In England, 100 miles is a long way.
In America, 100 years is a long time.
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You are bang on correct, the article explains that nicely for those that donât get it, weâre using what is essentially the roman idea of marriage, I read that bible thing a few hundred times, arenât they the bad guys in that book? Itâs a civil institution that has long been co-mingled with religion, great, no problem if people want to sanctify and celebrate their marriage inside their faith.
But that doesnât mean religion should be involved in deciding who gets married, thereâs a perfectly valid argument, even accepting the alleged tenets of the far christian right to allow gay marriage. (Short version, itâs none of the stateâs damn business, if you want your religious freedom the best way to keep it is by making sure everyone else does to.)
As a philosophical matter I think the state should only recognize civil unions and some sort of contract about property sharing, childrenâs custody should be similarly handled. (I mean gay and straight, not just same sex.) This is a crazy utopian dream and not even remotely practical to get done in the real world.
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First, note that The Council of Trent lasted for several years; it opened at Trent on 13 December, 1545, and closed on 4 December, 1563. The specific canons linked to regarding marriage as a definitive sacrament (http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct24.html) affirmed that, as I noted, âcanon law specifically named marriage unilaterally (and retroactively) as one of the seven holy sacraments in canon law.â
This was the definitive, authoritative declaration; earlier efforts were not so formal, and there was still considerable debate about the status of marriage as a sacrament even after Trent. You will note that as the linked text makes clear, the date of the specific session declaring marriage as a sacrament was the 24th session, âBeing the eighth under the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IV., celebrated on the eleventh day of November, MDLXIII.â But the Council Of Trent opened in 1547, and that opening date is in fact the date associated with Trent, and is the date that is customarily cited for the council itself.
Note also that I said âIt was another four hundred years or so before the church formally declared that weddings must be performed in public, by a priest, and before witnessesâ Trent did not require witnesses; the marriage was authenticated by the mere presence of the two parties and the priest. Witnesses were not required unless there were expectations of objections to the legitimacy of the participants or the banns. This particular issue is about the necessity for public witness that a marriage did indeed take place. The specific date witnesses were required became a matter of national law, in part because of the Protestant Reformation.
For a more complete exploration of the requirement that **all three elements be present, see Henry Ansgar Kelly. Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, l975; second ed. Wipf and Stock, 2004. See particularly the sections concerning sponsalia per verba de praesenti, and so-called âclandestine marriage.â Kellyâs The Matrimonial Trials of Henry VIII. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976 also provides useful background.
Professor Kelly was in fact the person under whom I studied canon law, and whom I assisted with the UCLA Corpus Juris Canonici (1582) project while I was a UCLA staff member and Ph.D. candidate.
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It has, unfortunately, come out that quite a few of our parliamentarians were, or in some cases Iâm sure still are, enthusiastic child rapists.
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Didnât you know? You published your thing on the internet. Ipso facto, ergo, it was ânot very well researched and must have been written by somebody who doesnât know a lot about church history.â
Sarcasm at @wayâs expense aside, thank you for coming to the comments to defend your work.
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But what youâre doing there (unless youâre advocating breaking marriage down into individual legal components that couples can arbitrarily bundle together, which is interesting but messy) is essentially just renaming âmarriageâ to âcivil union,â and only then because certain religious folk are wanting to co-opt the term. (And theyâre only doing that because they mistakenly believe that marriage is something done by the church when it isnât - itâs done by the state.) To which I say, screw 'em. Those people donât get to own the term. Those people have confused the (sometimes religious) ceremony for the institution of marriage itself - the confusion hasnât been helped by the fact that the person doing the ceremony is allowed to help couples do the (stateâs) marriage paperwork. The better solution seems to me to be cleanly decoupling marriage from the ceremony (and thus religion) entirely. Some states allow couples to get married without an officiant - all states should do that. If people also then want to have a ceremony (religious or not), they can, and it becomes clear that the ceremony is just a meaningless ceremony unrelated to the granting of a marriage license.
