The Evolution of Marriage and the Lies of the Christianists

As I note frequently on this blog, when it comes to lying, virtually no one beats out the "godly Christian" crowd and the "family values" organizations.  Indeed, if their lips are moving, the best assumption is to assume that they are lying until proven otherwise - something that doesn't occur often.  Candidly, following their constant lies and hypocrisy has made me come to hold contempt for the term "Christian" because as the Christianist practice Christianity it is truly something ugly if not down right evil.  In the realm of gay rights, the lies from the godly Christians are endless and range from continued quotes of faux "research" that was discredited decades ago to the current favorite lie that throughout history, marriage has been between "one man and one woman."  Even the Bible shows the lie of this claim.  But it's also useful to recognize the type of historic monogamous marriage the Christianist worship if they want to protect historic marriage.  An article in The Daily Beast looks at marriage's evolution and also makes the case that changes in marriage make same sex marriage something fully justified.  Here are excerpts: .

President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage last week was certainly historic. But it was not a historical game changer. While Obama may pay a political price for outraging the well-funded minority that passionately opposes gay marriage, he is actually swimming with a strong historical tide.

The country’s division over same-sex marriage is narrow enough for opponents to throw serious obstacles in its path. But it’s only a matter of time until they’re swamped by a demographic tide, because opposition to same-sex marriage is heavily concentrated in the oldest segments of the population. Less than one third of Americans aged 70 to 79 support same-sex marriage, whereas 56 percent of those aged 30 to 39 and more than 70 percent of those aged 18 to 29 are in favor of it.

And the growing visibility of gays and lesbians—in the military, in business, on television, and in people’s own kin networks—is eroding opposition even among the older generation. A 70-year-old Romney supporter told a New York Times reporter the day after Obama’s announcement: “I can’t say if I’m for it or against it, because I don’t know what my grandkids will be.”

For millennia, marriage was about property and power rather than mutual attraction. It was a way of forging political alliances, sealing business deals, and expanding the family labor force. For many people, marriage was an unavoidable duty. For others, it was a privilege, not a right. Servants, slaves, and paupers were often forbidden to wed, and even among the rich, families sometimes sent a younger child to a nunnery or monastery rather than allow them to marry and break up the family’s landholding.

The redefinition of traditional marriage began about 250 years ago, when Westerners began to allow young people to choose their partners on the basis of love rather than having their marriages arranged to suit the interests of their parents. Then, just 100 years ago, courts and public opinion began to extend that right even to marriages that parents and society disapproved.

In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for states to prohibit interracial marriage. In 1987 it upheld the right of prison inmates to marry.

The path to same-sex marriage was further opened up when heterosexual couples began to push back against state control over their sexual and reproductive lives. Until the 1950s, some states forbade married couples from using assisted reproduction to have children, ruling that artificial insemination was tantamount to adultery and any resultant child was illegitimate. Conversely, until the Supreme Court ruled in 1965 that couples had a right to sexual privacy, many states refused to allow the sale of birth control to married couples who wanted to prevent or limit their childbearing.

[T]he most important cultural change that has increased support for same-sex marriage is the equality revolution within heterosexual marriage.  For most of history, the subordination of wives to husbands was enforced by law and custom. As late as the 1960s, American legal codes assigned differing marital rights and obligations by gender. The husband was legally responsible for supporting the family financially, but he also got to decide what constituted an adequate level of support, how to dispose of family property, and where the family would live. The wife was legally responsible for providing services in and around the home, but she had no comparable rights to such services.

That is why a husband could sue for loss of consortium if his spouse was killed or incapacitated, but a wife in the same situation could not. And because sex was one of the services expected of a wife, she could not charge her husband with rape. 

Between the 1970s and 1990s, however, most Americans came to view marriage as a relationship between two individuals who were free to organize their partnership on the basis of personal inclination rather than preassigned gender roles. Legal codes were rewritten to be gender neutral, and men’s and women’s activities both at home and work began to converge.

The collapse of rigid gender expectations and norms has fostered the expectation that marriage should be an individually negotiated relationship between equals, replacing the older notion of marriage as a prefabricated institution where traditional roles and rules must be obeyed.

The growing acceptance of same-sex marriage is the result of these profound changes in heterosexual marriage. It’s not just the president’s views on marriage that have evolved. Marriage itself has evolved in ways that make it harder to justify excluding same-sex couples from its benefits and obligations.

A rearguard action by a determined minority may hold back the tide of history for a while. That is why many opponents are eager to pass one-man/one-woman amendments that will take a two-thirds majority to overturn. But same-sex unions are here to stay. The question is whether our political and legal system will recognize that reality now—or whether gays and lesbians will have to wait until the out-of-touch opposition to marriage equality literally dies off.

It's instructive that the GOP's anti-women agenda ties in with the far right Christianists goal of returning marriage to a pre-1960's model: no contraception, rigid gender roles, no divorce, and male dominance over women.   While that model may appeal to Bible beaters and Kool-Aid drinkers, I suspect most women find the concept frightening.  And as the father of two daughters, I surely do NOT want them reduced to chattel controlled by their husbands.  Yet that is precisely where the Christianist model wants marriage to follow.