Origins of Marriage

[Max]

I'm trying to google information on marriage, and how it developed or originated. I have someone telling me that it was originally a hebrew custom. However, I'm SURE I read somewhere that it was an areligous custom that was around long before any organized religions.

Does anyone have any information on that, or am I just imagining things?

[Darth Wong]

So when Helen of Troy was described in the ancient legend of Troy as the wife of Menelaus, that was actually a Hebrew story?

God, how I hate fundie bullshit. And I'm sick of the "marriage is for childrearing and gays are not ideal parents" bullshit too. We let fucking tobacco junkies marry without so much as a raised eyebrow.

[SeeingRed]

I think that Max is thinking of marriage as a SACRAMENT, which was practiced first by the Hebrews and then the early Christians, as far as I know. But marriage as a social contract has been practiced by many societies throughout history.

[Darth Servo]

As Mike has pointed out on his morality page, mating for life was around even before there were homo sapiens. However, when the idea of 'marriage' (an actual ceremony declaring two people mated performed by a third party) probably dates around the time of the invention of language.

Your friend is pulling a Palpatine--telling half of the truth; the bits that fit his belief to try and sound convincing. Yes, marriage was an ancient hebrew custom but it was hardly unique to them and they certainly weren't the ones who invented the concept.

[Aaron]

For fucks sake, the Egyptians who kept the Hebrews as slaves practiced marriage. If anything we could say that the Hebrew learned it from them.

[Darth Wong]

For fucks sake, the Egyptians who kept the Hebrews as slaves practiced marriage. If anything we could say that the Hebrew learned it from them.

Except that the entire Exodus story is bullshit anyway. The Jews were just one of many ignorant cattle-sacrificing primitive tribes living in that part of the world, each of which no doubt had some kind of glorious backstory that they'd made up for themselves. There is no distinct origin of marriage, any more than there is a distinct origin of sex.

A better question would be when the idea of exclusive binding monogamous marriage first began, complete with the possibility of divorce with financial penalties. After all, that's the kind of marriage we use today, so previous forms of marriage such as polygamy or wives being treated as property are really not relevant to the modern era at all (unless you live in Saudi Arabia).

[Aaron]

Except that the entire Exodus story is bullshit anyway. The Jews were just one of many ignorant cattle-sacrificing primitive tribes living in that part of the world, each of which no doubt had some kind of glorious backstory that they'd made up for themselves. There is no distinct origin of marriage, any more than there is a distinct origin of sex.

I knew the Exodus story was BS, there being no proof of the trek out of Eygpt but I thought the Egyptians did indeed keep the Hebrews as slaves.

[Count Dooku]

Can we attribute marriage to evolution, or, at the very least, something explained without religion?

From my perspective, in the age of early man, and even our evolutionary ancestor, some sort of agreement was probably needed in order to insure the survival of the species. A woman who is 9 months pregnant probably won't be able to do a lot of hunting - the logical assumption is that the man she mated with would find food for her, and her un-born child, while she rested. Over time, it's not hard to imagine that this once necessary arrangement was turned into a ritual ceremony.

That's an incredibly rough sketch of the bigger idea, and to be honest, I'm probably not the guy to articulate the idea (I'll google the idea to find someone who had the time to fully explain it). But, I think the general concept of marriage, in humans at least, was once a very necessary thing, and is in no way attributed to any religion at all.

[SeeingRed]

Except that the entire Exodus story is bullshit anyway. The Jews were just one of many ignorant cattle-sacrificing primitive tribes living in that part of the world, each of which no doubt had some kind of glorious backstory that they'd made up for themselves.

Although i've heard this before, I've never really seen any evidence for it or heard arguments that support it; anyone feel like pointing me to a credible source of information on this?

[Edi]

Except that the entire Exodus story is bullshit anyway. The Jews were just one of many ignorant cattle-sacrificing primitive tribes living in that part of the world, each of which no doubt had some kind of glorious backstory that they'd made up for themselves. There is no distinct origin of marriage, any more than there is a distinct origin of sex.

I knew the Exodus story was BS, there being no proof of the trek out of Eygpt but I thought the Egyptians did indeed keep the Hebrews as slaves.

They kept some Hebrews as slaves. Egypt controlled the east end of the Mediterranean almost to present day Turkey at one point, after all. There is distinct archaeological evidence of Hebrews as slaves in the Sinai mica mines, but the Exodus story has its origins in the period when Egypt's influence in the borderlands was waning. Probably a few slaves escaping over one of the rivers in the area and getting away from a regional governor. Fast forward few centuries, you have people projecting their present prosperity back to a more primitive and poorer time period and the tales have grown in the telling during that time and intermixed with stories from the Sinai angle and you have the OT bullshit story.

To stay on topic, marriage has been a religiously influenced social institution long before the origins of the Judeo-Christian religion. As to Mike's question of when the essentially present day institution came about and where it originally did so, I have no idea.

Edi

[Edi]

Except that the entire Exodus story is bullshit anyway. The Jews were just one of many ignorant cattle-sacrificing primitive tribes living in that part of the world, each of which no doubt had some kind of glorious backstory that they'd made up for themselves.

