotional bonds: A woman whose father dies without male heirs can be forced to marry her nearest male relative, even if she has to divorce her husband first.
Circa A.D. 550 - Emperor Justinian tries to enact a requirement for a wedding license, but the unpopular measure is revoked. (He, meanwhile, managed to get a law passed that allowed him to marry a "penitent" former actress, Theodora ).
A.D. 800 - Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne outlaws polygamy. Germanic warlords, even baptized Christians, still acquire wives for strategic reasons.
900 - The Roman Catholic Church tries to require people to obtain the church's blessing of sexual unions, but is reluctant to thereby create millions of "illegitimate" children whose parents don't obey the edict. The church, however, wins a battle by denying royalty the right to divorce on a whim.
1000 - Catholic clergy are no longer allowed to marry. Upper-class marriages are often arranged before the couple has met. Aristocrats believe love is incompatible with marriage and can flourish only in adultery.
1200 - Common folk in Europe now need a marriage license to wed. Ordinary people can't choose whom to marry, either. The lord of one manor decrees in 1344 that all his unmarried tenants - including the widowed - must marry spouses of his choosing. Elsewhere, peasants wishing to pick a partner must pay a fee.
1500-1600 - Protestant moralists elevate the status of marriage over the Catholic gold standard of celibacy, but enact even stricter controls over annulments.
1769 - The American colonies, basing their regulations on English common law, decree: "The very being and legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated into that of her husband under whose wing and protection she performs everything."
1800 - Marriage for love, not for property or prestige, is gaining wider acceptance. But women are still completely subjected to male authority.
1874 - The South Carolina Supreme Court rules that men no longer may beat their wives.
1891 - England's Parliament passes a law that men cannot imprison their wives (or deny them freedom of movement from the home).
1900 - By now, every state in America has passed legislation modeled after New York's Married Women's Property Act of 1848, granting married women some control over their property and earnings.
1920s - The Roaring Twenties bring about the biggest sexual revolution in marriage to-date and divorce rates triple. The Supreme Court upholds people's right to marry someone of a different religion.
1965 - In Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court overturns one of the last state laws prohibiting the prescription or use of contraceptives by married couples. Seven years later, the right to use contraceptives is extended to unmarried people.
1967 - Interracial marriage is decriminalized in all states when the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Virginia's anti-miscegenation statutes.
1968 - The Supreme Court upholds the rights of children of unmarried parents.
1969 - California adopts the nation's first "no-fault" divorce law, allowing divorce by mutual consent.
1970s - Most states overturn rules designating a husband "head and master" with unilateral control of property owned jointly with his wife.
- Sources: Stephanie Coontz, "Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage"; National Women's History Project.
2007-02-05 02:53:25 · answer #1 · answered by mecarela 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Well, it probably came about when someone hauled off someone else's woman ... so they made it legal and
enforced it .... it also might have had
to do with the protection of children
and the distribution of property that
is often talked about in historical
accounts of "civilization" ....in other
words, if the woman is kept at home
and the man pretty much knows
who made the kids, he knows that
they are his and rightfully get his
fields ....or his wheels or his stones
or something ... his cave!!
God, it's cold this morning! Brrrr!
Peace & Love
2007-02-05 10:58:16 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm guessing here, but I should think people formed couples so that one could go and hunt while the other raised kids and so on. I expect the ceremonial side of things arose so as to discourage either partner from leaving the relationship and to make it clear to other people that the couple were committed to each other and therefore not available.
2007-02-05 10:54:30 · answer #3 · answered by Liz 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Club a woman on the head and drag her back to your cave... Then you were married. I am sure it is still that way in some of the southern states!
2007-02-05 10:52:54 · answer #4 · answered by biggimpin 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Gurf sees woman.
Gurf attacks woman and over powers her.
Gurf makes the nasty with woman.
Gurf drag woman to cave.
Gurf is now obliged to provide for woman and calf.
2007-02-05 10:56:51 · answer #5 · answered by Hot Rod 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It was a way of preventing fights over mates. It stabilized society.
2007-02-05 10:54:52 · answer #6 · answered by October 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