Talk:Marriage/Archive 3

message: * 1951: Polygamous marriage acquired overseas deemed valid in Britain:  Married. Or Unmarried?, by O. M. Stone  The Modern Law Review © 1951 Modern Law Review Published by Blackwell Publishing
* 1952: Further comment on it:  Polygamous Marriages, by G. W. Bartholomew, The Modern Law Review © 1952 Modern Law Review, Published by Blackwell Publishing
* 1997: Definitions of Marriage with regard to illegitimacy of offspring. Obviously, the focus excludes same-sex, but definitions are wide and varied even then, including one case where a woman can be married to a dead man, and have children in his name with other lovers.   Defining Marriage and Legitimacy [and Comments and Reply], by Duran Bell; Michael L. Burton; Jane Collier; Louis C. Faron; Sarah B. Franklin; Ravindra K. Jain; Paul Jorion Current Anthropology © 1997 The University of Chicago Press
* 1995: Same-sex marriage. 
Excluded by Definition: Same-Sex Couples and the Right to Marry, by Alice Woolley The University of Toronto Law Journal © 1995 University of Toronto Press.  Includes the particularly relevant quote: "Canadian courts have been confronted with challenges to the claim that marriage is prima facie limited to couples of the opposite sex, yet in adjucating these claims have failed to achieve a consensus, and for the most part failed to develop a coherent understanding of what marriage means.  So, that backs up the "difficult to define" claim, eh? It then goes on through the debate, working forwards through the sociology and so on to come up with a relevant definition about the same as the article's preferred one.
A simple JSTOR search will find hundreds of other relevant articles. Is that sufficient PhD-level publications for you? Or shall I get some more. If anyone needs a copy of that last article, I'll happily mail it them. Adam Cuerden talk 18:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be more worthwhile to look at scholarly examination of the normal case. Mangoe 18:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why? Adam Cuerden talk 18:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Scholarly evidence

message: I am confused as to why some individuals are not satisfied? What is wrong with this sentence? “In Western societies, marriage has traditionally been understood as a monogamous union, and, until the 21st century, only marriages between a man and a woman were recognised.” To me it clearly says that in the developed western world marriage is still primarily a covenant agreement between a wife and a husband.--GMS508 20:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In isolation there's nothing wrong with it. However, it is not sufficient to counterbalance the evasiveness of the rest of the section. Mangoe 21:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why is this sentence not enough?

message: What if we had a history section? what would it look like? Maybe we need a History of marriage article. MPS 22:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: history of marriage

message: I've almost most completely rewritten the first section to work forward from that man/woman/sex/kids basis towards more general discussion. Mangoe 00:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (edit conflict) In general nicely done, although I did remove one sentence that was redundant and borderline POV. CovenantD 01:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  okay, i'll live with that.  what about: "Recently the concept of same-sex marriage has been introduced to describe unions between homosexual partners, though this has met with limited acceptance."  the "concept" has been around for a lot longer than recently.  what has happened recently is that some statutes in law for some juridictions have been adopted to recognize same-sex marriage along with some court decisions regarding it and even some religious traditions are recently recognizing same-sex marriage.  that is what this sentence should say, but i can't think of a concise wording for it.  any takers? (just put it in the article.) r b-j 02:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could make it really simple and change it to reintroduced and leave the burden of explaining the history to the section and the separate article. I'd also be okay with adding making it "reintroduced worldwide" and change the ending to "met with controversy" to more accurately reflect the way the section itself is structured (Marriage#Same-sex_marriage). CovenantD 02:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  "reintroduced" is not making it simple, it is changing the meaning.  and to something that is controversial and represents a POV. i'm talking about the objective fact that it was not legally recognized by any jurisdiction until recently and was not recognized by any religious traditions of note until recently. Einstein is quoted as saying "things should be described as simply as possible, but no simpler."  let's keep it historically accurate and NPOV. r b-j 02:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not true that it has no historic precedent. See History of same-sex unions for more info. As you yourself wrote, the concept has been around for a long time. But what about the second suggested change, to "met with controversy"? CovenantD 03:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went for "used". The history of same-sex unions is controversial and in any case it's pretty clear that the western notion of S-S marriage derives from western marriage ideas in general, with appeals to ancient precedent beng a bit after the fact. History of same-sex unions is pretty dubious in its sourcing and is obviously being ignored by the Loyal Opposition, for whatever it's worth. In any case we don't need ot fight this battle here, but we do need to acknowledge the recency of S-S marriages as we know them now. Mangoe 03:11, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The History of same-sex unions is a bit light on researched info, but I don't think that's because it's not out there. And it's has been pointed out in a thread above that there isn't even a History of marriage article on Wikipedia (and the sourcing for the history section here is nonexistent). They both point out a lack of attention, not a lack of research. CovenantD 03:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I see it more as a very brief summary of the section covering same-sex marriage rather than a quote, and as such wouldn't have a citation. I've suggested changing it to "met with controversy," since that's the subheading used, but nobody seems to want to discuss that proposal. CovenantD 20:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not agree that it is a value judgement. The facts (as the article tries hard not to admit) are that legal recognition is limited to the very few places listed (too many times) and that  most of the world does not acknowledge them, legally or otherwise. Mangoe 22:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  GMS508, Perhaps we could say, "though recognition of same sex marriage is limited to those listed below and at some list of places where SSM is recognized" or some such construction. MPS 22:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  When I stated that it was a "value judgment" I did not mean to infer that the statement was either bias or false. It is my opinion that all value statements must be clearly defined, value statements that are not clearly defined provide limited information and can be misunderstood by the reader. That said, your suggestion would work, but if it is possible I believe a footnote might be the better choice. Too many words and long paragraphs in the introduction are not desirable.--GMS508 23:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:BOLD]] rewrite of initial section 

