Personally I find this topic is very interesting.
What is marriage for ? What is a family ? And how do we practise this let
me call it "marriage-institution" in different cultures, under different
social conditions, in different centuries and under influent of f.i. our
religious upbringing. There must been written thousands of books on the
topic, I think.
As a roman catholic, brought up and grown up over the past 50 years seing
the "family-institution" with all itīs aspects in modern western society,I
have from time to time wondered. But also tried to understand/ accept.
In the late 60`ies I studied Habermass (Frankfurter-marxism) and also the
family-institution from that "angle", some sort of sociological. Among my
friends, inside my family I could as an adult see how "life" more or less
made you to live with the "family-institution". I met muslim gambians and
were introduced to another aspect of what a family is like and the
marriage- institution is for. Recently I come to study "family-law" at the
university and got that "legal" angle on the "institution", where it is
important to protect the social/legal rights of the wife, children inside
or outside the legal marriage, ensure the heritage etc..
On the recent comments to this Gambia-L we are again back to the Middle
East, where Jewry, Christianity and Islam takes itīs visions/ideal of the
family-institution based on the society those days.
We had earlier on the list debated polygamy- and androgyni, slavery and
violence/oppression against women inside a family-institution.
Iīm also interested in how to approve "marriage" between people of the same
sex, or who is the father/mother of a child where the conception has been
made in a laboratory between cells from unknown persons (or even maybe one
or both biological parents) and the egg put up to the origine mother/ a
substitute mother etc. and the child raised by one/both biology parents, or
even in a biological "foreign" family.
Is it a persons right to "get a child", is it from a darwinistic theory, or
even under a religious angle right to create life/make a child
"technically", because we now master the technique, or do we have to accept
that some humans for some reasons can not make/get a child the "normal way"
so to say ?
Why is it important that the mans brother marry the widow, or opposite as
mentionned in the present comments to the list ?
And as you see from the comments of Payne and Cessey Soffie itīs been
"important" in the religions comming from Middle East, and in many
societies if a child is a son or a daughter, if itīs first born, if itīs
legal born=comming from a legitimate (in that society)
family-institutionalized marriage. This way of thinking is deep-rooted in
the society, in the laws, in the religion Iīm raised into.
The marriage as a social institution, the marriage as a some sort of
"divine" or "sacred" institution and the combination of this has many
aspects.
How the christian marraige from accepting polygami (the first 100 years)
ended up monogame is interesting to understand.
So is how the ancient greek family tradition specially when it comes to the
mans sexual activities influented on the roman civic laws, from where we in
the west still have many of our principles. F.i. from a certain period it
become very important in ancient Rome if sex was with the married wife, the
slaves (males and females). And how the children born as a result were
recognized citizens in the roman empire with all rights, or were still
slaves but taken care of by the "master/father" are also very interesting
aspects trying to find out what is marriage made for in different
societies.
As allready pointed out in Paynes comment, how and where the man "spilled
his semen" has in those societies, as it still has in the civic laws of
todays society ,"importance".
In Denmark we f.i. debate if two married (or registered) women can
get/"buy" semen from an unknown father, get children and raise them inside
a family, even the women will never have anything to do with men. But what
about two married men, who want the same, should they be able to "rent" a
women to give life to the children they want to have inside their family,
which is without women. Is the marriage between people of the same sex a
human right that must be legalized as so ? Is it a womans right that the
society shall provide her the possibilities (comming to a clinic and let a
doctor do the clinical insemination) to get a child of her own without
seing a man ? If itīs a human right, how will the society offer the same to
a man ?
As a follow up on the questions and comments on the list I can give an
example where itīs not the brother who steps in, but itīs the successor in
the job:
Untill some 70-80 years ago it was normal practise and expected, that a
priest in the danish church (christian-lutheran) when he got his post due
to the death of previous priest, he married the widow. There are many
examples of young priests, who were assistant-priests could not marry and
start a family, because he had to be free to marry the widow as soon as
another priest died, else his chances for getting the job was ruined. He
had to take over not only the church but also the responsibilites of the
dead priests family.
Young priests often married old women who were over the age of being
pregnant, so they didnīt get children. And when she died he could marry
again, now middle-aged he often married a young women, got children, and
when he passed away, the "story" repeated.
There was no social help from the state, or pension for an old priest as
today. So the marriage-institution was a form under which the social
security was provided the widow and her children.
The practise that a bachelor-brother steps in and marry/"take over" the
woman and the children was "norm" in parts of our society from ancient days
(described in the islandic sagas, the stories about how the vikings lived)
till modern time. Specielly when it comes to ensure property/land f.in. a
farm. But that was also in those days, when we had no social helping
systems, a women could not make a living of her own for the jobs provided
in society or other families.And land or property went in direct male-line
from father to the first born son, not to daughters. If a man left no sons,
his brother, if he had one, inherit.
So according to changes of the laws, the possibilities in the society, the
marriage as an legal institution to ensure a women, has changed rapidly.
And the religious connection to the marriage-institution has losts itīs
meaning for many many people. There are some people who think that the
service in church is a romantic service they have the right to buy/pay for
to make the wedding more interesting. But the ceremonies says/means nothing
to them, because they are not religious or even frequent participants in
the community around the church.
I could now give more comment from my experiences being a roman catholic
and trying to understand how the family-institution is like in our church,
modern society, and how I over years come to realize how other religions or
societies practise "marriage". I know we have both sociologists and
antropologists among us on the list, so it could be interesting getting
some points from some of them on the topic. As you understand Iīm very
interested in all aspects of the "Marriage-institution", so all comments
are wellcome, specially when is comes to how it is like in societies in
Africa, The Gambia.
For my own you will have to wait for more comments, due to heavy work
moving from my small town Skive at the countryside of Denmark to a suburb
of Copenhagen. Itīs not easy to say farewell to a small community, where
Iīm wellknown citizen, farewell to friends, neighbours, most of the
furnitures, my very big house and nice garden, and move to a small
apartment in a big group of buildings.
Regards from Asbjørn Nordam
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