Ep23: On Marriage - part one

This episode gives you, my listeners, a brief overview of the history of marriage since its inception almost 4,500 years ago, and takes you through its evolutionary phases to become the institution it is today.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello there and welcome to Casual Fridays. I am your host Dada and this podcast is part

(00:08):
of my I Read Aloud channel where I read fairy tales, short stories, children's stories,
poems, letters and other excerpts. So if you like such content, make sure to subscribe.
You'll find me on YouTube under at I Read Aloud in the search box. You can also find
me on Instagram, TikTok and X also under at I Read Aloud. I also want you to know that

(00:32):
this podcast airs every Friday on the following platforms, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Amazon
Music, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Samsung Podcasts, Podcast Index, ListenNotes, RSS
and Spotify. Today's episode is titled on Marriage. And initially I wanted to give an
introduction on the history of marriage and follow that with a comparison between a functional

(01:00):
marriage and a dysfunctional marriage. But as I was going through the history of marriage
and researching that, it turned out into a whole episode all by itself and so interesting.
It's really interesting information that you wouldn't even think to look up unless you're
really researching the topic. So I decided to actually create two episodes on marriage.

(01:25):
So today is on marriage part one and next week we'll discuss what makes a functional
marriage versus what makes a dysfunctional marriage. And that would be episode two or
on marriage part two. So let me concentrate today on the history of marriage. And I will

(01:45):
start by telling you that the institution of marriage is less than 4500 years old and
it came to exist with the establishment and evolvement of civilization. It began initially
as a transactional agreement whereby titled men, of course, we're talking about wealthy

(02:07):
men and don't forget that it's wealthy men who created this institution in the first
place along with the church. So it was a transactional agreement to begin with where titled men wished
for more wealth and so exchanged their daughters for that wealth. Except that it was said that
the primary purpose of marriage was to guarantee that a man's children were truly his biological

(02:34):
heirs. And this was because polygamy was the rule of the day and the common practice. And
so men had children by many women. And if you think that the establishment of institution
of marriage when it began about five centuries ago or four and a half centuries ago changed

(02:58):
the practice of polygamy in that sense. Think again. But at least then men had legitimate
children versus illegitimate children. And polygamy was the common thing throughout history.
And it was even mentioned in the Bible that King David and King Solomon had up to 2000

(03:22):
wives. In a few cultures, a woman would marry several men. But of course, these are much
rarer cultures. Now I want to pause here and go back to the idea that marriage was the
result of the involvement of civilization or the evolution of civilization. Because initially,

(03:49):
and I'm getting this information mainly from a series of six books written by Jean M.
Auel, A-U-E-L. And she's written the Children of the Earth series. And in those books, if
in the first book, she concentrates on the very, very first primitive type of tribe.

(04:17):
And of course, her books are based on research in anthropology. So it's actually something
that happened. It's put into a fictional context because she wanted to create a story and a
love story through it. But the facts about the clans were true and were researched with

(04:38):
anthropologists and vetted by them. The point is that the very first tribes didn't have
the concept of marriage. They had the concept of families living in a cave, but the family
didn't have to be necessarily a husband and wife. It could be parents, grandparents, uncles,

(05:02):
whatever. And it could be a large group up to 30 or 40 people in one cave. So it wasn't
necessarily a strict family as in mother, father, children in that sense. In the ancient
tribes, women were subject to men most of the time. And even if a man lived in a cave

(05:28):
with, let's say, one woman and different members of both families or whatever, still he had
the prerogative of bedding any woman. So he would just give the woman a sign that he wants
to bed her in public or otherwise, and he would actually bed her. And that was initially

(05:52):
how things were done in very, very early tribes. But the more the tribes evolved, and that's
what we see in the future books, especially in books three, four, and five that she's
written, in that series, basically what happens is the more the characters encounter tribes

(06:19):
are more evolved, the more you could see the concept of marriage seeping in the culture.
So I just want to give you this background about tribal life, because we always think
of the world as it is today, with civilization and cities and buildings and all that. And

(06:43):
we forget that initially a man and woman lived with the earth and were nomads, basically,
most of the time.
Okay, so let's go back now to, if you want, the historical progression. And it's very
important to note that it was the church, the Catholic church especially, that imposed

(07:06):
the concept of monogamy in a marriage, because we're just saying before that polygamy was
rule of the day. And there was actually an ongoing battle between the Western nobility
and the Catholic church, mostly in Europe, of course, because at the time the USA didn't
exist or was still in very early stages of existence. So the Western nobility and the

(07:31):
Catholic church went head to head on the issue of monogamy because the nobility wanted to
retain the right to marry more than one woman. And that was actually the reason why King
Henry VIII of England, and he's very famous for this, he cut ties completely with the

(07:51):
Catholic church and he established what was called the Church of England, otherwise also
known as the Anglican church, and they end up marrying six wives and he also annulled
his first marriage. And that wasn't allowed in the Catholic church at all that you could

(08:13):
annul a marriage or get a divorce. But in the end, the Catholic church prevailed and
monogamy was accepted as part of marriage by the ninth century. Yet, despite the rule
of the Catholic church for monogamy, men took it as having to marry only one woman, but

(08:33):
that didn't preclude the men from having affairs with mistresses. And so the concept
of monogamy was the idea that you marry one woman instead of several women. So you would
have one wife instead of several wives, but it didn't mean that you wouldn't have other
women in your life as a man. Except that any children born out of wedlock, out of institution

