EiH asks, What is “the Sanctity of Marriage?”

Photo by kathleenjoyful on Flickr

With Maine voters heading to the polls to vote on same-sex marriage today, I’ve seen a couple of fear-mongering commercials about the collapse of civilization should gay couples have the right to marry. Will same-sex marriage really open the door to a terrible new world? Currently, 1 in 2 marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, while 15% of married women and 25% of married men commit adultery. Then there are the arranged marriages and marriages of convenience, which people around the world use to gain wealth. You may think these are new trends, but they’re not, as illustrated by the following examples:

• In an effort to have a son, Henry VIII married six different women, beheading two of them, and created a religion just so that he could divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
• The most exclusive club in the world, the American ex-Presidents Club, is known for its philandering members.
• Lucius Aurelius Verus, Roman co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius, once famously said to his wife, “Uxor enim dignitatis nomen est, non voluptatis (Wife is the name of dignity, not bliss).”
• Abraham, progenitor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, fathered a son, Ishmael, with one of his wife’s servants.
• The spouses of European royalty were often chosen based on what each family would gain.

With conservative groups going on about preserving the sanctity of marriage, it makes you wonder what all the fuss is about. All it takes is a quick glance at a history book to see that there is no sanctity to preserve. Marriage has always been treated so superficially, so what right does anyone have to say who can and cannot marry? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments, but please keep it civil.

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