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Who invented "Marriage" ?
- Thread starter chinu
- Start date
It is widely agreed that the origin of marriage dates well before recorded history, but the earliest recorded evidence of marriage ceremonies uniting one woman and one man dates from about 2350 B.C. in the Far East.
The history of marriage | Ince & Co..
Marriage is useful for several things and obnoxious for others.
For
It can be tax deductible.
There are many other legal and financial benefits
It requires dedication.
Certain groups will accept the children of married couples easier than those of non married.
Helps keep you warm at night without the worry of where the next comforter comes from.
Against
It can be used as a contact of ownership
It can give the impression that martial rape is ok
It limits your freedom
Divorce can be messy
The history of marriage | Ince & Co..
Marriage is useful for several things and obnoxious for others.
For
It can be tax deductible.
There are many other legal and financial benefits
It requires dedication.
Certain groups will accept the children of married couples easier than those of non married.
Helps keep you warm at night without the worry of where the next comforter comes from.
Against
It can be used as a contact of ownership
It can give the impression that martial rape is ok
It limits your freedom
Divorce can be messy
Probably saves me having to write it out - or be that bothered: 
www.livescience.com
History of Marriage: 13 Surprising Facts
Though marriage is now seen as love between equals, throughout history it has had a radically different definition
It's also good for one's career, if one wants to go into politics or move up the corporate ladder. If one can show that one is a "good family man," with the wife and kids and dog and cat, then that fits in with a certain image that organizations like to uphold. Bachelors, not so much.
wellwisher
Well-Known Member
The nuclear family is the most efficient and cost effective unit of social structure. The ancients experimented and tried it all ways and concluded that marriage had the most upside and least down side; least burden on culture. They did not have a large social safety net to mop up the messes of today, so today we can pretend all are just as good. The ancient had to do it in a more spartan setting, without a net, where difference were much more obvious.
Unlike many animals, humans babies are dependent on their parents. After a chick is hatched, it is up and running within days. The human brain is still growing several years after birth and it needs longer term care. It was discovered that raising human babies and children with their two natural parents had selective advantages in terms of positive outcome. Today with the resource intensive welfare state we can let someone else do it for you, thereby creating the illusion all ways are just as good. However, children from broken homes raised by the welfare state tend to have less successful outcomes, on average.
Before medical science, STD's were common. After having experimented with sex in all ways and combinations, including with animals, the ancients observed that committed married men and women had the least STD disease rates and the healthiest children, with the least side affects from parental STDs. Today with modern medicine we pretend all are just as good and terms of this natural observation without the net.
What the ancients also observed was that although women would help each other care for children, the men were more likely to care for their own children, than those of a stranger. Today, the welfare state allows strangers to care for children, who work based on wages and jobs, and not the parental instinct and kindness of their natural heart. Now we can pretend all is the same and blame others for shortcomings.
Sex before marriage was not always OK. Women before the commitment of marriage, would be checked by matriarchs to see if they were still virgins. Men did not want a used car for marriage. They did not have surgery techniques of today to game the system. Men did not do as well taking care for the children of others, and a virgin assured the male that his future lifetime commitment, was to his own family. Today nobody expects anyone to stay together and it is hard to find a virgin, so people settle for less, since the welfare state has many mops to clean up after people. Today many are trying to add an abortion mop; system restore.
Science and technology makes life easier, but the down side is free market science can also water down expectations. For example, when computers and the internet first gained mass appeal; Windows 98, the interface to using computers was also made easier for handicapped people, by adding features like voice command; voice to text and text to voice. This helped the blind and deaf people participate. Now what was invented to help the handicap of yesterday, is now used by everyone, while pretending this is very sophisticated. The easier interface sells more goods and service since it can reach a wider market. This is what has happened in terms of marriage. It has regressed to the level of the sexually handicapped of old. The former creates more jobs and justifies the welfare state. All we need to do is pretend this is cutting edge by removing critical thinking skills in related schools.
The best reply I ever heard came from one of our members named Columbus. He said that there was enormous value in two people living together for a lifetime.
In my imagination of how it came about I think it came about and became policy in many places in order to mitigate (but not completely solve) several problems:
1. The death rate can easily overwhelm the birth rate. Therefore diverse genetics and maximum reproduction help to mitigate this. Even in our days when we have new tools to fight diseases, the diseases are evolving. We do not know that our death rates will remain as historically low as they are. In future we may again need to maximize reproduction though for centuries we have seen increasing population and worried about too many births. In the past people worried about too few births.
2. A society where a few men have all the women is not stable. I'm not going to prove it here, but its dangerous to have too many lone men who can't find love and then a few that have harems. Historically you could put all these men into a horde or a military, but it was still a problem. Its a problem even today. Marriage directly helps to oppose chaos and fighting, pillaging and general disorder.
