Many Myths of Marriage
We often hear talk of about “marriage” these days, with voices
being raised in loud support or opposition to the federal marriage
amendment, introduced by Colorado’s Marilyn Musgrave and Wayne
Allard. President Bush, who has recently said he will support an
amendment to legalize marriage only for one man and one woman,
mentioned the situation in his State of the Union address, calling
it “one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our
civilization.”
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (as quoted by historian Gary
Leupp in an article for CounterPunch,) echoed Bush, saying “I agree
with 3,000 years of recorded history…marriage is an institution
between a man and a woman… and our Constitution and laws should
reflect that.” Maria Parker, a lobbyist for the Massachusetts
Catholic Conference, was quoted in a Macon Daily article by Greg
Frost as saying, “The general understanding of marriage in every
culture in the world has been based on the idea it is between one
man and one woman.”
The problem with this so-called “general understanding,” as
Parker suggests, is that it is a wrong assumption. Such statements
about the auspices of “marriage,” say many anthropologists and
historians, is that notions regarding the historicity and
cross-cultural assumption of a monogamous, love-based heterosexual
union constituting “marriage” are falsely based in myths or
ethnocentric views regarding something that has changed and morphed
over time and throughout societies worldwide.
“The results of more than a century of anthropological research
on households, kinship relationships and families, across cultures
and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that
either civilizations or viable social orders depend upon marriage
as an exclusively heterosexual institution,” the American
Anthropological Association’s executive board said in a statement
decrying Bush’s conceptualization of “marriage.”
Perhaps a brief attempt to look at the history of “marriage” can
dispel some of these faulty notions and myths as expounded by
Romney and others and help us better understand this ever changing
institution.
First, the assumption that monogamous marriage as we conceive of
it today has deep historical precedent can be seen as false.
“Marriage as Americans know it today didn’t exist 2,000 years ago,
or even 200 years ago,” says Mike Anton in the Los Angeles Times.
“Marriage was a business arrangement… Throughout most of human
history, a man married a woman out of desire — for her father’s
goats, perhaps.” The Old Testament and other sources are full of
mentions of such arrangements. Arranged marriages, designed to
cement kin unions or gain property rights, were the norm and women
in places such as Greece were seen as property of the father to be
handed over to the husband. Polygamy, throughout much of human
history, was common, with the Romans codifying monogamous unions,
although the regulations and requirements differed for people
depending on their class status.
Even during the founding of our country, conceptualizations
about marriage were different than they are today, and so was the
state of “marriage” globally then. During the time of the American
Revolution, says Nancy Cott, “Christian monogamists composed a
minority of the world.” During these times, marriage law turned the
wedding couple into one person – the husband, who obtained all
legal and political rights, Cott said.
In today’s world, “marriage” is certainly not universally
recognized as a monogamous choice bond between two people of the
opposite gender, nor is it particularly connected to religion. In
Tibet, for instance, the practice of polyandry, or marriage of a
woman to multiple men, is practiced, and polygamy (multiple women
married to one man) is likewise seen in many places. Among the
Nuer, says anthropologist Duran Bell, there are such things as
‘ghost marriages’ in which “bridewealth may be paid in the name of
a dead man, allowing one of his brothers (or sisters!) to produce
children in his name,” with the sister hiring someone to supply the
sperm. In France, “the only marriages recognized by the state are
those performed by the state,” says Frost, not religious
centers.
These are just a few scant examples among many of how “marriage”
has changed over time and is still variable worldwide today. As
sociologist and co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families
Barbara Risman says in Bridges’ article: “Marriage has always been
changing… and the myth that we have a stable institution that is
somehow being destabilized is exactly that, a totally inaccurate
myth.”
Meg is a graduate student at CSU. Her column appears every
Wednesday.
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