message: There is still way too much material in here about same-sex marriage, especially since there is a whole 'nother article on it. For instance, this article lists the countries in which S-S marriages may be made in three places. Can we cut this back to something that is a little less obsessive about this? Mangoe 05:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that such a detailed listing violates the intent of Wikipedia:Summary style. You did such a well-recieved job on the intro, you want to tackle this? CovenantD 05:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this would far more controversial. But I personally would cut almost all of this section, since it all appears in the other (main) article. Mangoe 12:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My personal preference  for sections with other articles is to try and make a one to two paragraph summary of that article, and make sure to cite it well to back up the claims. Whilst not always appropriate, it would seem to be here. Adam Cuerden talk 12:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you. That is much better. Mangoe 17:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to see some mention of the rapid advancement that same-sex marriage has made in legal acceptance, possibly by mentioning the date the first was accepted and the number of jurisdicitons that currently allow for it. Nothing extensive, simply a sentence or two that reflects the last few years. CovenantD 18:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Rapidity here is caught somewhere between value judgement and "Crystal ball". I agree a first date is reasonable. Mangoe 20:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Same-sex heavy still 

message: It looks to me like monogamy is uncommon.
From the Polygamy Wikipedia page:
"1960-1980. Of these societies, 186 societies were monogamous. 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and 4 had polyandry."
:Very true - uncommon in the US and Western Europe, common elsewhere. Trollderella 19:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, try "uncommon everywhere except in areas with large Islamic populations"? Or maybe uncommon except in part of Africa, part of Asia, and in the Islamic countries of the Middle East"? Mangoe 19:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether that is an important number is questionable. The map, for instance, shows a near total correlation between polygamy and Islamic society. Looking back at the referenced document, it is unclear exactly what each "society" is, because the reference is to a summary, not an actual enumeration of cases. However, a look at the codes under "languages" suggests that for instance it's possible that each Amerind tribe is being counted as one, as well as the whole of US society as one. Therefore areas with lots of tribes are likely to be hugely overrepresented. It's not even clear that the list of societies consists entirely of current societies, as there is a date value which suggests that ancient societies are also being counted. Mangoe 22:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  also, if one were say "common elsewhere", you need some numbers about how common it is both in countries where it is contrary to policy (which would be expected to be small in percent) as well as countries where public policy doesn't speak to the issue (where it still might be small, but not as small). r b-j 04:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polygamy is uncommon? 

message: It is my understanding that a consensus has been reached that same sex marriage should not dominate this page. So I footnoted where relevant information could be found. But my footnote on religious institutions is inadequate because it only directs individuals to Christian religious institutions. Could someone who is a little more knowledgeable on this subject fix this note?--GMS508 15:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Same Sex Footnote

message: I just reread the same sex section it rings little too POV to me. I would be in favor of deleting the whole section. Since we direct individuals in the introduction to the relevant article I don’t see any reason for it to be included here.--GMS508 15:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Since this article is about marriage, I'm going to object to removing a section on any specific type of marriage. I hope you would similarly object to removing information on intergender marriage. -- Ec5618 17:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not object, but I am going to start deleting un-cited assertions. If editors do not feel it is worthy of their time to cite their assertions. I am going to assume the information is either original research, a personal editorial, or not very important. How long is reasonable to allow indivduals to cite their sources?--GMS508 17:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Throw a  tag on them to let others know what you think is an uncited assertion first and give it at least a few days. CovenantD 02:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Same Sex Section

message: Can someone provide a source that indicates that this is a distinction that has some meaning? Who says that marriages fall into one of these categories? Who says they are legitimate? Thanks! Trollderella 01:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: romantic and pragmatic

message: As a very strange and off-the-wall aside to the extensive discussion on this talk page, does anyone know why Uxor redirects here?  I was trying to get to an article on Green Man's home planet. Odd, wot? MJ the Prophet 15:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well--I searched "Uxor" and saw the redirect; then clicked "Redirected from Uxor" which took me to the Uxor redirect page; and then the history showed that Uxor used to be a definition of the latin term for wife; which apparently got redirected to wife; which apparently redirects to marriage.  (So does husband.)  I created a disambiguation page which links to both Green Man & marriage, with explanation, because nowhere in the marriage page does it explain the latin term "uxor".  So it's not surprising you were confused.  (copying this thread to the Uxor talk page) --lquilter 16:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you!  I guess that teaches me something about navigation on these pages, as well. MJ the Prophet 16:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Uxor redirect?