3. Marriage helps to ensure children receive more attention and better education. There are exceptions, but in order to expect a brighter future compared to the dismal present people have to invest in the next generation. Marriage is hoped to maximize this.
4. Better equality and happiness for women, particularly in the past where they have short lifespans. Currently we in the west think of equality as a problem which has been solved (though not equity of course), but marriage is the actual bulwark which makes this possible. Many people hope to change this and to establish a new order in which marriage is not needed. Humanity has a tendency to backslide, however. There are plenty of places where progressive civilizations have moved backwards, and marriage has helped to stop the slide. When society falls apart, a wife has influence with the husband. Without a husband she may simply be a helpless woman. Good times are good, but bad times are guaranteed to come, too.
5. Treaties between factions, families, leaders etc. Marriages provide a kind of hostage situation and a basis to make peace and to guarantee contracts and inheritance. In modern times in the West we don't use marriage for this, but it may prove necessary again in the future. Progressive societies have arisen and fallen before.
JIMMY12345
Active Member
Great succinct reply
☆Dreamwind☆
Active Member
People invented it. Why, I don't really know? Monogamy and polyamory varies between individuals and even throughout one person's lifetime. The greatest use I see that it has in modern times, is to ensure minors and people in general aren't being forced to marry.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
It depends on how you define marriage.
For most of human history, it was quite common for one person to simply move into home of the other and begin having sex. A sort of common law form of marriage.
But various cultures develop rituals surrounding this, to help make the commitment firmer, more permanent. Every culture has rules about who can have sex with whom -- a public marriage ceremony makes things very clear. Remember that jealousy is one the the three main causes of murder.
It seems strange to us these days, but in the past, marriage has simply been the contract between a man and a woman (sometimes more than one) that is best suited to the raising of children. In many cases, it was an economic relationship, meant to keep wealth in the family, etc. If you went back to the 1800s, they would think we are absolutely NUTS to marry for love, as in their view, infatuation is shaky grounds to form a permanent, committed marriage.
The idea that one should marry for love, or that any committed relationship between two people who love each other is a marriage, is brand spanking new in history. It has no precedent, and it will be a while before we can really assess whether it was a good move.
As to sex before marriage, I admit I'm a little old fashioned. Premarital sex makes it highly likely that children will be brought into the world without the security of a committed relationship between the parents. I heard this week that half of all the children in my country are not born to married couples, and I think that's horrible. The number one factor for childhood poverty is being raised by a single mom. In addition to this, not having a father in the home is statistically correlated with some very ugly things, such as a higher likelihood of criminal activity, promiscuity, and poor academic performance. So cut me some slack on my preference for a more traditional morality.
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IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Really? So when two monogamous prairie voles hook up for life, that's because God created marriage? Or is it more likely that monogamy evolved because it is adaptive, and that some cultures have simply sheltered and protected it with ceremonies?
Do you seriously expect a reply to this?
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Of course not. They were rhetorical questions designed to point out your flaws in thinking.
According to you. Your thinking it's flawed doesn't make it so.
I'd say that is less universal these days.
Here, at least, there is less out of hours social networking with families included than there used to be in many companies.
Being able to work back on no notice, or relocate, or whatever else can be easier for single men, and offsets some perceived advantages.
Well...
What are you suggesting about marriage? That it's for a male and a female, and that's the end of the story?
Or that it should be done in a religious context?
Or??
InChrist
Free4ever
I agree. The Creator of heaven and earth instituted marriage .
What is the purpose of marriage? | GotQuestions.org
What is the purpose of marriage? Why get married? What is the biblical value and importance of marriage?
www.gotquestions.org
It seems to be tolerated more than in the past. In the past, there were stronger social pressures for men to be married, at least if they wanted to reach a certain level in an organization. It seems it may be more a matter of the image it conveys, such as one might see with politicians. "Good family man" type of image. Being divorced also carried a bit of a stigma back in the day, but nowadays, not so much.
anotherneil
Member
To me it seems as if the De Beers Group might be behind contemporary marriage standards & conventions for the purpose of maintaining a market to sell their diamonds, in the same vein as the idea of a "Hallmark holiday" for their greeting card market.
Invention of things like marriage, funerals,
language, etc are unknowable because
they happened in pre-history. Some might
have origins found archeologically, but
such things are always subject to new
discoveries.
That's one view. The other is God did it.
language, etc are unknowable because
they happened in pre-history. Some might
have origins found archeologically, but
such things are always subject to new
discoveries.
That's one view. The other is God did it.
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