What's this new crap about marriage being for procreation?

[TreasonousBastard]

14. Actually, it was rearely about "love" until recently...

although it was about property rights and distribution, protecting bloodlines, and establishing a safe haven for procreation (i.e. the "household&quot . Arranged marriages were often the norm, and if love dared to appear it was often enough outside of the formal marriage. If marriage ceremonies were even conducted at all, as they seem to have been rare before the Council of Trent required them.

More to the point, it was to establish paternity in the millennia before we knew about DNA so those property rights and bloodlines could be adjudicated. Seems like everyone was diddling everyone else back then, too, but that piece of paper from the priest decided who the "official" father was.

Some places in ancient Greece seem to have sanctioned same sex marriage of sorts (Sparta particularly celebrated such unions) but nowhere else in world history has it been a major institution and in ancient Rome, Europe, and many places in Asia, it was strictly forbidden. Africa and pre-Columbian Americas? Not likely.

Now, that doesn't mean it's not time for it to be accepted, but silly arguments from all sides should be put to rest.

So, the question now is how do we reconcile the thousands of years of marriage history, law and culture to the present need to respect the rights of same sex couples and give them full access to to the social and legal benefits of marriage.

The simplest way might be to eliminate marriage entirely and make civil unions the norm for everyone, with a big church wedding optional (but legally meaningless) for anyone who wants it. Simple, but not so likely to happen.

We don't think much about it any more, but for much of history marriage not only assumed a sexual relationship, but also required it. Repopulating was behind that and isn't a problem now. Civil unions, however, defuse any moral arguments about sex of any sort since they don't make any assumptions, much less requirements, of sexual activity.