Why do we get married part 2, Better Advice: We Dig Into the History and Reasons of 'Why'
Updated: Apr 4, 2020
What is Marriage? And how did our 1950's ideal of marriage overshadow a much different truth to it's actual history? Over the past 10,000 years, what has marriage really been about? AND what does marriage look like today?
So I started my research. The findings were surprising: while every type of marriage we could think of ALREADY existed in a similar fashion previously, and a few others you might find hard to believe, socially the wider view of WHY we marry today in the 21st century is completely different to our timeline of the past.
Where marriage was once a necessity brought on for different reasons, it has now become something much different. And as such, fewer people are now choosing to marry.
Also surprising, the Western ideal of marriage is continuing to spread globally with some unintended and potentially dangerous consequences.
In this 3 part series we look at the very idea of marriage and the lost meanings behind it. We'll unravel a wedding tapestry of what marriage was, is, and where it might be going tomorrow. We'll look at the big moments in western history that changed our global view of marriage today, and we'll close this series with a recent experience in Mexico that unlocks a hidden truth. A realization lost in space.
WELCOME TO BETTER ADVICE.
Welcome to "Better Advice." In this new series we'll bake a deliciously layered mind cake filled with historical facts, trusted philosophies, my best friend science, real life experiences and ZERO hydrogenated fats - you know, the bad stuff that will kill you. It's a new blog format providing insights from a variety of sources and perspectives. The goal of this series is to dig deeper into the WHY, in a way that's educational AND fun. We'll provide some of the lessor known histories and stories we don't read every day, and we'll back it up with historical facts, fresh perspectives and of course, no preservatives.
As mentioned above, last week we also introduced a new term to the blogging lexicon - MIND CAKE! Oxford Dictionary hasn't called just yet. But anything is possible.
And now, time for Part 2 of our story...
In Part 1 we looked at the first known recorded ancient Egyptian marriage, Yuval Harari's interpretations of Sapiens and early companionship, the fraud of the Agricultural Revolution, the Naskapi Indians unique perspective of children, and how cooperating nomadic tribes transformed into competing family structures within cities once the Agricultural Revolution was in full bloom. Marriage, it turned out, was Darwinian in nature, with the strongest and most well defended ideas flourishing and evolving.
Part 1 also included these interesting facts on marriage within the Anglo-Saxon period of 410 to 1066 AD:
The lost definition of 'wife' as peace weaver.
Marriage predominantly was NOT something one did for love. It was far too valuable for something so trivial.
Marriage was actually about securing family ties. Parents played a major role in deciding marriages across all status levels - poor, middle class and the rich.
It simply took an informal 'I DO' anywhere, without a priest to get married. Insert roadside weddings here.
Marriages could take place virtually anywhere without a priest or any church or state involvement causing a lot of paperwork issues if things didn't work out.
And then finally an increasing influence of the Catholic Church in marriage. How people got married started to get formalized after 1066 AD.
In Part 2 of this 3 part mini series we'll look at:
The Rock Band POWER of the Catholic Church in marriage.
How Spring Cleaning started the Renaissance.
Ancient Greek ideas that may TOTALLY surprise you & are STILL in use today.
The impacts of the Renaissance on marriage today. And TWO major inventions.
How the Reformation & Enlightenment created the Woman's Rights Movement.
The Wild West Movement underway & Our New Ideas of Marriage.
Think of Part 2 today as the Empire Strikes Back addition. Things will get ugly. Sure it's the episode where Han and Leia kiss and a young Jedi starts his training, but in the process Luke looses his hand, finds out Vader is his father, Solo is frozen in carbonite, and the Rebel Alliance is almost wiped out.
Vader is taking no prisoners in this addition, so be sure to clean your room before reading this blog ...or there could be trouble.
**Cultural Blog Disclaimer!** Note: Our research in this 3 part series focuses on Western Culture, i.e. European and North American, for two very important reasons:
1. Whether you agree with it or not, Western Cultural ideals have been spreading globally for the past 500 years following colonization to 'new worlds' by europeans and now through North American and European soft power sources of news media, Hollywood films and tv, and the internet. So it's an important place to start in understanding global trends of today and potentially tomorrow.
2. My old english professor Mrs. Pain, yes that was her real name!, once said "Write what you know, and the rest will follow." Admittedly there are rich and equally ancient cultural meanings of marriage in Indian, Asian and Native cultures globally. But I grew up to humble Croatian immigrant parents in Western Canada, so I was surrounded with these versions of Western traditions for marriage. So that's what I know and that's the approach we're taking. And you can't argue with an English Professor if her name is Mrs. Pain! Mrs Pain, you rock by the way. The world needs more teachers like you.
Back to our story. Let's get started with a very big question:
What transformative events in Western Culture changed our view on marriage?**
Following the fun and free wheeling times of the Anglo-Saxon 410 to 1066 period where all you needed was a hammer and nails to let the church and town know you'd been married, a growing force in the galaxy was taking hold....
The Gospel of Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels from 700 A.D. A really ridiculously old book from Anglo-Saxon times.
THE RENAISSANCE ROCK BAND
The story of the 14th and 15th century renaissance is really a story about sex, drugs and rock and roll. And if you replace drugs and rock'n roll with power, control and stealing someone else's idea, you'd be correct. But it all certainly didn't start that way. Noble ideas and new found techniques in science and art somehow unfortunately led to - yup you guessed it - more power and control by a now rocking and rolling Catholic Church.
Surprisingly, the renaissance was not so much about new ideas, but rather it was a realization that some of the biggest and greatest ideas and philosophies had been almost completely forgotten. Insert Greek textbooks here. And imagine if you will, some Italian dusting off an old box filled with brilliant ideas over 1000 years old. At that moment, the early stages of the renaissance was born.
Yes you heard it here first: spring cleaning actually started the Renaissance - well sort of. Maybe biology is the answer
Ancient Greek philosophies were in fact an early incubator to concepts that we still harvest and grow with today. Ideas on cornerstone topics of existence, life's meaning, where we come from, and why were are here, were all formally discussed and documented by the Greeks. Sealed and preserved for future generations.
To be fair, it is possible the ancient peoples of Sumaria discussed some of these topics much earlier than the Greeks, but as far as we can tell the Greeks were the first to actually setup Universities based on these concepts. And many of the topics discussed are still relevant today.
"War"-panel of the Standard of Ur, c. 2600 BC, showing parading men, animals and chariots
So, here's a Greek philosopher short list of some of those top minds, and their many influences:
Pythagoras: Tired of all that math homework that calculates the length of a triangle? Well you can thank Pythagoras for it. His political and religious teachings were well-known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and, through them, Western philosophy. From painting a wall, to buying a suitcase, Pythagoras's equations are still used today. Even more interesting, Pythagoras believed that woman should be taught in school alongside men. Unfortunately this one obvious today but revolutionary idea was not picked up during the Renaissance.
Illustration from 1913 showing Pythagoras teaching a class of women. Many prominent members of his school were women, and some modern scholars think that he may have believed that women should be taught philosophy as well as men.
Plato: Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. In Eckhart Tolle's Oprah recommended book A New Earth, Eckhart discusses a seemingly new idea - that us humans are all part of a greater whole and from a SINGLE source. But this concept was actually first introduced by Plato in 400 BC. Plato also believed in the abolishment of traditional marriage between Man and Woman as it reduced maximizing eudaemonia, i.e. reaching ones maximum potential, because of the confines created through marriage.