Now I know why I had never heard of it, the whole lets pretend that Sub-Sahara Africa has actually been culturally or scientificly significant to the world or that there where any "great civilizations" there that were the basis or foundation for future civilizations, movement didn't start until after I graduated high school.
Actually, a lot of civilizations have allowed such things. The one in Africa (which has been allowed for centuries, not just recently) is one example that is easy to find evidence for. There have also been recorded marriages between people of the same sex in Rome and Greece, pretty large cultures/societies and pretty significant to us.
Plus, many of the older pagan religions had zero issue with same sex marriage, from what we know.
And there are several cultures now that allow same sex marriage, including some of our own states. Heck, same sex relationships between women were encouraged during the 1800s in an effort to "prepare young women for pleasing a husband while eliminating the chance of her losing her virginity prior to marriage". (I learned this in HS while doing research for this topic for a debate then.)
Wow, one whole case to point to. Ok, accepted that it happened, but what about other cultures?
It actually was a common practice in China.
Ghost marriage (Chinese) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Other societies allow such things as well.
Woman marries dead boyfriend - SpecialsStrangeButTrue - www.smh.com.au
Posthumous marriage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Undoubtedly this has been true for the Aristocracy in many countries, but only to the Aristocracy and not the common people or common culture. Peasant farmers and other laborers really did not concern themself's with "Family ties", I am sure there are some exceptions, but then we are discussing the overall view, not a few exceptions.
No, marriage has been about property and family ties for every class of people, not just aristocracy. Families used marriages to try to increase their status or wealth from all walks of life.
Marriage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Love or attraction being the basis for most marriages, especially in "civilized" cultures is a very recent phenomenon. In fact, it is only about a century old.
What does all of this have to do with "modern" marriage, simple, the modern incarnation is evolved and handed down from previous generations. "Conservatives" in this case are conservative about changes and only adopt those changes slowly, "Liberals" are liberal about making changes. And why should we be concerned, simple, every previous "Democratic" culture, the ones we based ours on anyways, experienced "Moral Decay" and the break down of Marriage right before their fall. Does this "Moral Decay" and break down of marriage cause the collapse? That is a whole other topic for debate and there is a plethora of views on that subject, but, it cannot be denied that the decay and breakdown of marriage traditions did occurr, especially in Greece and the Roman Republic (Later, the Roman Empire after Julius Ceasar ceased power) Augustus Ceasar difinitly fought against that decay, he imprissoned his own daughter on a remote island for committing adultry.
So, other Democracies experienced "Moral Decay" and breakdown of traditional marriage just prior to their collapse, The US today started off as a Democracy and is currently seeing the same "Moral Decay" and breakdown of traditional marriage, not hard to see why many could conclude that America is about to fall unless we re-establish "Moral Decency" and traditional marriage. And this "Decay" is also coming at a time when we see our Economic strength declining, our military strength being stipped away and the country is mounting up indecent amounts of debt that we may never be able to repay without creating an unsustainable tax burden on our productive citizens. It would seem that that writing is on the wall and we are quickly heading towards collapse unless we change things.
First, your morals are different from mine. I believe there is nothing morally wrong with same sex relationships or homosexuality. They are not immoral at all to me.
Second, your logic doesn't fit in this case since most of those cultures that did have same sex marriages outlawed such things just before they started to decline as civilizations. This would mean that outlawing same sex marriage would be more in line with a decline in a civilization.
Interesting, prior to this, I only knew of Mississippi allowing first cousins to marry, guess it is the only state that allows it and doesn't put a restriction on it.
Actually, the states are split almost evenly among those who allow with no restrictions and those who outlaw such marriages, with the exceptions being those states I mentioned.
BTW, all those first cousin marriages are legally recognized by the US government as well, including those that have restrictions. Which means that procreation or the ability of a couple to procreate must not be that important to the US government either.
