Another excellent piece by Classically Liberal. It refutes three of the major myths disseminated about marriage in their efforts to deny it to same-sex couples.
Myth #1
Marriage has not always been about one man and one woman. History is filled with accounts of polygamy. Some of the most fanatical defenders of “traditional marriage,” the Mormons, are themselves frequently descendants of polygamists. Mormonism taught polygamy and condemned the “one man, one woman” concept of marriage.
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There has never been a time when marriage was exclusive limited to “one man and one woman.”
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Myth #2
It is claimed that marriage has always been between individuals of the opposite sex. Christians, in particular, are known to make this pronouncement with utter assurance. Yet this simply is not true.
Consider that the Christian emperor of Rome, Theodosius II, created a code of Christian law for the Roman Empire. In that code he specifically banned same-sex marriage. Why? Why ban something that was never practiced? In fact it was practiced and it was well known.
One historian writes:
Marriages between males or between females were legal and familiar among the upper classes. Even under the Republic, as has been noted, Cicero regard the younger Curio’s relationship with another man as a marriage, and by the time of the early Empire references to gay marriages are commonplace. The biographer of Elagabalus maintains that after the emperor’s marriage to an athlete from Smyrna, any male who wished to advance at the imperial court either had to have a husband or pretend that he did. Martial and Juvenal both mention public ceremonies involving the families, dowries and legal niceties.
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Myth #3
Many on the religious right claim that marriage was a “divine institution” all along and that the state took control of marriage from the church.
This is utterly false. Marriage was neither connected to the church or to the state for much of human history. A marriage basically amounted to two individuals announcing their marriage to friends and family and setting up house. There may have been a “wedding feast” as depicted in the New Testament but there was no church ceremony. Early Christian churches had nothing to do with marriage. They did not perform marriages.
The first attempt by the Christian sect to take control of marriage was in 1545 when the Council of Trent announced that marriages would no longer be recognized as valid unless a priest performed them with two witnesses present. Prior to that a marriage was considered valid if two individuals merely pledged themselves to one another, regardless if anyone else knew about the matter. Martin Luther went further than Calvin and said marriage was “of the earthly kingdom” and “subject to the prince, not to the Pope.”
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The state did not take over marriage. First, marriage was entirely private without interference of either church or state. Catholicism started to exert control over marriage in 1545 and then the Protestant Reformations demanded that the state take ultimate control over marriage. Of course, they assumed the state would be under their control at the time. Certainly when Calvin pushed his detailed regulations of marriage onto the law books in Geneva he was, for all intents and purposes, the ruler of that poor city.
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And while I’m at it:
When Same-Sex Marriage Was A Christian Rite
A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men.
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While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (AD 512 - 518) explained that, “we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life”. This is not a case of simple “adelphopoiia.” In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the “sweet companion and lover” of St. Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus’s close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers. But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as “erastai,” or “lovers”. In other words, they were a male homosexual couple. Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.
Contrary to myth, Christianity’s concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.
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Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12thand/ early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.
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Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic “Office of the Same Sex Union”, uniting two men or two women, had the couple lay their right hands on the Gospel while having a crucifix placed in their left hands. After kissing the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.
Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.
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While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.
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Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, commonly considered the genesis of the official Gay Rights Movement. The 
Here’s to the brave souls who fought at Stonewall, in every battle since, and every battle yet to come. One way or another the bigots will lose this, even if it takes another forty years, or more.
