The Huckabee back pedal

[anysia]

Huckabee: On two things. The context is two things. Human life amendment, which I support and which has been in the Republican platform since 1980. And by the way, Fred Thompson doesn’t support it, nor does John McCain.And yet it’s part of our platform and it’s a very important part of our platform to say that human life is something we’re going to stand for.And the second thing is traditional marriage. So those are the two areas in which I’m talking about. I’m not suggesting that we re-write the constitution to reflect tithing or Sunday school attendance. I want to make that very clear.

Human life amendment. Not every religion believes that life begins at conception, or when the sperm leaves the mans' body, or with dinner and a movie. He is still wanting to re-write the Constitution to fit his version of a "Christian Nation".

"Traditional Marriage" is the catch phrase for misogynistic, homophobic fundies. Traditional family, traditional marriage.

What next Huckabee? Want to try to put women are chattel into the Constitution too?

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

"Traditional Marriage" is the catch phrase for misogynistic, homophobic fundies. Traditional family, traditional marriage.

Homophobic, yes. Misogynistic, no. The reason why should be obvious :)

[anysia.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is misogynistic. And that should be obvious.

Traditional marriage, woman is servant to house and hubby. Woman is chattel, woman is property.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Traditional marriage, woman is servant to house and hubby. Woman is chattel, woman is property.

Which "tradition" are you hearkening back to? This has generally not been the structure of marriage in America, though it was the structure of marriage in the ancient Near East (as shown in the Bible).

I guess the real question is, which tradition of marriage is Huckabee hearkening back to. I was automatically thinking "American," but actually, given the context of his statement, it could have been Old Testament ...

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Where do you think the tradition of 'giving away the bride' or the bride taking on her husband's family name comes from?

"What's In A Time"

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Where do you think the tradition of 'giving away the bride' or the bride taking on her husband's family name comes from?

The tradition of "giving away the bride" is very ancient, it dates back to when the West had clan-based societies, and these clans were patriarchal and patrilineal. This clannishness survived longest in the ethnic backwaters, in the British Isles this would have been the Celtic fringe of Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

De jure consent was required for marriage, however, as early as the High Middle Ages, and it became extremely hard to actually force anyone into a marriage starting in the late 18th / early 19th centuries -- at least in the cosmopolitan parts of Western Europe and most of the English American colonies / United States of America. (Before then, a powerful enough local magnate could get away with a lot more). From that point on, "giving away the bride" changed from an actual to a symbolic transfer (*).

To put this in some context, Europe (starting in the Renaissance) was generally less oppressive to women than were most human civilizations, England was known for according women relatively high status (compared to the rest of Europe) as early as the 15th-16th centuries, and America was noted as being even more gynophilic than was England. All the mostly-English-colonized countries have generally pro-female compared to other European and European-descended ones (**).

On family names:

Family names came in during the 14th-15th centuries, and may have been a reaction (variously) to the increased social status of commoners from the Black Death, the increased general level of wealth (and population) resulting from the urban economic revolution, or some other cause. To be precise, family names came back -- the Romans had possessed a complex tripartite (and more) naming system, which had fallen into duesetude during the Dark Ages.

I once would have told you that women started taking the family names of their husbands when family names came back, but I am far from certain of this now. I have recently heard that as late as the late 18th century, women in the English speaking world often continued to use their maiden names, with the married name being for certain purposes: thus "Anne Kemble, who is also Mrs. John Smith," for instance (***). The personal name would not change, and the married name was not the personal name.

This seems to have altered to what we now see as the "traditional" form sometime in the late 18th to early 19th century, probably fuelled in part by the Victorian romanticization of marriage (****). This form would be "Anne, who is Mrs. John Smith" or simply "Mrs. John Smith." Sometimes, a long form might be used: "Mrs. John Smith, nee Miss Anne Kemble."

Later, mostly after World War One, this began to change to "Mrs. Anne Smith." The change was slow, and you will still find older women toda who would use the "Mrs. John Smith" form. Finally, in the 1970's, the notion of replacing both "Mrs." and "Miss" with the single word "Ms." This last change is far from complete.

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(*) There are even older traditions, which began dying out in the 17th - 18th centuries, hearkening back to a time when one actually might kidnap one's bride. But I digress.

(**) Most of the non-European-descended world treated, and still treats, women like dirt. Japan is one of the obvious exceptions (and the Japanese are more male-chauvinistic than most modern Western societies).

(***) Note that "Mrs.", "Miss," and (yes) even "Ms." are all descendended from the word "Mistress," which could be applied to either a unmarried or married woman, and meant "female of respect in the household." No such term was applied to a servant before the late 19th century, at the earliest. This is a complex issue.

(****) By Victorian times, arranged marriages were rare in America or Britain, and thus marriage was seen more as a matter of personal sentiment. Before then, it was normal to marry either by arrangement or primarily for financial / genetic reasons. Jane Austen was, in her day, a romantic radical (or at least reformer).

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

A-a-a-and it's not really a real marriage until the woman's "fulfilled her special calling", and gotten safely tied down become a Mother to the next generation.

Crazy(and so very annoyed when someone's prepared to minimize the woman-hating we're putting up with in society)Soph