Șapte cuvinte despre mariajul tradițional în trecut (1/7)

Our ancestors hoped for in a “traditional marriage” isn’t quite the roses and white picket fence that they believe it to be. Even though the definition of marriage as “an agreement between two people” has never changed, if you take a look into history it seems as though the idea of traditional marriage has. (Lisa M. Douglas)

* People didn’t marry for love. In “traditional marriage,” love was considered a childish notion that had no place in a marriage. In ancient Rome it was believed to be inappropriate for husbands and wives to be in love; Seneca, the philosopher, said that there was nothing more impure than a man loving his wife like a mistress. The advice in the 1700s was to get married to someone you could tolerate progress! But it wasn’t until the 1920s that people started marrying for love en masse, coining the term “love marriage.”

* People weren’t happy to get married. Loving, blissful commitment wasn’t exactly synonymous with the true traditional marriage our ancient ancestors experienced. Why? Marriage was an arrangement that many were forced into. Four thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, marriage was equivalent to slavery; in the year 400 A.D. many church officials actually opposed marriage describing it as “bondage.”