Although i've heard this before, I've never really seen any evidence for it or heard arguments that support it; anyone feel like pointing me to a credible source of information on this?

AlphaBeta, by John Mann. Just do a forum search on it to find a number of topics where I've had to post the gist of the argument over and over and fucking over again because people just don't bother doing the legwork.

Edi

[Setzer]

Forgive me for saying this, but it seems a bit like prostitution in societies with no rights for women. The man gets a sex slave and live in servant and a dowry, the family can attach themselves to the husband, very useful for social climbers.

[Darth Wong]

That's why I made a point of differentiating primitive marriage from modern marriage. Modern marriage bears very little resemblance to primitive marriage from the distant past, when the marriage ceremony was more like the closing of a real-estate deal: it was a statement of acquisition of property. That's why the Bible says that females who aren't virgins on the wedding night must be stoned to death but says nothing similar about males. The female is property in those societies, and nobody wants used goods.

[Elfdart]

Marriage was just simply a way for ancient man to demonstrate in public that "This woman belongs to me, so hands off!". As people became "civilized" and lived in groups larger than clans and tribes it became necessary to hold public ceremonies to make sure everyone in the area knows not to hit on So-and-so's wife. So marriage started off as a way of marking territory and property.

Marriages between couples from different groups were essentially hostage exchanges. Chief Generic was less likely to start a fight with Chief Example if his daughter and grandchildren lived with Chief Example and were at his mercy. Royal marriages were like this until fairly recently (400 years ago).

[Max]

Very interesting that you bring that up. The patriarchal period began with Abram, actually. Link.



Hammurabi reigned over the Babylonian Empire from 1792 BC until his death in 1750 BC.

Judaism link = up to present day ~4,000 years (I was off by 500 years, but that doesn't matter after you do the math.)

Egyptians link = History began 5,000 BCE (Well before judaism, abraham, and eber), and up to present day makes it ~7,000 years.

Let's do the math together!

(Eqypt)-----> 7,000
(Judaism)-->- 4,000
------------->= 3,000 years that egypt has on judaism. Thus making your argument WRONG.
So...let's do the math together, shall we? Not to mention that babylonia started well before Eber's reign, and to a greater extent, mesopotamia.

how about this little beauty, evidence of marriage wasnt present in Egypt until the hebrew tribes had migrated there due to a famine in the jordanian river valley

Incorrect, they had arranged marriages.

Ok...so I have a feeling I may be wrong, but I was rushed and trying to get out the door. This is the argument anyway. Just to give you more detail.

[Darth Wong]

Tell him to present evidence of that bullshit claim. Seriously, he can make up whatever claim he wants, but the onus is on him to prove those claims. Anyone can just say a claim.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I think I recall some antropologist/archiologists suggesting theat marriage ceremonies predate homosapians, and probably were practiced by cro-mags.

[Drooling Iguana]

I imagine a lot of it has to do with establishing parentage, too. Makes it a lot easier to tell who a kid's father is if the mother's only allowed to have sex with one guy.

[bdh]

how about this little beauty, evidence of marriage wasnt present in Egypt until the hebrew tribes had migrated there due to a famine in the jordanian river valley

Just provide an example of marriage developing completely independent of Judaism. Australia and the Americas had absolutely no contact with Eurasia but they developed marriage independently.

[Ariphaos]

They kept some Hebrews as slaves. Egypt controlled the east end of the Mediterranean almost to present day Turkey at one point, after all. There is distinct archaeological evidence of Hebrews as slaves in the Sinai mica mines, but the Exodus story has its origins in the period when Egypt's influence in the borderlands was waning. Probably a few slaves escaping over one of the rivers in the area and getting away from a regional governor. Fast forward few centuries, you have people projecting their present prosperity back to a more primitive and poorer time period and the tales have grown in the telling during that time and intermixed with stories from the Sinai angle and you have the OT bullshit story.

At the same time I've also heard stories that Egypt didn't have slaves, at all, instead they used a system of rotating labor 'tax' like the Incans did.

To stay on topic, marriage has been a religiously influenced social institution long before the origins of the Judeo-Christian religion. As to Mike's question of when the essentially present day institution came about and where it originally did so, I have no idea.

Really, it depends on the culture. Clearly it existed prior to humanity's breakup 70,000 years ago since I'm not aware of a single culture that does not have some form of marriage (seriously, some idiot mentions that the Hebrews originated marriage, ask them how then the Chinese have a goddess governing marriage arrangements that is older than the entire Hebrew culture).

Marriage, in Hebrew terms, is about the husband paying the woman's father for the right to pop her cherry and spread his seed. That kind of mysogony does not exist in all cultures, though.

[Edi]

At the same time I've also heard stories that Egypt didn't have slaves, at all, instead they used a system of rotating labor 'tax' like the Incans did.

So then provide the evidence for this. This is the first I've ever heard of this idea and all you can reference is "I've heard some stories". Extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence. Hop to it.

Edi