Douglas Barbour wrote:<But the religious ones only work for believers, & it seems
that many people manage quite well by simply living together. >
Hi, Doug,
I'm glad you liked my mischief with mono.
Well, marriage as an institution is a complex thing, so much so, that I'm just
replying to your snippet here. I was thinking, while doing some translations
recently, of how to explain to my editor's satisfaction the situation with
Vallejo's grandfathers, who were both Spanish Catholic priests,
and his grandmothers, who were both native women, some say of
Amyra, others of Quechua descent. The relationships were frowned
on by the Church but also somewhat ignored by the Church when
they occurred, as they often did, among provincial priests. It would
only have become a 'religious' issue if some political element, becoming
a bishop for instance, had become involved. And in the villages themselves,
it was common for most couples to simply live together, and so these
relationships constituted a marriage as accepted as any other in the
village. Though there was also that element of church blessing, when
a bishop would visit these villages every 3-4 years and bless the
various couples and all the children they'd had in the meanwhile!
But, while it is true, that marriage as an institution often has that element
of religious orthodoxy, as Alison noted in her post about this, and,
as you note, that element of the state, it seems to me that it cannot
be assumed that the couples who lived together in villages in some
past before marriage became a matter of marriage licenses or
bishopric blessing, or who live together now in villages or towns,
were therefore free of social and cultural strictures. In these Peruvian
villages, for instance, one is not considered to be fully an adult
until one has married, and so anyone who did not marry,
and particularly more so for a woman than a man, would not
be granted the perogatives or responsibilities of adulthood. Leaving
such a relationship was also rarely possible, no matter what miseries
might attend the relationship, the social and real consequences would
be even worse, and unlivable, and again particularly more so
for a woman than a man who would probably be viewed as
scandalous or the sort of woman to whom all the men in the
village were thereby given access, not to mention the
economic consequences. So I don't think 'marriage', whether
it's officially that or not in terms of religious or state definition
has ever been a purely personal matter, devoid of social and
cultural strictures, consequences, penalties, judgements, etc,
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
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