Suffice it to say, I have learned much from Bruce’s document below. Many should read it as well before ever again signing on to policies of at best dubious value.
This document proves that when we get riled up without knowing the genesis of the issue, we waste time that could be better spent working on real policies that matter. Marriage is being used as a wedge issue. How different would our discourse be if we could get rid of these wedge issues.
Marriage In a Nutshell
Researched & Excerpted By Bruce Menke
Marriage in the Old Testament:
The Old Testament does mention a little about marriage as it was considered a family and household affair. The oldest male relative was the caretaker of the girls and the prospective husband would ask the father for the girl after first bringing him gifts to win his approval. The mother was dominated by the father and had no choice in the matter. The father would transfer the daughter to the prospective husband in public as this showed that he approved this transfer and that the groom had the father’s approval. After this transfer the bride and groom ate a meal together with the families and then the groom took the bride home. In the Old Testament of the Bible there is no mention of a formal exchange of vows or of a preacher or priest being present at this union.
Marriage in the early Christian Church:
Early Christian authorities rejected marriage. Since they believed that the world was going to end at any moment, according to Jesus’ promise, they saw no point in continuing another generation–for their savior specifically stated that the world would end in his own generation (Luke 9:27). However, as the decades wore on and the world did not end, fathers of the church turned even more firmly against marriage because they thought universal virginity was needed to bring about the promised kingdom of Christ.
Marriage continued under the common law up to the 13th century, having no endorsement by canon law. Historian F.C. Conybeare says, “Nothing is more remarkable than the tardiness with which liturgical forms for the marriage ceremony were evolved by the church.”6 The earliest approach to a Christian ceremony was a simple blessing of the newlyweds in facie ecclesiae–on the porch, outside the church door–to prevent the so-called “pollution” of God’s house. Though this blessing technically violated canon law, in 1215 the fourth Lateran Council granted it legal status because it had become too popular to ignore. It was only in the 16th century that the church finally made the priestly blessing mandatory (and, of course lucrative), refusing to recognize common-law marriages any more.
Marriage in America:
Early colonial America:
Although the great majority of colonists believed in the basic tenets of Christian monogamy, colonial legislators explicitly rejected religious authority over marriage. Thus even before the American Revolution, marriage was deemed a civil institution, regulated by government to promote the common good.
Race-based differentiation in marriage laws originated in the American colonies in the late seventeenth century. Most often, these laws banned and/or criminalized marriages between whites and “negroes or mulattoes” but also sometimes extended to native Americans. The bans continued after the founding of the United States.
The early United States:
State laws allowed religious authorities to perform marriage ceremonies and to recognize only marriages adhering to the requirements of their own faith, but not to determine which marriages would be considered valid by the public.
Slaves and marriage:
Because free consent—the mark of a free person—was at the core of the matrimonial contract, slaves could not enter into valid marriages. Considered property by law, slaves lacked basic civil rights, including the essential capacity to consent.
After the end of slavery:
After the Civil War and emancipation, even more states voided or criminalized marriage between whites and blacks or mulattos, and in response to immigration from Asia, a number of western states expanded the prohibition to Indians, Chinese, and “Mongolians.” As many as 41 states and territories for some period of their history banned, nullified, or criminalized marriages across the color line. These laws, too, were justified in their time by their supposed naturalness.
In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously for the plaintiffs in Loving v. Virginia, striking down the Virginia law that made marriage between a white and a non-white person a felony. The Court thereby eliminated three centuries of race-based marriage legislation.
Women were always the subject of a broad range of discrimination:
In Anglo-American common law, marriage was based on the legal fiction that the married couple was a single entity, with the husband serving as its sole legal, economic, and political representative. Under this doctrine, known as coverture, the wife’s identity merged into her husband’s. She had no separate legal existence. A married woman could not own or dispose of property, earn money, have a debt, sue or be sued, or enter into an enforceable agreement under her own name.
Congress declared, “any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband.” An American woman who married a foreigner “ineligible for citizenship”—as all Asians were—would lose her citizenship.
Sources:
A Brief History of Marriage (http://cdagro.com/marriage.html);
No Objections (Boston Review-Nancy F. Cott);
The History of Marriage (http://www.essortment.com/history-marriage-21303.html)
A Short History of Marriage (http://ffrf.org/publications/freethought-today/articles/A-Short-History-of-Marriage/).