idiggory wrote:
Two reasons.
1. To procure an heir for the male, which you could be reasonably sure was your own child.
Lol. So it was about procreation.
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2. To form contracts between the father and husband.
With the creation of an heir usually a required component of the contract, right?
You're proving my point.
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It had NOTHING to do with creating a solid home environment, or preventing children from being born outside of wedlock. Men married into rich families, for their own benefit. And a woman being a virgin ensured that their sons would be truly be their own.
Yeah. And poor families went to great lengths to marry their daughters off as well. Or are you arguing that marriage didn't exist except among the wealthy?
The same social pressure existed in both cases. More personal wealth was at stake for the wealthy, but otherwise they were the same.
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DNA testing renders the first point meaningless.
Only because you are looking at someone wanting to know who his child is, but failing to see the issue from the other side. Society has a vested interest in this happening, not just wealthy men who want to have an heir. DNA testing does nothing to encourage men to be responsible for the children they father, or women to be careful not to get knocked up by someone they aren't or wont marry.
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And, which I see you ignored, I DID provide an example of historical gay unions, as did someone else. Your argument holds no weight. Just because you SAY something has some purpose, doesn't mean it does. Just because you make a claim about the past, doesn't mean it is true.
I looked up both the cases mentioned. Shall I link the site discussing the fa’afafines of Samoa, and the clear statements made at multiple levels of the issue that no one has *ever* considered them to be women for purposes of marriage?
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What that means is that even fewer heterosexual couples will bother to get married prior to having children than do today. How much more clear can I be?
Even if this WAS true, so what? You don't want to create laws because it would possibly create a social change, and yet you argue to create the opposite law to bring about a different social change?[/quote]
Not quite. We have an existing law designed to bring about a specific social change. You're proposing changing that law in a way which reduces the effectiveness of that law at doing what it's supposed to be doing, and I'm pointing out that this is a consequence.
You're not creating a "new law". You're changing an existing one. You do see how changing the definition of "cat" to include dogs in a law which provides benefits to cat owners might just affect the rate at which people have cats (real ones, not your new legal definition), right?
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And the argument itself is stupid. That population won't increase because the gay couple down the street got married.
That's not my argument. Population will increase just fine. But a higher percentage of that population will be born to single mothers. Get it?