tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541500.post1412044254615537084..comments2024-03-28T18:35:54.237+09:00Comments on BigHominid's Hairy Chasms: Oyreland leads the way, laddiesKevin Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541500.post-60608761791666886842015-05-24T18:41:32.244+09:002015-05-24T18:41:32.244+09:00John from Daejeon,
Things were weird in the old d...John from Daejeon,<br /><br />Things were weird in the old days, but women might have had <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/may/19/equality-and-polyamory-why-early-humans-werent-the-flintstones" rel="nofollow">more advantages than originally thought</a>.<br /><br />Charles,<br /><br /><b>"no single religious group really has the authority to determine what marriage should be for everyone"</b><br /><br />Sounds like a winner!Kevin Kimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541500.post-88961052344995255412015-05-24T17:48:52.557+09:002015-05-24T17:48:52.557+09:00K,
Yes, good points. To clarify, what I meant was...K,<br /><br />Yes, good points. To clarify, what I meant was that marriage has been a secular institution for as long as we've had the concept of secularity. By which (to clarify further) I suppose what I mean is that no single religious group really has the authority to determine what marriage should be for everyone. Perhaps in my zeal my original comment was a bit too sweeping.Charleshttp://www.liminality.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541500.post-40490052402791847922015-05-23T23:51:47.998+09:002015-05-23T23:51:47.998+09:00Kevin, I guess you're going back about 80,000 ...Kevin, I guess you're going back about <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsx5ag_quest-for-fire-1981-720p-bluray-dts-x264-0_webcam" rel="nofollow">80,000</a> years for that first pairing up as before that it seems that females of our earlier selves were most likely communal property to ensure survival of the fittest of our evolving species. John from Daejeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08431973044799010218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541500.post-22074586513409916332015-05-23T17:54:11.101+09:002015-05-23T17:54:11.101+09:00Charles,
Thanks for the comment.
I think marriag...Charles,<br /><br />Thanks for the comment.<br /><br />I think marriage is plausibly secular today, at least among some people, mainly because we actually <i>have,</i> these days, a concept of the secular. It's not so obvious to me that, in ancient times, people had a notion of secularity that corresponds to modern notions of that term. "Before Christianity" doesn't mean "before religion," obviously, so religion has theoretically been a factor in marriage since the beginning. A historian of religions like Mircea Eliade would likely say that ancient peoples divided the world into its sacred and profane aspects, but it's a tough question as to whether "the profane," an ancient concept, equates to "the secular," a fairly modern concept.*<br /><br />My own guess—not having done my anthropological homework—is that formalized marriage started off as some sort of ritual (to wit: a public, ceremonial proclamation of life-commitment, followed by the life-commitment itself, i.e., all marriages begin as ritual before becoming a way of life, hence the two senses of <i>marriage</i> as both "wedding ceremony" and "married life") long before it ever became something as heavy and significant as an institution. As such, as a ritual, it probably belonged more to the realm of the sacred than to the profane. Rituals often overlap with notions of the holy, if we take "holy" to mean something like "set apart" or "particularly special and worthy of deep respect." We reserve rituals for special occasions; marriage is a special occasion, therefore etc., etc.<br /><br />[Digression: going back even further, I'd guess that human marriage, at its primordial outset, was little different from animal pair-bonding—the male looks at the female and, through just a glance or through his posture, wordlessly declares, "Yo. Me. You. Forevs." And so they bond.]<br /><br />That said, while I'm not sure I'd agree that marriage has always been a fundamentally secular institution, historically speaking, I can see such an argument being made for <i>modern</i> marriage—which is, I think, the argument you yourself may have made when you used your own (modern) marriage as an example. (A modern example certainly doesn't support the idea that marriage has been secular <i>since its beginning,</i> but it's good evidence that there's an association between marriage and secularity <i>now.</i>)<br /><br />My two cents, for what they're worth. (Two cents, apparently.)<br /><br />***** ***** ***** *****<br /><br />*We could take this even further and say that, in ancient times, it's unclear as to what might have counted as <i>religion,</i> per se, given that the term <i>religio</i> wasn't really in wide use until the Roman Empire—and the Romans used the word in a very different way from how we use it today.Kevin Kimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541500.post-78351745561104605922015-05-23T13:02:07.743+09:002015-05-23T13:02:07.743+09:00Saw this on the news this morning.
My thoughts ar...Saw this on the news this morning.<br /><br />My thoughts are pretty simple: The institution of marriage is a secular one, not tied to any specific religion. It was around long before Christianity came along, at least.<br /><br />I came to this realization when I got married. We went to the district office and then the US embassy to get our marriage licenses filed. I remember the staffer at the embassy handing us a stamped document and saying, "Congratulations! You're married!" I was a little confused at first. "Really?" I asked. "Just like that?" The staffer replied: "Yup. Just like that. You are now legally husband and wife."<br /><br />That the issue is a little more complicated than that was made clear to me by my newly-minted wife's reaction to my suggestion that we go get a hotel room. But the fact remains that marriage is and always has been a secular institution, no matter what religions significance it might also have for certain segments of the population.Charleshttp://www.liminality.orgnoreply@blogger.com