Marriage - I am ignorant and need a history lesson.

Heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . . treaties . . . i'm no sovereign state to make treaties with any other sovereign state at this site . . .

No time now, Fishin', i'll come back later to address your self-serving nonsense

Well take your time with your self-indulgent spew.

I'll be heading out for a week long vacation in the morning.

Moving on to any other culture would be completely appropriate, as the society of which we are a part is a pluralistic secular society. By all means bring in Mayans and Polynesians. As to the era to which i referred, i made a single comment about a particular passage of English history, in which religious repression was at its height--the post-restoration period of the Test Act and the Occassional Conformity Act. I simply used that as an example to demonstrate that even when religious repression has been vigorous, no particular attention has been paid to marriage. It is only now when right-wing ranters grow livid over the prospect of homosexual marriage that anyone has demonstrated this sort of concern with the institution. This is the agenda of yours to which i refer. For whatever reason, you seem to be greatly exercised over the matter, enough to use a very vitriolic tone toward me, when nothing i had written in the passages to which you first referred contained the least hint of animosity toward you. You've gotten down-right nasty for no reason which is apparent. This leads me to speculate about what the reaons might be. If it is because you get excited and angry about the prospect of homosexual marriage to the point that you would attempt to eliptically characterize those with whom you disagree as nazis, it must be from a profound disgust with or hatred of homosexuals. If it is merely a personal animus toward me, i can assure you i am uninterested.



There is no basis in Titus Livius for making such a claim, and such a procedure is nowhere codified in existing records of Republican law. In the legendary period of Roman history, which is to say at any time before the sack of Rome by the Kelts circa 390 BCE, there were alleged to have originally been thrity-five gens, or clans, of the order of Patres. Under such circumstances, it might have been a courtesy of the Pontifex Maximus to preside. At the height of the Republican empire, when there were literally hundreds of gens of the order of Patres, and the order of Equites had been created, it is ludicrous to contend that the Pontifex Maximus presided over the thousands, if not actually tens of thousands of such ceremonies occuring each year. I note that you avoid comment altogether on the two other, and far more common types of marriage contract indulged in by the Romans.



It is not at all certain that the Romans did in fact have kings. Titus Livius refers to that passage of the legendary period of Roman history in such terms, but modern historians are dubious. It is quite common in ancient chronicles which were recorded contemporaneously to events which are described to frequently contradict themselves, or to be completely at odds with the bulk of other available records. An excellent example is found in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles when it is alleged that the Saxons utterly defeated the Britons, and conquered Somerset. Fifty years later, the Anglo-Saxon chronicles again report the conquest of Somerset. In the intervening two generations, either the Britons threw out the invader, and the A-S chroniclers remained mute on the subject, or what is more likely, the Saxons suffered an humiliating defeat in their first attempt, something which the A-S chronicles never sees fit to record, even in cases where other records exist to that effect, and the chroniclers therefore attempted to claim a victory when none had occurred.