(09:00):
of marriage, were considered illegitimate and had no claim to their father's name,
no claim to their father's wealth, and so they could not inherit anything. And that
lasted for around 10 centuries. So it was from the ninth century that the Catholic church

(09:20):
ruled for monogamy or, you know, advocated monogamy. But it was not until the 19th century
that monogamy started to mean no mistresses either. So it was only the 19th century, which
is basically the 1800s, you know, for men to take it upon themselves to be faithful

(09:41):
to one woman and not have mistresses. Well, despite men seeming misfortune with institution
of marriage, it helped improve women's status, especially after the eighth century, when
the church made it a rule that a church blessing had to be part of a ceremony, of the marriage

(10:05):
ceremony. And what also was important was the 1563 Council of Trent, where the sacrament
of marriage was written into canon law. And you might ask me, how did women's status improve?
Well, first, they were shown more respect, and they had the security of marriage in a

(10:31):
sense that their rights were protected as wives because divorce was not allowed, especially
that in the case of infertility, women initially were either returned to their families or
the men would enforce a dissolution of marriage or they would take a second wife or more in

(10:54):
order to have children. Of course, women were still subordinate to their husbands, and the
church still viewed men as the heads of families. And this was seen more acutely in poorer communities
because the wealthy in the end could do whatever they wanted. But the rules of the church applied

(11:16):
very strictly to the poorer communities. And there you see the strict rules of no divorce
allowed as being something very severe sometimes in those communities. And the rules of the
church on disallowing any means of contraception was very strict in poorer communities as well.

(11:39):
And also because women were still subordinate in poorer communities, you would see more
cases, for example, of marital rape. In all cases, 1920 was a major turning point in the
USA when women want the right to vote because it meant that women were now more or less

(12:00):
equal to men. And this 1920 right to vote led to the 1970s recognition of marital rape
by law. So before marital rape wasn't seen as marital rape. So a man could have intercourse
with his wife however way he wanted. Whenever he wanted, she didn't have a say whether to

(12:26):
consent or not. In 1970, the idea that yes, there is something called marital rape became
accepted by law. And this was something very major in the USA. And of course, it trickled
into a lot of European countries as well. And now, of course, it exists in Australia

(12:50):
and Canada. And that to all these circumstances, the bad economic situation, especially after
World War One and World War Two, when men left for war and work was done by women. And
so women gained a sure footing in the institution of marriage as an equal partner. Of course,

(13:11):
the concept of love did also help the marriage institution and women's status because women
at first were taken as wives for breeding just for having children. But with the concept
of romantic love came also the concept of desire. And what some might call manipulation

(13:33):
of men by women, but what I would view as the man wanting to please his beloved. And
so he does his utmost to keep her happy because then he too would be happy. Except that love
entered the picture rather late towards the 12th and 13th centuries. And it was believed

(13:55):
to have been initiated by the French. The French had created the model of the knight
in shining armor who fell in love with someone else's wife. And of course, this seeped into
European literature as a whole. And you see it in English literature in the story of King

(14:16):
Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. And if you're not familiar with that story,
King Arthur was king, Queen Guinevere was his wife, and Sir Lancelot was a knight who
came into the realm of King Arthur and fell in love with Queen Guinevere. It is also said

(14:36):
that in the 12th century, advice columnists told men to woo women by praising them, especially
praising their beauty. And in the end, of course, the evolution of institution of marriage
paved the way to same sex marriages, especially when love came into the picture. Because if

(14:56):
marriage is based on love and sexual attraction, then why shouldn't there be same sex marriages?
And of course, same sex marriages isn't something new. We see it now as something new. But throughout
history, even as ancient as Nero, Nero's time, Nero was known to have married two men in
his lifetime. And there were so many other kings and prominent men who married of the

(15:23):
same sex throughout history. And basically, it's not something new. But you know, because
trans die and then when they are revived again, they are seen as new and controversial. Anyway,
it is very important to note here that this evolution, if you will, of institution of

(15:44):
marriage occurred mainly in the Western civilization. And even though many countries today emulate
that model, there are still villages in modernized countries that uphold strict rules on marriage.
For example, some villages or tribes even because, you know, you still have tribes in

(16:05):
huge parts of Africa, in some parts of Asia, and also in some parts of America and Canada.
So this is not something exclusive to, let's say, third world countries. But in all cases,
it's of course more prevalent in non-Western countries. And so basically, such, you know,

(16:27):
rules on marriage, for example, could be enforcing arranged marriages to strengthen ties between
two families. Other strict rules is, for example, not allowing anyone to marry outside the village
or the tribe. And this allows for marriage between cousins, for example, where it is
very common in such cultures. And the idea there is to keep the bloodline pure. And on

(16:54):
the other hand, some other villages and tribes have quite the opposite rules that no one
should marry from within the village or tribe. And of course, in many cultures and tribes
and villages, women don't necessarily have the same legal rights that Western women have.
Anyway, on this note, I will end this kind of brief journey through the history of marriage.

(17:20):
I hope you found it enjoyable. And next week, we will go through, you know, an in-depth
view on the functionality of marriage, what makes a marriage more functional or more
dysfunctional. And I hope you'll join me then for part two of On Marriage. For now,

(17:42):
I wish you a lovely weekend and I send you all my love. Till next Friday.