Who was the first culture to make marriage an institution?

Great Debates
1

Who the heck knows? Pair-bonds (group-bonds?) probably occured before language existed.
Define institution. Didn’t some societies that had no formal ritual still recognize unions. If we do not accept either common-law, recognized unions or ritual marriages as institutions, we’re stuck waiting for a mention of marriage in the oh-so-recent codified laws. Did Hammarabi have anything to say?

As no OP exists at the time that I am writing this, I am really interested to see if what I wrote has anything to do with the topic at hand.

2

Marriage–as opposed to long-term but non-exclusive sexual liaisons–was unknown before the invention of agriculture in the “Fertile Crescent” and Egypt, about 6000 BCE.

In the hunter-gatherer societies, women controlled the clan because of their importance in producing and feeding children. The only function of the men was to go hunt and bring in some meat. At that time, in most hunter-gatherer societies the connection between sexual intercourse and pregnancy had not been identified and it was assumed that women created children all by themselves. This is the origin of the old mythologies talking about ancient matriarchies and earth mothers.

When agriculture came about and settled villages and towns began to appear, this settled lifestyle enable people to make the connection between sex and pregnancy and, suddenly, the male was part of the reproductive process. Society re-arranged itself, not around the mothers who bore and cared for children, but instead around the fathers who wanted their own children to survive at the expense, if necessary, of the children of other fathers. That is, each man wanted to know just who his own children were so that he could be sure that his labors went to
the benefit of his own progeny and not some other man’s.

Therefore, men instituted exclusive “propertarian” relationships with women–to ensure that no other man had sexual access to her–and it is from this that we have the institution of marriage. To answer your question, then, marriage, as in institution, came into place whenever and wherever agriculture and settled lifestyles where developed–but probably didn’t exist in any formal way before that.

There are many interesting social echoes of this Neolithic discovery. For instance, the sceptre used by monarchs as a symbol of power derives from the Egyptian pharoahs, where where it was very clearly a phallic symbol, representing the male reproductive power.

An exception that comes to mind would be the hunter-gatherer Plains Indians in North America, who certainly were aware of the consequences of intercourse and were thus organized in a male dominated society. However, one should keep in mind that the Plains Indians moved west to the dry plains from the fertile fields of eastern North America…where agriculture was practiced extensively. Presumably, they took their knowledge with them even when they reverted to being exclusively hunters.

All this is a summary OTOH and is, of course, a complex subject. It has been written about widely in sociological and paleontological works and a search in Google would probably come up with any number of good cites. At this hour of the morning, I’m too groggy… :slight_smile:

3

Satyagrahi, your hypothesis completely fails to take into account the fact that all modern hunter-gatherer societies have marriage.

And what is your evidence that hunter-gatherers don’t understand the link between sex and babies? Please. It is manifestly false that hunter-gatherer societies are matriarchal. Sure, the loose social structure of hunter-gatherer societies are much more egalitarian in general than agricultural societies. That doesn’t mean that they are matriarchal, it just means that no hunter-gatherer can possibly have as much personal power and wealth as a member of an agricultural aristocracy.

This kind of neo-feminist woolly-headed theorizing can be easily refuted by actually looking at what really happens.

4

What Satygrahi doesn’t tell you is that this view is held by a small minority of archaeologists, relies on little, vague evidence, and was essentially created by Feminists with an agenda.

There is not only no hard proof, there isn’t any. People simply did not leave anything to show. That entire argument is, at heart, merely an assumtion which sets out to prove what it assumes.

The fact is there isn’t much to show at all. Only that all of reocrded history in every society has marriage. And every non-writing society I have ever heard of.

Ona related note, Satygrahi also perpetrates the old “Mother Religion” idea. There is more or less contradictory evidence for a truly widespread religion like that. Some of the earliest pieces of likely religious items may be female statues. Nevertheless, the function and use of these is not really known.

5

The Clan of the Cave Bear novels are not generally considered by the anthropology communities as definitive sources on the evolution of human mating patterns.

Sua

6

Well, gee, fellas… I suppose this is going to be moved to GD fairly quickly. :slight_smile:

OK, one at a time:

lemur866, of course all modern hunter-gatherer societies know about the connection. As I pointed out in my post, the American Plains Indians knew about it, too. The point is that modern societies do not live in isolation. This particular fact, once known, spreads quickly through all societies that have contact with each other. Someone had to realize it first and, in pre-history, they didn’t have CNN so news traveled very slowly.

And I did not state that all hunter-gatherer societies are matriarchal. Quite specifically, I mentioned the Plains Indians. I said that societies that do not realize the connection are matriarchal and that, once the knowledge is there, they become patriarchal. Presumably, modern hunter-gatherers picked up the knowledge in ways other than someone sitting down and thinking it through.