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[quote="lisaspangenberg, post:84, topic:37484]
The specific canons linked to regarding marriage as a definitive sacrament (CT24) affirmed that, as I noted, âcanon law specifically named marriage unilaterally (and retroactively) as one of the seven holy sacraments in canon law.â[/quote]
Those canons are not canons of canon law and they donât affirm anything of the kind you claim. The doctrinal introduction affirms much to the contrary:
[âŚ] with reason have our holy Fathers, the Councils, and the tradition of the universal Church, always taught, that it [matrimony] is to be numbered amongst the sacraments of the new law [âŚ]
[quote="lisaspangenberg, post:84, topic:37484]
This was the definitive, authoritative declaration; earlier efforts were not so formal, and there was still considerable debate about the status of marriage as a sacrament even after Trent.[/quote]
That earlier declarations may be considered to be not of the same definitive and authoritative character I would admit. But they show that indeed earlier councils already stated the doctrine clearly and explicitly and it is wrong therefor to insinuate that the council changed here anything in the way of the churchâs doctrine by naming marriage âunilaterallyâ and âretroactivelyâ as one of the seven holy sacraments. Iâm not aware of any âconsiderable debate about the status of marriage as a sacrament even after Trentâ inside the Catholic church. (Expect of course, that today everything is debated.) Catholic theologians after Trent did not question the sacramentality or marriage but defended it. If you can provide any reliable sources which would show the existence of this âconsiderable debateâ I would happily be corrected.
[quote="lisaspangenberg, post:84, topic:37484]
Note also that I said âIt was another four hundred years or so before the church formally declared that weddings must be performed in public, by a priest, and before witnessesâ Trent did not require witnesses; the marriage was authenticated by the mere presence of the two parties and the priest.[/quote]
Again what you claim is directly contradicted by the text of the Council:
Those who shall attempt to contract marriage otherwise than in the presence of the parish priest, or of some other priest by permission of the said parish priest, or of the Ordinary, and in the presence of two or three witnesses; the holy Synod renders such wholly incapable of thus contracting and declares such contracts invalid and null, as by the present decree It invalidates and annuls them.
Funny way of not requiring witnesses.
[quote="lisaspangenberg, post:84, topic:37484]
Witnesses were not required unless there were expectations of objections to the legitimacy of the participants or the banns. This particular issue is about the necessity for public witness that a marriage did indeed take place.[/quote]
One only has to read the text of the Council carefully to see that this is not its meaning.
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When I started to read the piece I expected to be it well researched. Only to find out otherwise.
Well, I kind of am, or was, in a perfect world, I think you should be able to form a social civil union with your partner, share the house, but not the cars, retirement, but not the house, however you two see fit. We are far from ready for such a thing, as a society, itâs a libertarian dream. They have good dreams, but shitty ideas, and thereâs almost never a logical or plausible way to get from the real world to their imagined dream world.
Iâve always thought that anti-SSM arguments were disingenuous. They attempt to use logic and âhistoryâ, etc, when the truth of it isâthey donât understand SSM and theyâre afraid of it for that reason. It makes them uncomfortable on a personal level. Full stop.
There is no logical, rational reason to prevent a same-sex marriage. Itâs always been about fear, ignorance, and personal disgust.
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If you read the full text of the Chapter youâre quoting, youâll know that as @lisaspangenberg wrote:
Sheâs quite correct. The text is about the eradication of clandestine marriages, and requires that priests announce the impending nuptials to their flock and then:
if there be no lawful impediment opposed, the marriage shall be proceeded with in the face of the church; where the parish priest, after having interrogated the man and the woman, and heard their mutual consent, shall either say, âI join you together in matrimony, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;â or, he shall use other words, according to the received rite of each province. But if upon occasion, there should be a probable suspicion that the marriage may be maliciously hindered, if so many publications of banns precede it; in this case either one publication only shall be made; or at least the marriage shall be celebrated in the presence of the parish priest, and of two or three witnesses:
The witnesses are only required to ensure no problems arise from previously secret marriages, or previously illegal marriages that a couple now wish to have validated by the Church. An announced marriage receiving no complaints wonât require witnesses.
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I think thatâs whatâs known as a prenuptial agreement.
Yes, it didnât help that the woman who was selected to run the investigation into powerful people raping children was herself a known advocate of the Church of England who had helped cover up rapes by bishops.
Oh, she was great, her. The horrible bastards.
I wonder how she was selected? They didnât, by any chance, have people who raped children choose someone to investigate themselves, did they?
I donât think the people that selected her were involved in the specific crimes she was to investigate simply because it was before they were in power.
The reason that she was selected from amongst the sort of judge who would do this is because sheâs a woman, which made it very difficult to un-select her when it became clear that not only was she someone who was compromised by her affiliation to the Church, which had caused her to cover up for a sex criminal bishop, but also two members of her family had also been involved in covering up Christian rapes of children,
The longer she clung to the position, the more was revealed about her unsuitability to even be a judge, let alone one handling an investigation of this nature.
