Article on the history of marriage. Article is summed up below:
theweek.com
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Found it interesting that:
back then, marriage had little to do with love or with religion. Marriages primary purpose was to bind women to men, and thus guarantee that a mans children were truly his biological heirs. Through marriage, a woman became a mans property. In the betrothal ceremony of ancient Greece, a father would hand over his daughter with these words: I pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring. Among the ancient Hebrews, men were free to take several wives; married Greeks and Romans were free to satisfy their sexual urges with concubines, prostitutes, and even teenage male lovers, while their wives were required to stay home and tend to the household. If wives failed to produce offspring, their husbands could give them back and marry someone else.
When did love enter the picture?
But the idea of romantic love, as a motivating force for marriage, only goes as far back as the Middle Ages. Naturally, many scholars believe the concept was invented by the French. Its model was the knight who felt intense love for someone elses wife, as in the case of Sir Lancelot and King Arthurs wife, Queen Guinevere. Twelfth-century advice literature told men to woo the object of their desire by praising her eyes, hair, and lips. In the 13th century, Richard de Fournival, physician to the king of France, wrote Advice on Love, in which he suggested that a woman cast her love flirtatious glances anything but a frank and open entreaty.
Did love change marriage?
It sure did. Marilyn Yalom, a Stanford historian and author of A History of the Wife, credits the concept of romantic love with giving women greater leverage in what had been a largely pragmatic transaction
The idea that marriage is a private relationship for the fulfillment of two individuals is really very new, said historian Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Within the past 40 years, marriage has changed more than in the last 5,000.
Men can thank Sir Lancelot for making marriage about “one woman” and “love”, and Disney can thank Sir Lancelot for making them billions.
The origins of marriage
The institution of marriage is now the subject of a bitter national debate. How did marriage beginand why?
theweek.com
Found it interesting that:
back then, marriage had little to do with love or with religion. Marriages primary purpose was to bind women to men, and thus guarantee that a mans children were truly his biological heirs. Through marriage, a woman became a mans property. In the betrothal ceremony of ancient Greece, a father would hand over his daughter with these words: I pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring. Among the ancient Hebrews, men were free to take several wives; married Greeks and Romans were free to satisfy their sexual urges with concubines, prostitutes, and even teenage male lovers, while their wives were required to stay home and tend to the household. If wives failed to produce offspring, their husbands could give them back and marry someone else.
When did love enter the picture?
But the idea of romantic love, as a motivating force for marriage, only goes as far back as the Middle Ages. Naturally, many scholars believe the concept was invented by the French. Its model was the knight who felt intense love for someone elses wife, as in the case of Sir Lancelot and King Arthurs wife, Queen Guinevere. Twelfth-century advice literature told men to woo the object of their desire by praising her eyes, hair, and lips. In the 13th century, Richard de Fournival, physician to the king of France, wrote Advice on Love, in which he suggested that a woman cast her love flirtatious glances anything but a frank and open entreaty.
Did love change marriage?
It sure did. Marilyn Yalom, a Stanford historian and author of A History of the Wife, credits the concept of romantic love with giving women greater leverage in what had been a largely pragmatic transaction
The idea that marriage is a private relationship for the fulfillment of two individuals is really very new, said historian Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Within the past 40 years, marriage has changed more than in the last 5,000.
Men can thank Sir Lancelot for making marriage about “one woman” and “love”, and Disney can thank Sir Lancelot for making them billions.