And, by the way, I can’t see this as neo-feminism or neo- anything…as I learned it in college some 40 years ago. And, with respect, lemur866, (in spite of the “woolly-headed” comment), may I suggest that your quick, rather heated response is saying something about your feelings regarding this, rather than your thoughts?

smiling bandit, of course there are no written records regarding this transformation as writing was one of the other things brought on by agriculture and settled civilisation and, therefore, the cultural transformation pre-dated it. What the earliest Sumerian and Egyptian writings do show is a heavy emphasis, a preoccupation with the mightiness of male kings and their procreative power…while the earlier oral traditions survived quietly in the rites and private worship of women which were first recorded by the Greeks and Romans in the Classical Period, where they were regarded as the ancient predecessors of the contemporary male-oriented rites.

SuaSponte, as I’ve never read the Clan of the Cave Bear novels, nor seen the movie, I have no clue which side you’re supporting; you’ll have to clarify for me.
Now…is all this proof? No. Is it theorizing? Yes. Is it “woolly-headed?” I don’t think so. And I can’t see male, apparently knee-jerk reactions that it’s wrong, wrong, wrong as an valid indictment.

I note that no one has come up with an alternative theory more persuasive than the OP’s “Who the heck knows?” So suggest something else, support it, and I’ll happily go with Occam’s Razor.

I’ll spend the rest of the evening, while also doing other things online, searching for reputable (non-feminist, for you defensive types) online citations.

And, for the record, I am male, happily male, absolutely adored being in the front ranks of the Sexual Revolution of the 70’s and 80’s (which I came through with many scratches but otherwise unscathed), and am now very happily married. :slight_smile:

7

coughbullshitcough…damn, these allergies.

Not all the Plains people moved there from the Eastern woodlands. While it is true that the Lakotah were driven out onto the Plains from the Great Lakes region, the Kiowa (just for one example among many) started out somewhere around Montana and drifted farther south and east to the Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas area. In fact, hunter-gatherers on the Plains preceded the expansion of native peoples into the east or midwest, as all the natives came here at one time or another over the Bering strait.

As far as “women controlled the clan” in other hunter-gatherer societies, the ones who bring home the bacon (or bison)–that is, the ones who control the food supply–control the society. That’s still true today. Also, in many nomadic societies, children are just as much of a liability as they are an asset.

8

I am the one who wrote, “Who the heck knows?” I did not write the OP. The hamster seems to have eaten the OP, and thecrystalhunter has not come back to clarify the question asked in the thread title.

“Who the heck knows?” means that I just don’t think we have enough evidence to do anything more than speculate on prehistoric marriage. Speculation is fun though.

I can’t believe that it took a settled lifestyle to figure out procreation. Humans are pretty crafty and hunter/gatherers would have had the leasure time to mull over why Thag’s baby had such a strong resemblence to Ug, or why the celibate Iyo wasn’t pregnant yet even though she had been menstrating for over 10 moons now. I am also not sure about a causal relationship between an awareness of the roles of father and subjegation of women, at least not in all cultures. Take the Celts- they were a settled agricultural society, but their women seemed to have had considerably more status and power than the contemporary Mediterrarean and Germanic people.

As far as the very viable theory that the power was in the hands of the ones who controlled the food supply, doesn’t gathering usually yield a higher haul than hunting?

9

I don’t think so. I recall that whenever my father shot a deer (which was pretty damned often), there was enough meat for at least 20 people. How many baskets of nuts and berries equals one deer?

10

Er, I should add that 14 of those people were children.

11

Oh, fer chrissakes, look up Occam’s Razor.

Parsed into the field of science (and in its more popular form), it is

Let’s look at all the unnecessary entities you have added to create your hypothesis. Just for kicks, we’ll toss in “unproven hypothesis asserted as fact.”

You assert that prior to agriculture, humans engaged in “long-term but non-exclusive” sexual liasons. This assertion defies Occam’s Razor - it is an “unnecessary entity”. The simpler theory that explains the evidence is that hunter-gatherer humans engaged in (at least putatively) exclusive sexual relationships, though of uncertain length.
This theory explains two related pieces of evidence better.
The first is hidden estrus in human females, which militates for exclusive sexual relationships. Without (at least presumed) exclusivity, the male will be uncertain if the female’s child is his.
The second is the evolution of jealousy, which is a biological, not learned, response.

Assertion made without evidence and in defiance of Occam’s Razor.
While it is indeed likely that females provided more calories to a hunter-gatherer group, the (i) does not demonstrate their contribution to the group was more valuable, or (ii) does not demonstrate they controlled the group.

Applying Occam’s Razor, the simplest theory about who would control a hunter-gatherer group would be the person able to physically coerce obedience from other members of the group. And, on average, that would be the males.