The political reality in Britain is that if one selects a man for a post, even one that is well qualified and known to be free of such issues, one gets grief for âignoring qualified womenâ and if you select a woman who lacks even basic personal integrity and who is complicit in sex crimes you risk being called sexist if you fire her.
Thus the government found itself defending this indefensible woman, for weeks whilst those who alleged various crimes were increasingly loud in the media about her complete unsuitability.
This is of course not good for other women who aspire to other important positions, since it engenders the idea of useless women who only get their positions because of tokenism.
Iâve observed the tendency to defend really indefensible people regardless of their sex. I think it has more to do with the people who appointed them not being willing to admit they made a mistake. If the person goes, they will have to answer, âWhy did you pick them in the first place?â The worse the person is, the more defensive they get.
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Yes, that is true as well.
If you pick a man because he is a man rather than an honest competent person then you can expect to have to defend that decision.
Same with picking a woman.
âŚnearly.
Most senior judges are men, so if your criterion was âmust be maleâ, you can at least dodge the most useless of them.
If you decide that you need a senior woman judge then because the set is smaller, your lack of choice means you risk picking someone as awful at Butler-Sloss.
The Telegraph is the most right wing of the mainstream newspapers, sympathetic to both the Conservative party who chose her and Christianity, so is the least hostile to Butler-Sloss as you could hope for:
This article shows what happens when you pick someone on the basis of sex:
I feel like thereâs a lot more going into it. Itâs not like there arenât tons and tons of competent female judges (or anythings). But a person who is fundamentally sexist who feels like they have to pick a woman because of public pressure is still going to be sexist.
They probably are going to have some pretty formed ideas in their heads about why women arenât suitable as judges. They are going to be looking for a woman who suits their mental model of what a female judge is rather than a woman fits a more broadly accepted idea of what competent judge is. Their criteria for being a good judge includes âbeing a manâ so their judgment when it comes to criteria for selecting judges is pretty suspect. They are likely to go looking for the woman who most agrees with them that women shouldnât be judges, or just pick a woman at random because they are all the same.
If there are twice as many male judges as female judges, there is exceedingly little reason to think that there is any difference between the most qualified of each. But when sexist idiots think they just have to pick any women to appease a certain constituency they are actually just being idiots. I donât think the blame rests with the complaints that there arenât enough women in positions of power, the blame rests with the morons who have power right now.
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According to tacitus. the germans had pretty traditional marriage
Their marriage code, however, is strict, and indeed no part of their manners is more praiseworthy. Almost alone among barbarians they are content with one wife, except a very few among them, and these not from sensuality, but because their noble birth procures for them many offers of alliance. The wife does not bring a dower to the husband, but the husband to the wife. The parents and relatives are present, and pass judgment on the marriage-gifts, gifts not meant to suit a womanâs taste, nor such as a bride would deck herself with, but oxen, a caparisoned steed, a shield, a lance, and a sword. With these presents the wife is espoused, and she herself in her turn brings her husband a gift of arms. This they count their strongest bond of union, these their sacred mysteries, these their gods of marriage. Lest the woman should think herself to stand apart from aspirations after noble deeds and from the perils of war, she is reminded by the ceremony which inaugurates marriage that she is her husbandâs partner in toil and danger, destined to suffer and to dare with him alike both in in war. The yoked oxen, the harnessed steed, the gift of arms proclaim this fact. She must live and die with the feeling that she is receiving what she must hand down to her children neither tarnished nor depreciated, what future daughters-in-law may receive, and maybe so passed on to her grandchildren.
Thus with their virtue protected they live uncorrupted by the allurements of public shows or the stimulant of feastings. Clandestine correspondence is equally unknown to men and women. Very rare for so numerous a population is adultery, the punishment for which is prompt, and in the husbandâs power. Having cut off the hair of the adulteress and stripped her naked, he expels her from the house in the presence of her kinsfolk, and then flogs her through the whole village. The loss of chastity meets with no indulgence; neither beauty, youth, nor wealth will procure the culprit a husband. No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted. Still better is the condition of those states in which only maidens arc given in marriage, and where the hopes and expectations of a bride are then finally terminated. They receive one husband, as having one body and one life, that they may have no thoughts beyond, no further-reaching desires, that they may love not so much the husband as the married state. To limit the number of children or to destroy any of their subsequent offspring is accounted infamous, and good habits are here more effectual than good laws elsewhere.
