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Mawwiage.....
Feb. 4th, 2007 10:10 pmPost prompts gleaned from this poll. Feel free to ask something if you haven't.
"Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam..."
The institution of marriage, such as it is, has always been about contracts. I have the Tractate Ketubot of the Talmud (along with most of the rest of the Babylonian text) and have enjoyed reading the rules for setting up the foundations of familial connections in Jewish tradition. I have also read many other texts on setting up contracts, defining the combination of properties into a joint trust. I'm no lawyer, but I don't have to be to recognize how marriage is a property issue.
And, like all other property law, the rules have gotten pretty convoluted.
Only after the era of courtly love did people really skip the due diligence that families had been doing for years to set up their own relationships, bypassing the care that had been taken to build strong support networks and good potentials. Of course, this also sidestepped the occasional problem of never actually liking your spouse, but that returned quickly enough as couples fell into overcommitting on passion instead of love, which grows much slower than patience allows.
So, what did people do about love before? History is rife with stories of what we'd call affairs now, but at the time were daliances or full relationships that were not only tolerated, but encouraged, as both parties realized the import of the contract was the property it protected, not the emotions it encouraged. Have a mistress! Dally with the cabana boy! Just don't bring discredit to the family. Oh, and keep it out of the marriage bed (which may only be used for sleeping, but it represents the family bond).
At some point it became the purview of the religious institutions to manage marriage. I think this had to do with the recording of the contracts, as religion and state were terribly intertwined, and both were quite fond of bureaucracy. And, so, we get this concept that marriage is a sacred institution because it is recorded in the books of clerics. Nevermind that the clerics were from wildly differing and divergent tradition! No, obviously God wanted marriage to exist, and it was the job of the church to make sure it was done right.
What is right? Oh, now that is a nasty question.... Common themes are duty, protection, obedience, and proper governance. Love is not necessary, apparently. So, how does the church deal with marriages based in love? By teaching the marriage of tradition, and encouraging proper preparations so that passionate flings between singles do not become enshrined in ceremony. This is a good thing (as fading flings are a prime cause of divorce), but it brings with it a bit of baggage. Namely, the moralist position that arrairs are a problem.
So, it is no surprise that, as people began transitioning from tradition to new ways of thinking and making tea using harbor water, that the role of the church in marriage was lessened and the state became the record keeper. Now we can streamline things! People can get married without a church at all if that is their desire! And, yet, the state kept parts of the tradition alive.
First, they continued to call it marriage, and provided a license. Kinda like getting a trout or deer stamp, but with very strict limits on season, size, and number. And, not surprisingly, without the same expiration.... Believe me, I checked, just in case da elf tried to find a loophole later. But, that's it -- the state only kept records of the license, and not the contract, and thus got a chance to encode puritanical concepts of "love" and all the related relationship issues, along with all the original rules of joint property, in the body of law, spread out all over, all tied to the word "Marriage". Thus, all one has to do to make the system explode is change what a marriage is....
And, thus we get to the current assault on the traditional marriage, which was assaulted in the 1600s honestly.
If we want "sanctity of marriage" to be a real issue, we need to make it a sacred matter only. The best way to solve the problem is to change terms, thus preventing any attempts to modify definitions. I think the state should only register contracts of civil union, and to be honest I don't care the races, genders, or numbers involved. Churches can provide the ceremonies, or not, and can recognize people as married, or not, but the state will just connect people and property, based on rules about who can enter contracts and how. See how that works? You can get married only within the purview of the religious institutions, and they can protect traditional marriage or not. But, you need not get married at all -- just get a civil union license. That's it, and that's what all the law will be written against.
Now, if you are dumb enough to get into a passionate poly fling that you want to license without taking time to develop strength underneath, and all of you get married, you'll have one HELL of a time undoing things if it falls apart, but that's a problem with contract law as much as relationships. And, that's fine. Maybe making things more risky will force people to reconsider jumping into the judge's chambers as fast as they do their beds. Maybe that means I am in favor of gay marriage because everyone should have a right to be legally miserable, but I never said I wasn't a curmudgeon. No, that's not true -- gay marriage is now a religious issue, and my position is meaningless except within my own faith. Gay civil unions, though, are just fine.
Once the state lists things only as civil union, the whole codification of morality falls away. There can be no unreasonable biases, as any attempt to do so impacts the body of contract law, too. This, too, is good.
Alas, I know I'm in a minority. That's okay. I can still hope that the state extricates itself from religious issues, and moves to protect all people equally. And, I'll continue to vote that way, as long as my vote counts.
"Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam..."
The institution of marriage, such as it is, has always been about contracts. I have the Tractate Ketubot of the Talmud (along with most of the rest of the Babylonian text) and have enjoyed reading the rules for setting up the foundations of familial connections in Jewish tradition. I have also read many other texts on setting up contracts, defining the combination of properties into a joint trust. I'm no lawyer, but I don't have to be to recognize how marriage is a property issue.
And, like all other property law, the rules have gotten pretty convoluted.
Only after the era of courtly love did people really skip the due diligence that families had been doing for years to set up their own relationships, bypassing the care that had been taken to build strong support networks and good potentials. Of course, this also sidestepped the occasional problem of never actually liking your spouse, but that returned quickly enough as couples fell into overcommitting on passion instead of love, which grows much slower than patience allows.
So, what did people do about love before? History is rife with stories of what we'd call affairs now, but at the time were daliances or full relationships that were not only tolerated, but encouraged, as both parties realized the import of the contract was the property it protected, not the emotions it encouraged. Have a mistress! Dally with the cabana boy! Just don't bring discredit to the family. Oh, and keep it out of the marriage bed (which may only be used for sleeping, but it represents the family bond).
At some point it became the purview of the religious institutions to manage marriage. I think this had to do with the recording of the contracts, as religion and state were terribly intertwined, and both were quite fond of bureaucracy. And, so, we get this concept that marriage is a sacred institution because it is recorded in the books of clerics. Nevermind that the clerics were from wildly differing and divergent tradition! No, obviously God wanted marriage to exist, and it was the job of the church to make sure it was done right.
What is right? Oh, now that is a nasty question.... Common themes are duty, protection, obedience, and proper governance. Love is not necessary, apparently. So, how does the church deal with marriages based in love? By teaching the marriage of tradition, and encouraging proper preparations so that passionate flings between singles do not become enshrined in ceremony. This is a good thing (as fading flings are a prime cause of divorce), but it brings with it a bit of baggage. Namely, the moralist position that arrairs are a problem.
So, it is no surprise that, as people began transitioning from tradition to new ways of thinking and making tea using harbor water, that the role of the church in marriage was lessened and the state became the record keeper. Now we can streamline things! People can get married without a church at all if that is their desire! And, yet, the state kept parts of the tradition alive.
First, they continued to call it marriage, and provided a license. Kinda like getting a trout or deer stamp, but with very strict limits on season, size, and number. And, not surprisingly, without the same expiration.... Believe me, I checked, just in case da elf tried to find a loophole later. But, that's it -- the state only kept records of the license, and not the contract, and thus got a chance to encode puritanical concepts of "love" and all the related relationship issues, along with all the original rules of joint property, in the body of law, spread out all over, all tied to the word "Marriage". Thus, all one has to do to make the system explode is change what a marriage is....
And, thus we get to the current assault on the traditional marriage, which was assaulted in the 1600s honestly.
If we want "sanctity of marriage" to be a real issue, we need to make it a sacred matter only. The best way to solve the problem is to change terms, thus preventing any attempts to modify definitions. I think the state should only register contracts of civil union, and to be honest I don't care the races, genders, or numbers involved. Churches can provide the ceremonies, or not, and can recognize people as married, or not, but the state will just connect people and property, based on rules about who can enter contracts and how. See how that works? You can get married only within the purview of the religious institutions, and they can protect traditional marriage or not. But, you need not get married at all -- just get a civil union license. That's it, and that's what all the law will be written against.
Now, if you are dumb enough to get into a passionate poly fling that you want to license without taking time to develop strength underneath, and all of you get married, you'll have one HELL of a time undoing things if it falls apart, but that's a problem with contract law as much as relationships. And, that's fine. Maybe making things more risky will force people to reconsider jumping into the judge's chambers as fast as they do their beds. Maybe that means I am in favor of gay marriage because everyone should have a right to be legally miserable, but I never said I wasn't a curmudgeon. No, that's not true -- gay marriage is now a religious issue, and my position is meaningless except within my own faith. Gay civil unions, though, are just fine.
Once the state lists things only as civil union, the whole codification of morality falls away. There can be no unreasonable biases, as any attempt to do so impacts the body of contract law, too. This, too, is good.
Alas, I know I'm in a minority. That's okay. I can still hope that the state extricates itself from religious issues, and moves to protect all people equally. And, I'll continue to vote that way, as long as my vote counts.
