Can’t believe I missed this discussion Soca Junkie, thanks for bringing it up. The article itself, however, is an excellent example of why an improper understanding of history translates into flawed analyses and decision-making socially and ultimalely politically.

While the article itself is correct in the argument that marriage is for the most part an institution of exploitation and marginalisation of women, it is nevertheless historically flawed since that exploitation existed for the most part in patriarchal nomadic societies where women wee seen as baggage did little more than contribute babies – male preferably – to sustain the existence of the warrior-oriented culture. This view of women was maintained even after these societies more or less settled down in urban city-states such as Greece. Also, Mesopotamia could not have been the first society in which formalised marriage existed since that culture was not even the first civilisation in existence and therein lies the problem: the refusal of Eurocentric anthropologists to 1) look to African cultures and acknowledge that these predated those of Sumer 2) their almost unanimous refusal use myths and allegorical poems as historical indicators. That essay reflected the analysis of Engels rather than those of Diop and Gerald Massey.

These early cultures were matrilineal and the institution of marriage saw the woman having the power; it was the men who changed their names and it was they who moved into the woman’s community. Even then, there was no exploitation of the sort people normally envision existing in marriage in the Western sense. Depending on the ecological conditions of the society the union may be polygamous or monogamous as in the case of Ancient Egypt and husbands were bound by honour and obligation to treat their wives with respect. I have read Egyptian marriage contracts in which the prospective husband promised the bride’s father to honour his wife and expect severe physical punishment if that contract was broken. Note also that in matrilineal societies the woman was free to divorce the man (this did not only exist in Africa but among several Native American communities such as the Iroquois).

The view that when the Church got involved in the institution of marriage its blessings improved the lot of wives and taught men “to show greater respect for their wives” is utter rubbish and just Christian propaganda; all Christianity did was to formalise the contemptuous, schizophrenic view patriarchal Eurasian cultures held of women and human sexuality. In fact, to this day there still is no such thing as a Christian wedding ceremony – the ceremony held in Christian churches was taken from Anglo-Saxon common law rituals – because early Christianity was never involved in marriage at all: it was staunchly opposed to marriage. If marriage was “widely accepted in the Catholic Church as a sacrament…” then how come in the 9th century it was only held on the steps OUTSIDE the church’s LOCKED doors? It wasn’t moved into the church until around the 12th century. The Church got into the act only when it realised that it was losing a really good way of making easy money.

My argument is this: whatever examination of marriage and gender relationships, whatever designs there may be of improving the “lot of women” will be doomed to failure or at the very least be a lot more difficult as long as it is continued to be done within the Eurocentric, patriarchal framework. The society itself has a male-centred ethic too deeply ingrained into it to be anything else. Any reform without examining ancient agrarian societies (in their proper context) will be a waste of time and the many previous attempts from the 2nd century down to the 19th/early 20th centuries bear that out. It’s a vicious cycle (not that I don’t think that it’s coming to an end with the advances in mass communication and access to information) and one that is also, at a different level tied in to the way we resolve problems – i.e. resorting to violence and warfare, another trait of patriarchal hunter-gatherer societies, but that’s another matter.