Occam’s Razor, Occam’s Razor. What is the simplest explanation: humans unable to notice that the girl who had had a penis stuck into her never became pregnant, while the girl who had did, or that humans were able to notice this?

Sua

12

Squish, your dad had a huge advantage over the people we’re talking about- modern weaponry! You can’t assume every day’s hunt was successful. In a temperate to tropical climate, nuts, fruits, berries, roots, mushrooms, eggs, and shellfish are more dependable and consistant.

13

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that in a hunter-gatherer band, every bit hunted or gathered was needed, so every productive member of the band was needed. Agriculture requires more muscle power than the h-g lifestyle. Guess which gender would then acquire more power?

14

Well, that’s not necessarily true. Anthropological studies of the bone density of Neolithic skeletons, particularly female skeletons, indicates that muscle strength in the lower body decreased significantly after the rise of agriculture.

BTW, my discussion of Occam’s Razor could have been a lot simpler:

Satyagrahi, your reliance on Occam’s Razor is misplaced. The application requires two theories for comparison. No one has presented a second theory for comparison, so you cannot apply Occam’s Razor and claim yours passes the test.
In any event, your theory relies on numerous other theories, all of which are equally unproven. There are simply too many supposition for your theory to be given credence at this time.

Sua

15

But men and women differ more in their upper body strength than they do in their lower body strength. And agriculture would have put more emphasis in upper body strength. Losing lower body muscle density would have been a natural consequence of less long-distance hikes, more hunkering over the fire.

This is probably a major hijack, but without an OP, who know?

16

Sugaree, I think it is ahistorical to assume that farming is “men’s work”. If we look at, say, Africa, we see that women do 90% of the farming. Yes, most cultures have division of labor into mens work and womens work, but their ideas of which is which are very different.

Let’s face facts here. The producers of needed products are not necessarily the ones who have power in a society. It doesn’t matter who brings in food for the group, if someone else can take what they bring in. Women might bring in food, but does that give them the power to decide what happens to it?

In almost all mammals, the females contribute almost all the parental care. Male humans do provide some parental care, but not nearly as much as females do. “Dead-beat Dads” are nothing new.

Women gathered, women hunted, women herded, women farmed, women worked in factories. The idea that women stayed home while men provided for them is a myth. Yes, in some parts of America during the 50s many families had stay at home moms and provider dads. But this was an anomaly. Women do most of the work around the world. They do it now, and they did it back in the paleolithic. That doesn’t give them power over men now, and it didn’t then.

17

Tell the medieval English and French how ‘inefficient’ the simple (not compound) longbow is. :smiley:

I would be inclined to think that both were important, but in terms of caloric value and protein, meat had a considerable advantage. Also, there are always periods when vegetable matter, due to its dependence on favorable growing conditions, is in short supply. My father the farmer always said that in a seven-year period of farming, you would have two good years, two awful years, and three so-so years. Now, obviously I don’t know if that’s true or just ‘folk-wisdom’, but I’m inclined to believe folk-wisdom in this case.

You said:

How so? The digging stick and the simple plow that succeeded it, as well as the sickle and the scythe, can indeed be easily handled by reasonably fit women. The big change that agriculture wrought was that, on a medium-to-large scale, it required more cooperation than the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Back to the OP: the earliest myths that we have records of often refer to a goddess being the wife of a god. However, since the development of writing didn’t come about until the emergence of widespread, large-scale agriculture, we simply don’t know whether the earlier hunter-gatherers married or not. I daresay we could make reasonable assumptions based as much upon the possession and transference of property as we can upon the preservation of bloodlines.

18

Here’s Cecil’s take on when humankind discovered sex=babies.

Actually, I think the fallacy with Satyagrahi’s argument is that a guy doesn’t have to know consciously that sex leads to babies in order to protect his genetic legacy. You’d think evolution would favor males who do that, and you certainly see that in the animal kingdom. Male animals of many species fight over mating rights to females, but it rarely goes the other way. Some will even kill a female’s offspring before mating with her. Many male animals also gather harems (including rhinos and gorillas, I think). And even among the more promiscuous apes, the highest-ranking male gets first dibs on females in estrus. So I can completely believe that, even without exact knowledge of how reproduction works, human males would act the same as they do now.

19

Squish , I have a family full of gun and bow hunters and guns are much more effective. Also, modern deer hunters have the advantage of the destruction of old growth forests, hwich don’t support deer nearly as efficiently as the scrub forests that grow up between farmed properties, and on abandoned land.

20

Yes, guns are much more effective for killing things; that wasn’t what I said. I said that simple bows are not ineffective, with the implication that hunting with bows and spears (not to mention the common practice of driving grazing animals over cliffs) can supply adequate meat in most cases.