No Tuscan records contemporary to the period of the foundation of Rome mention such kings. The Tarquins, as they are known to the English-speaking world, may well not have been kings at all, but rather satraps. The latin term, Tarquinius, could as easily refer to a native of the Tuscan city of Tarquinia in southern Etruria, which then exercised hegemony over the tribes of the region. If the Romans were in fact under the hegemonic control of the Tuscans, being the proud people they were, they very likely invented the story of kings who were later driven from the city to avoid admitting to having been under the Tuscan thumb. Your allegation that the Tarquins, if they ever were kings, were considered deities is one of the most absurd things i've ever read about Roman history. Titus Livius lived and wrote in the Augustan Age, when Octavian was in fact claimed to be a deity. That Livius would have neglected to mention such a crucial aspect of Taquinian rule in such circumstances is simply not believable. I have never anywhere else read such a contention, and frankly believe you are making it up. If the final Tarquin king were in fact a deified king, how do you explain the Roman appelation of Taquinius Superbus, Tarquin the Proud, and their determination to rid themselves of him for his arrogance and hubris. By definition, deities cannot be hubristic, and disposing of absolute power, never arrogate. After the expulsion of the alleged Tarquin dynasty, the Tuscans sent an army under Lars Porcenna which beseiged the city, and occupied the Janiculum for several years until the payment of an indemnity by the Romans, and the acceptance of a new Tuscan satrap. This is the Tuscan record. The Roman record--once again, a legendary record due to the destruction of all other records but the linen rolls at the time of the Keltic sack--is full of heroic and frankly unbelievable tales such as Horatius at the bridge, and Muscius Scaevola. A level-headed analysis of the history of the legendary period is that the Tuscans, specifically from Tarquinia in southern Etruria, imposed a satrapy on the Romans, and that the Romans eventually drove out the satrap. The Tuscans subsequently sent an army which was able to defeat the Romans in the field, but not to successfully prosecute a seige--leading to an agreement for the Romans to pay a ransom, and accept a nominal satrap, while preserving the new form of government devised when Tarquinius was driven out. No mention is made anywhere in Livius of any divine character ascribed to the Tarquins.



This is also a statement without foundation. Plato was born circa 427 or 428 BCE--the Romans in their legendary history claim to have driven the Tarquins from the city in 500 BCE. You claim that they devised their government on the basis of the writings of a man who would not be born for another three generations ? ! ? ! ? Really, you need to do far better than that. The "religion" of Rome was a civic institution. All officers of the Roman state had a religious, civic and military set of duties to perform. At no time in Roman history did adherence to the civic religion oblige anyone to abandon any other form of religious observance. So long as due respect were paid to the ritualistic formulation of the civic religion, people were free to pursue whatever religious belief they liked best. The Roman civic religion was never more than a ritualistic and patriotic institution, and one which was designed soley to regulate the civic affairs of the city, without reference to any sacredotal practices or beliefs of the regulated population.



The name of the Egyptian deity you want is Ra, not Re. Ptolemy, son of Lagus, first satrap of Egypt during the Alexandrine period declared himself an independent monarch after the death of Alexander. He then made a bargain with the Egyptian priesthood to preserve the culture and laws in exchange for recognition of pharaonic authority. Hence the adoption of the titles you here ascribe to Ptolemy II, which were formulaic. Ra was the Egyptian sun god, and in fact, his personality was merged with that of Amun millenia ago, becoming Amun-Ra. Amun was the principle deity of ancient Egypt--as in Tutankhamun, which means "Tut, servant of Amun." That you describe Amun as a minor deity of Egypt is strong evidence that as is the case with the legendary period in Roman history, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. The genius of the Ptolemid dynasty was that they preserved and did no violence to the culture they took over, which allowed them to survive as did no other of the petty satrapies surviving Alexander. In that preservation, they preserved the Egyptian institution of marriage, which was contractual, and without religious character.



If you are so well informed about the Druids, then you must be aware that it was a nature-worshipping ritualistic religion, without dogmatic canon or legalistic control of any kind.



Not necessarily--i find it far more significant that only a small proportion of the population of European nations were formally married until quite recently in history. The obvious implication being that in a situation in which rights in property is crucial, those with no significant property were ignored.



The word you want is "treatise"--an written discourse on a subject. If you had read every word i've ever written at this site, and before at AFUZZ, you still wouldn't know enough of me to state anything with assurance about "people like me."



I have quoted myself here, to show how easily you seem to get confused in such an exchange. It is plain that i am referring to more than the christian era--it is indeed you who attempts to limit the discussion to the christian era. Read the passage again, i refer to "long before" the christian era.



You have failed to demonstrate that religion and government were one and the same in any of the socities to which i have referred, none of which were christian. You are attempting to claim this special religious aspect of marriage as eternal by inference--not by demonstration.



As none of our religious or civic institutions derive from Persian traditions, and as the current laws of Iran do not derive from Roman, Greek, Celtic or any other European tradition, nor in fact even from ancient Medean or Persian traditions--this is meaningless, a non-sequitur.