If there is no God and all religion is bogus, what does that mean for marriages?

Great Debates
61

Philly Style, thanks for the contribution.

Not surprising, I tend to disagree with your last paragraph. From my perspective, child-rearing the most basic of the socio-economic relationship. Science has demonstrated the criticality of socialization for child development. And I doubt most anyone would question the critical nature of economic support for those unable to support themselves. I would conclude that such relationships are the most basic. Certainly, (traditional) marriage is but one means to that end.

It is certainly arguable that the Roman Catholic church has had more influence on the concept of monogamous marriage worldwide than any other single factor. Likewise, the same could be said for any sexual activity outside the purpose of procreation, including sodomy (including oral sex), adultery, fornication, and homosexuality. Would you agree?

Further, polygamy was actively practised by Catholic priests up until somewhere around 1020AD, and marriage completely voided for priests around a century later. Polygyny (if not in marriage, in concubines) was common among all other major religions, and even Christians, up until that time.

Were these actions taken from divine guidance? No, it was from concerns of the inheritance of church property to the sons of priests.

The idea of monogamous marriage traces its roots directly to the Roman empire, not the bible, or any direct religious inspiration per se.

Unless you disagree with that analysis (and I would be interested if you do), how would you conclude that, “even with out God, society would have a compelling desire to create this insitution and the stability it brings”?

Of course, I am assuming your reference to “this institution” references the modern concept of monogamous marriage. Please clarify if that was not your intent.

62

There is no dobut that the rearing of children is what the future depends on. It is also true that marriage is not needed for this to occur.

I was refering to monogamous marriages. I would be foolish to claim that the Church always made decisions based on what was believed to be divine insperation. By the Church’s own addmission, many unworthy man have held high office within our history.

What I believe is most mainstream religions promote monogamous relationships as a way to support what you contend is the most basic socio-economic (love that term, haven’t used much since I was an undergrad!) responsability, child rearing.

In more primiative cultures there is certainly much more in the way of communal child rearing that you do not see in a more industrialzied society.

Political leaders have always leeched off of organized religion as an additional, if not primary, method of controling the masses. (see the Middle East circa 2003)

That being said, to original question regarding what would it mean to marriage if God turned out to be a farce?, I suggest that marriage would still exist since it supports the most basic unit of society, the family. I assume by the question, that we are just now finding our about God within the society we now have, and not the influence this would have had if it were known thousands of years ago.

I was unaware of polagmy of the Priests in the early days of the church and am interested in see where I can find more on this history.

63

The big thing holding back inter-species marriages would be the ability to confirm that the other species representative is of sound mind and body, and then confirm that they are actually consenting to the marriage. Forcing them against their will, which is what it could be unless there is a process that can confirm their consent, should always be illegal.

64

Unfortunately, they preach that monogamous relationships are the only way, without an empirical or rational basis.

Curious word choice there. While primitive is also accurate, many advanced societies openly practice polygyny, and even our society, while preaching monogamy, fails to live up to the ideal (with adultery exceeding 50% of all marriages), and actually endorses serial monogamy (with an effect close to polygyny). Industrialized probably isn’t quite descriptive either, unless you mean “Christian dominated”, since Asian countries like Japan tend to still accept concubinage (which has a long history there).

Or in western history, see the dark ages. Or in your neck of the woods, Rick Santorum.

:confused:

It’s admirable to want to learn more about your church and its influence on western cultures and today’s society.

With an emphasis on some history of monogamous marriage, see this page for a quick read and some context.

[Since this site is a blatant advocate for polygamy, be forewarned of its bias. To double check some of the facts, this article from History News Network offers a similar telling, specifc to priests and celibacy, but without the bias.

[url=http://hnn.us/articles/696.html]When Did the Catholic Church Decide Priests Should Be Celibate?](]History of Monogamy[/url)

To double check those facts, or for a more, indepth scholarly look, see the first source referenced on that page, an online book published by Making of America.

An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church

That page is large, so it will take some time to load. It’s publication date is 1867, so the language used is sometimes a bit tough to read. It appears to be scanned with optical character recognition, but each page contains a link to the page image, so sometimes it is easier to view the actual page. And, it is well footnoted, although often the footnotes are in Latin.

