Sarmatian 15:38 05-09-2012
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
I shall repeat myself from post 18 viz:
At no time in history has "marriage" meant anything other than "one man, one woman" even in cultures that allowed Polygamy the man contracted separate marriages with each wife and could dissolve each contract separately.
I will not claim to be an expert on all marriage law across time, but no culture I have studied allows for "marriage" between two people of the same gender - including the Christian cultures which allowed explicitly sexual same-gender unions.
This is why American marriage-law is so vague, it assumes that the gender question is not up for debate because it would not have occurred to American jurists 200 years ago that two men might even want to get married.
If you're going to respond to my question you might want to, I don't know, actually read my posts?
There's nothing specifically banning a Christian from having multiple wives by the way, that's a "secular" hang-up or Roman Law.
They aren't plural marriages, they are simultaneous marriages.
Why is this such a hard point for people to grasp?
Now you're trying to get off on a technicality. Call them plural, call them simultanious, whatever you wish, it doesn't change the fact that even today in most muslim countries one man can have more than one wife at the same time. It is clear what is expected of a man and what his duties are to each of his wives and it is legally defined.
Christian countries don't allow one man to have multiple wives, either one at a time or at the same time. Law doesn't recognize more than one wife, even though you may have your personal harem of 299 women. You're not obligated to any one of them, except the first.
Therefore, Christian concept of marriage isn't, and wasn't at any point in history, universally applied. It is not even applied fully in the Christian states. Christian dogma doesn't allow divorce, except in a few very strict circumstances while the legal concept of the divorce is different, more liberal.
I see no reason to allow Christian idea of marriage to stop me from allowing same sex couples a legally defined relationship, the same heterosexual couples are entitled to. Now, we may call it morriage instead of marriage, but that's just silly, isn't it?
Originally Posted by Sarmatian:
Now you're trying to get off on a technicality. Call them plural, call them simultanious, whatever you wish, it doesn't change the fact that even today in most muslim countries one man can have more than one wife at the same time. It is clear what is expected of a man and what his duties are to each of his wives and it is legally defined.
Christian countries don't allow one man to have multiple wives, either one at a time or at the same time. Law doesn't recognize more than one wife, even though you may have your personal harem of 299 women. You're not obligated to any one of them, except the first.
Therefore, Christian concept of marriage isn't, and wasn't at any point in history, universally applied. It is not even applied fully in the Christian states. Christian dogma doesn't allow divorce, except in a few very strict circumstances while the legal concept of the divorce is different, more liberal.
I see no reason to allow Christian idea of marriage to stop me from allowing same sex couples a legally defined relationship, the same heterosexual couples are entitled to. Now, we may call it morriage instead of marriage, but that's just silly, isn't it?
Check this out, under "society and culture"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandi_people
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