How did it evolve?
2007-11-27 03:54:41 · 21 answers · asked by Bride of Christ 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Marriage came from nothing. Isn't that what all atheists believe, that everything came from nothing?
2007-11-27 03:58:18 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
Regardless of whether I believe in God or not, it is pretty obvious that human pair-bonding is necessary because of the helplessness of newborns. Other animals are mostly functional at the time of birth, but humans' price for all the energy spent to grow a big brain is dependency on the mother to survive. The mother, infant in tow, has a much better chance of sustaining the both of them if someone else is around to help protect and feed them.
Marriage ceremonies pre-date Christianity... The Romans, for example, kept excellent histories. We know they married, but it was more about prosperity than love... and it still is: the US is very prosperous, and look at the divorce rate. It doesn't take two to survive here, and not many marriages last longer that the time it takes to rear a child. There is also evidence that in history, marriage was encouraged to help control social diseases. The idea of marriage involving romance is relatively new, it's a concept from the middle ages, so one could say that for more than 1000 years, even Christians were marrying for other reasons.
There is no evidence that the human animal was designed to pair-bond for life. Other primates don't.
2007-11-27 12:20:29 · answer #2 · answered by Todd T 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Loving and being loved is a basic human need - as is mating. These combined form the basis of marriage - a committment between two people to love, care for and build a life together. I'm not sure who the original "founder" of marriage was. I do know that the idea of a marriage, though known by other names, such as handfasting, has been around long before Christianity. Many pagan religions, dating long before Christianity or the concept of one God, included such rituals.
2007-11-27 11:59:33 · answer #3 · answered by rose1077 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Marriage started when people lived in caves. Some birds mate for life. Is it not same as marriage? When it takes two parents to raise some babies, marriage comes naturally. What does God have to do with it?
2007-11-27 12:00:30 · answer #4 · answered by OKIM IM 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are many social norms that have come about simply because they supported our notion of a stable society. Some of them are very recent for instance the notion of 18 year olds being considered adults.
My question would be if god created marriage why did he make so few people faithful to it?
2007-11-27 11:58:36 · answer #5 · answered by tamyp 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are many reasons for marriage: inheritence not least among them. Really, though, the primary "need" for marriage probably arose as a means of indicating that a father was providing for his "actual" progeny. Otherwise, there is no reason for a man to do so, as the child may have been fathered by another of the group...
2007-11-27 11:58:14 · answer #6 · answered by Blackacre 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Some researchers say it went like this:
Agriculture was developed, which changed humans from hunter-gatherers into farmers and ranchers. Farms and ranches are valuable, and men who were previously indifferent to just which children of the group were actually theirs became concerned, wanting to leave their hard-earned wealth to their own. Women always know which children are theirs, so it wasn't an issue for them.
Men therefore devised marriage in its various forms as a way to assure their mates only mated with them, and so assure that they only birthed their children.
2007-11-27 12:01:20 · answer #7 · answered by Hera Sent Me 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
God is the english christian deity and is a continuation of yahweh invented by moses about 1300 BC. There were marriages long before there was this one god of many.
2007-11-27 12:06:05 · answer #8 · answered by miyuki & kyojin 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is natural for human beings to pair up, as it with many other animals in nature. marriage is just a legal and sometimes religious recognition of this. How do you suggest that this proves god exactly? Doe divorce prove the devil maybe?
2007-11-27 12:00:41 · answer #9 · answered by Birdy is my real name 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First of all if your only frame of reference is the bible you are already sunk. Arranged Marriages preceded the marriages as we know them. Over centuries some cultures wanted to give women more freedom and soon people had a choice as to who they wanted to join in union
2007-11-27 12:00:07 · answer #10 · answered by TSIRHC 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As an arrangement of property or as an alliance of families or as a way to arrange for a woman (with no rights) to be protected and cared for. All these things happen even in Christian countries.
What does God have to do with it? God is only invited to a wedding as a witness, just like everyone else.
2007-11-27 11:58:08 · answer #11 · answered by tabby90 5 · 4⤊ 1⤋