For this topic, you will probably find it useful to search the text using your browser “find” function, for keywords like “polygamy” “concubines” “wives” “mistresses” and “simony”.

Good luck in your research.

65

AZCowboy, your History of Monogamy link is null.

It’s also worth noting that not all Western, Christian-dominated, industrialised nations are quite as fetishistic in their treatment of monogamy; the partner-on-the-side in some places approaches legitimate status. (I have a fleeting memory of the wife and mistress of a deceased French official comforting each other at a funeral; I’ll see if I can pull up a cite.)

Heh. Mitterand’s widows, no wonder I heard of it; I found various articles searching on “France wife mistress funeral”, which I later refined adding “Mitterand”. From http://www.tribuneindia.com/1998/98oct04/sunday/speaking.htm :

66

Oops. History of Monogamy

Sorry 'bout that.

67

Just a thought - I really don’t think religion has as much to do with marriage or staying married as the OP poster implies. There are a couple of reasons for going through the ceremony, one of which has already been mentioned - the legal aspect. If my hubby and I were living together without tying the knot, I wouldn’t be able to get on his health insurence plan (as best I can tell, the state of Ohio has done away with recognizing any “common law” marriages).

The other reason behind the ceremony is the audience. Think about it; you’re making a very public vow in front of those closest to you - anywhere from two to 500 people, depending on how many you invited - that you’re going to spend the rest of your life with Person X. THat’s probably a stronger deterant to just drifting apart than any legal hoops you’d need to jump through for a divorce - you can’t really say “We weren’t that close” or some such thing after publically stating otherwise to your friends and family. Does that make any sence or am I rambling again?

In short, God has little if anything to do with creating a lifelong bond cuz God can’t help you if you two shouldn’t have even been together in the first place.

Patty

68

That is a very nice sentiment. I’m sure God does agree with your ideal rationale, but I’m afraid a few ignorant and bigoted men will use Gods name to go against that.

For example, what if the people who were meant to be together were of the same sex? And what if this lifelong bond was between more than just 2 people?

69

Personally, I find myself spectacularly uninterested in the opinions of other people’s gods. My own gods are quite opinionated enough to supply me with all the divine bickering I could possibly desire.

Their gods don’t approve? I don’t care; their gods aren’t mine. If they try to make trouble for me and mine on the basis of their gods’ judgement, I still don’t care about their gods; I care that those particular people are being jerks.

Nobody’s beliefs about their gods mean anything about my marriage or my handfasting. Nobody’s lack of belief in my gods or any other gods invalidate my vows, either. Someone’s lack of respect for those vows and lack of acknowledgement of their legitimacy – on whatever grounds they choose – strikes me as being just plain rude. I don’t care if they’re being rude because their gods say to be rude, or just because they’re jerks. :wink:

All of which is a longwinded way of more or less agreeing with Marvel.

70

You seem to have an interesting point of view here that id like to debate. In my opinion same sex marrige is ok for the exact same reason that polygamy is ok. If you have consenting adults <insert irrelevant number here> then what they do if they are happy and arnt hurting anyone else is thier business. The disease issue you bring up is a straw man. You can get diseases by not eating properly, smoking etc just as easily if not more so than by having 2 or 3 spouces etc. Hardly a reason to remove free will from consenting adults. I dont have anything against a woman marrying 4 guys for that matter. What the hell do i care what they do with thier day? No skin off my back as long as everyone is happy and consentual.

71

From what I know (and I can be wrong):

In Western Christendom where marriage is founded upon Roman Law and the teachings of Christianity, principally the Roman Catholic tradition, but with variations among churches not recognizing Rome after the Reformation:

  1. Marriage is a contract, i.e., an agreement (a bargain, a covenant, an exchange), between the two contracting parties, man and woman.

  2. It effects the transfer mutually of rights and obligations, essentially of the conjugal act, and then everything else necessary for common life, family, and home.

  3. In the Catholic tradition, the parties are the ones effecting the contract, but the authorized priest is necessary in order for the agreement to obtain substance.

  4. Also in the Catholic Church, it has got to be a Catholic ceremony for the Catholic contracting parties, otherwise no marriage before the Catholic God.

