Granted, most of what I know about the Supreme Court’s review of California’s Prop 8, the popularly approved anti-same-sex marriage legislation[1] , and the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is what I read on online news agencies such as The New York Times, The Huffington Post and The New Yorker. If what they report is accurate, though, then I am completely flummoxed by some of the questionable claims being made by those who are supposedly the cream of the American legal and justice system. Actually, I am not really all that flummoxed that conservatives like Justice Antonin Scallia and the lawyers defending Prop 8 and DOMA would make statements that are out of touch with historical reality. But I am flummoxed that the claims are left unchallenged. Although they all bug the hell out of me, there are, quite frankly, far too many claims to address. There is this one, though, that is so outrageous, I just can’t seem to let it go. I mean, how can anyone seriously claim that for the last two thousand years, the purpose of traditional marriage has been procreation? Really? On what planet?

Traditionally, marriage, until recently, has been about financial arrangements and alliances between families, tribes, villages and nations. Granted, producing offspring was an obligation of the married couple so that the deal could be cemented for all time. But in order to have offspring, you first have to have sex. Since sex is the antecedent event, it could be argued that the purpose of traditional marriage was and is to have sex, particularly since it usually takes multiple sexual encounters to produce just one child.

The idea that sex and marriage are exclusively for procreation was developed after St. Augustine, feeling remorse over his wild youth, argued that abstinence was the true path to God. Sexual pleasure was a distraction.  Over the course of the next several centuries, the Catholic Church was forced to recognize that most men were not meant to become priests or monks. But these men did need sex and spent a lot of time trying to have sex despite the fact that this need and these behaviors put their mortal souls in peril. So, the Popes, Bishops and Cardinals, recognizing reality while refusing to fail in their self-assumed duty to guide the human herd to their vision of the afterlife, compromised by deciding that the “wham-bang-thank-you-ma’am” missionary-style, preferably without too much nudity,  sex for procreation only would be acceptable. But sex for pleasure…that was no longer acceptable in Western civilization, since that would only distract the masses from their glorious path to Heaven. This decision, of course, was made by Popes, Cardinals and Bishops who had mistresses and kept nunneries filled with concubines for their unmarried pleasures[2].  So this idea that purpose of marriage is for procreation is not anywhere close to being a 2,000 year old tradition in Western Civilization, let alone in any civilization.

I’m aware of the fact that procreation was encouraged to occur exclusively within the sanctity of marriage. This was, however, to assure the man that not only did the little baby factory belong to him, so too did any children that came from her womb. This relationship between marriage and the act of sex is probably the foundation for an idea that is close to the hearts of regular churchgoers and Republicans; that there are two kinds of girls. There are good girls who only have sex after they are married and only do so as part of their wifely duties so that they can bear their husbands’ children. Good girls never, ever enjoy sex. Bad girls, on the other hand, like sex. They really like sex. Bad girls are the ones that men like to hang out with. Good girls are the ones that men like to marry.

This traditional idea that good girls are the ones that men are supposed to marry has changed. I think. I could be wrong. Perhaps Antonin Scalia would know.

People like to toss this word “tradition” around. Perhaps they think that it will somehow bolster their claims if they can say “it has always been done this way.” Perhaps they think it makes them look smart and educated if they can make historical claims. But traditions are not immutable laws based upon the wisdom of the ages. If they were, we’d still have young boys climbing down chimneys and we would understand why so many of them needed to suffocate.

Actually, perhaps sticking one’s head down a filthy chimney should be the penalty for anyone who use the words “traditional” and “marriage” in the same sentence…and believes they are saying something profound. As if marriage could be defined as some truly inviolable concept that has existed through the ages.

If someone wants to oppose same-sex marriage because they don’t like homosexuals…that’s fine. But if you’re going to use the phrase “traditional marriage,” then you need to explain what I believe to be a very crucial question. What happened to traditional marriage?

Not that long ago, people didn’t marry for love. They married the person that their parent’s selected for them.  Or, if you were a prairie farmer in the 1800s, you married the sturdiest mail-order bride that you could find from the East Coast. You did, after all, need someone who could survive in harsh conditions, take care of your children and milk the cows.

It wasn’t that long ago that virginity seemed to be an important element of marriage. Women were supposed to be virgins when they married. How else could a man be assured that he wouldn’t be raising another man’s children? Who, in Western Civilization, marries a virginal maid in this day and age? But that was the tradition well into the 20^th Century.

This whole property thing is a pretty important element of traditional marriage as well. Traditionally, women were supposed to change their last name to that of their husband’s. This symbolized the father handing the property rights to his daughter over to her husband. Women were supposed to vow to “Love, Honor and Obey” their husbands. In fact, this vow is referred to as the traditional wedding vow.

In a traditional marriage, a woman cleans the house, raises the children and obeys her husband. Her place is to serve him and follow him. His duty is to lead. In fact, it is the husband’s duty to discipline his wife if he feels she has misbehaved. Of course, today we refer to that as spousal abuse. What’s up with these women changing everything? One would think that they would value the traditions of marriage a bit more.

Traditionally, a wife was never allowed to deny her husband connubial bliss. But that’s changed today. A wife can say no and a husband can be convicted of raping his wife. Again, what’s the deal?

Whatever happened to this traditional marriage that the opponents of same-sex marriage keep referring to?  If they are worried that allowing two same-sex people, who love each other but won’t be procreating on an overpopulated planet, to get married will threaten traditional marriage and the very foundation of Western civilization, I’m sorry to say that they are a little too late.  Thanks to women wanting equal protection and equality[3], thanks to heterosexual couples getting married for love, thanks to heterosexual couples enjoying sex and thanks to heterosexual couples who can’t have children or decide not to have children, traditional marriage died quite a few years ago. It is these people who have brought our unchanging Western Civilization crashing to its knees. So what does it really matter if two men or two women marry each other? It isn’t going to change anything. We’re already doomed.