Nonreligious people get married too, ya know.
Why should Religous people have any say in it?
Did they Invent marriage?
I think that our evolutionary predecessors were probably bound couples even before Politics and Religions were invented.
2007-10-22 06:46:38 · 27 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
do they not know how many animals have rituals before they mate? that is basically what marriage is.
2007-10-22 06:51:13 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Even without current issues clouding it, marriage walks the fine line between civil and religious. Marriage in western societies, and probably others as well, is largely under religious control but not exclusively, for example many states have the concept of a common law marriage, i.e. if you live together long enough then you're considered married in the legal sense.
Undoubtedly marriage in some form or another has been around for a long time.
2007-10-22 06:56:44 · answer #2 · answered by Pirate AM™ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, if marriage is a sacred religious institution, it certainly doesnt explain for the 60+% divorce rate in America today...
I do not believe that our evolutionary predecessors were monogamous - the shape of the male penis demonstrates that we evolved to have a competitive sexual life and multiple partners....
Marriage was initially a religious institution - designed to make life "fair" for others. Prior to that time, man took as many women as he could support - this often left other, not so wealthy men without... So, religion devised a way to make the market more even - one man per woman.
Today, marriage is no longer a sacred institution, but a secular one designed to provide tax incentives to couples so that they will continue to procreate.
2007-10-22 06:53:40 · answer #3 · answered by ? 5 · 6⤊ 0⤋
I think it's a social institution, defined both legally (by some people) and religiously (by some people). However, since the legal system in the U.S. is supposed to be separate from religion, there's no reason for any particular religious definition of marriage to influence the legal one.
2007-10-22 06:50:28 · answer #4 · answered by N 6 · 4⤊ 1⤋
Legal
2007-10-22 07:00:06 · answer #5 · answered by Tamsin 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Legal institution that can be made religious if the person wishes it to be so. Even the puritans handed over the duty of marriage to the judges and magistrates to keep their churches from being 'tainted' - see the Blue Laws of New Haven Colony - ie Connecticut Blue Laws.
2007-10-22 06:50:29 · answer #6 · answered by genaddt 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
while a pair gets married it relatively is presumed that they could have toddlers. The criminal reward are so the mummy and dad are much less harassed with raising toddlers, and the reason the government does it relatively is considering the fact it relatively is making an investment in its destiny by making use of making it much less puzzling for oldsters to develop toddlers. those toddlers improve up and get jobs and pay taxes, ideally, so by making use of forgoing some income taxes now and giving tax credit to the mummy and dad, it relatively is making greater funds interior the long term. it relatively is the criminal component of marriage interior the eyes of the state. some marriages are additionally a non secular sacrament, yet no longer all are. Atheists who get married are in no way engaging in a non secular sacrament.
2016-10-07 09:51:15 · answer #7 · answered by kottwitz 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Obviously, it's first and foremost a "legal institution"...with laws governing the dissolution of the union and division of marital "assets". Under the law, it's treated pretty much as a special corporate entity.
Some people prefer to have the marriage "sealed" within a religious setting.
2007-10-22 06:55:36 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
Both...and I think they are separate concepts. Certainly, we have a "legal" concept of marriage...if not, then I wouldn't need to have a marriage license, wouldn't be able to receive tax benefits for being married, and wouldn't have to get the government's permission to divorce. I also think God sanctions marriage...and that sanction is separate from the legal sanctions on marriage. The government may recognize a divorce that God doesn't...and I think God may recognize marriages that the government doesn't.
2007-10-22 06:53:03 · answer #9 · answered by KAL 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Frankly, I'm not sure that the one-man, one-woman life-long pair bond is in human nature. Birds do it, but primates, not so much... usually just long enough to rear offspring. Primates as a whole are also, by the way, generally bisexual.
Monogamy as we know it came into fashion to help curb social diseases.
That said... In order to say you are married, you need a legal document, not a religious one.
2007-10-22 06:57:01 · answer #10 · answered by Todd T 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
It is a legal institution that was sanctified by God.
Organized religion has no business inserting themselves into it. Nowhere in Scripture are ministers or the church given any authority to preside over, or have control over, marriage.
.
2007-10-22 06:54:59 · answer #11 · answered by Hogie 7 · 2⤊ 2⤋