  5. So in the Catholic Church a marriage between the parties are actually two marriages, the civil one officiated by the priest as a civil official representing the state, and the same priest officiating in his indispensable ministerial and notarial character as a representative of the Church and of God, the Catholic God, that is.

  6. In Protestant persuasions, the church marriage is a purely public religious ceremony, the real marriage is the civil one officiated by the minister in the name of the government; if Protestants marry before merely a government official, not a church minister, it is still a binding marriage also before God, even though the government be purely secular, i.e., without any religious affiliation.
    Now, if there is no religion, then there are no religious peoples to insist on the kinds of marriage their religion maintains to be the kind allowed for by God.

The government and the people can then legislate on the kinds of marriage that it would recognize as marriage analogically to the traditional marriage of a man and a woman.

So, there is no impediments against the people deciding through it government to allow marriage of one party to several parties simultaneously, that is polygamy in all kinds of combination.

And also same sex marriages.

But all such marriages are all contracts between or among the contracting parties.

Most probably the exchange will still cover the sex access of all parties in the contract, be they two or more.

Finally, marriage has always been a good way to join together material goods between or among parties contractants, namely, property, political power, social title, etc.

Susma Rio Sep

72

I couldnt have said that better myself.

…in fact … I didnt. :frowning:

Thank You Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

73

Maybe I wasn’t clear enough before. The example of polygamy I’m most familiar with is Mormons, some of whom practiced polygamy in the past. And I don’t know to what degree harems existed in Arab countries in the distant past, or how much of that is just lore. But in these examples, I don’t think it’s really consenting adults. A woman who is brought up to believe that she is chattle and is duty bound to enter into such a situation is not really consenting. This IS an argument for monogamy, beyond “God says so” (and by the way, it’s been pointed out already that polygamy exists in the Bible anyway). You MAY NOT AGREE with the reason, or you may think it’s not relevant to modern society, which is fine. In that case maybe the law should be changed. But that’s a total sidetrack, and there’s already another thread about that, so I don’t understand why people keep bringing it up HERE.

**Now here’s the disclaimer; PLEASE READ THIS:

I understand now that there is a modern contingent of polygamists who are of the position that they are all willing parties and what goes on between consenting adults is nobody else’s business. So that’s fine; I’m not trying to step on anyone’s toes. So could we PLEASE drop this sidetrack already?**

O.K., I need to address this because it’s just ludicrous. I was talking about VENEREAL disease, not scurvy or emphysema. You DO understand the difference, don’t you? That’s the real reason that monogamous relationships are the norm. It’s not just some arbitrary rule that God made up just to “test” us. People used to die from Syphilis all the time. Now people die from AIDs.

You are welcome to argue that these diseases can be prevented, and I suggest you head over to the thread that AZCowboy linked to and discuss to your heart’s content. Certainly it’s a debatable issue, but it’s NOT a strawman.

By saying this, you seem to be implying that I am in favor of telling people what they can do between consenting adults. If you believe I have said that, you REALLY need to work on your comprehension skills. I suggest you look at the thread title, and read ALL of the posts so you can get a sense of what we were talking about.

74

Whether or not you believe in one thing and favor another is immaterial to me or this thread. What I wanted to find a secular reason for opposing same sex marriage and/or polygamy. Since I dont belive there should be any, I was going to debate any reason put forth.

75

I am not aware of any secular reason for the opposition of same-sex marriage. A case could probably be against polygamy for secular reasons, on the basis of too many people being involved when it comes time to determine who inherits what, liability issues, and basically any legal conflict amongst the family members.

Secular thought, at least when I think about it, would actually fall in favor of same-sex marriages. Married people are taxed higher, meaning the government should, for secular reasons, support it. Married people are generally more stable, earn more property, invest their money, and generally contribute in better ways to society and the economy.

So, ultimately, I think if allowed to rule the day, a secular government would not only allow these things to happen, but would do more to encourage marriage regardless of sexual preference.

76

Would you mind expanding on your thoughts, here? Clearly, even without polygamy, inheritance issues can get quite jumbled with the mix of parents, ex’s, children, step-children, etc. How would polygamy contribute to additional problems in this space? And specifically, what additional liability or other legal issues are introduced?

Welcome to the SDMB, btw. Any chance your username implies that you are (also) a Yellow Jacket?