Talk:Marriage

message: I would prefer to see "AD" used in place of "CE" as it has been done until the 21st century. There is no non woke reason to do so. Regards, Mike Mleahy67 (talk) 02:08, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Both forms are acceptable per MOS:BCE. No compelling reason to change current format given in this request so  Not done Cannolis (talk) 04:37, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 21 December 2022 

message: 1st, there was more to the ancient Middle East than Judaism and, given the  coverage at present and the fact that the actual text of most of the Bible much postdates its content, the Jewish content might deserve its own separate section. In fact, it already has one in the #Religion subsection but, if we're going to do separate treatments, it would make more sense to shunt almost all of the historical content from the #Religion bit down to #History instead of what we have now, which is random bits here and there.
2nd, I don't understand the point of using the much less common term "Near East" in place of "Middle East". Both are equally misleading and Eurocentric, so just go with the one people actually say and understand. Alternatively, use something that's actually neutral like Southwest Asia... but, yeah, that's much less common and involves three seconds of mental processing from most readers.
3rd, in any case, the area should actually handle the complex of ancient Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, and Persia and be mostly focused on them. Depending on how similar/dissimilar they are and how much material is available, they might all go in a lump or each have separate treatment. Similarly, Canaan, Phoenicia, and nearby nomads might slot into that general ancient Middle East section or need their own. Ancient Israel should be a subsection of that.
4th, the thing that brought me here was Herodotus. This section of the History
:In his History, Herodotus reports approvingly of the former Babylonian and Illyrian custom of holding an annual auction of each village's young women reaching marriageable age. He states that the high price of the healthiest and most beautiful was used in part to fund dowries for the ugliest and most crippled, each of the latter being given to the man who would legitimately marry them for the least amount. Despite his praise, he acknowledges the Babylonians discontinued the practice owing to mistreatment of brides, particularly those bought by outsiders, and says that since the Fall of Babylon to the Persian Empire the general poverty of the country had led to many fathers prostituting their daughters instead of auctioning or marrying them off.Herodotus, Hist., Book I, Ch. 196.
bears inclusion in some form, although this article is high enough profile and already generally well-written enough that the source material should be handled through modern scholarship before inclusion. — LlywelynII 22:10, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: "I don't understand the point of using the much less common term "Near East" in place of "Middle East". " The main article is Ancient Near East because it was used by the 19th-century British Empire and archaeologists influenced by it. The term Middle East was popularized in the 1930s and the 1940s, primarily in reference to the Middle East Command in Egypt. Dimadick (talk) 22:54, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:BIAS]] in the "Ancient Near East"