Marriage – all things being equal

Marriage rights and marriage rites

Tonight by 400 votes to 175 the Parliament of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Northern Ireland took an important step along the road to equity between citizens and equality in the expression of human love.

This is civil rights in its full sense & its proper sense. It properly makes civil marriage serve the citizen as it ought and not serve a particular religious belief which civic society must respect and must protect but by which civic society must not be governed.

This is perhaps the most important piece of social legislation since the 1960’s. It maybe one of the most important since the suffragettes won the right to vote. That ended the notion that women were property. This ends the notion that human beings are worth less because the love differently. The world becomes a better place when civil societies find a legal place for everyone equally in respect and integrity. Civil marriage was  founded in Roman law though other societies had had marriage laws. The Roman practice protected female inheritance and gave women important status. In that sense it was a profound moment in the history of Western thought and culture.

By historical accident the Christian church inherited Roman marriage as part and parcel of its Imperial baggage assumed in the so-called Donation of Constantine. The Imperial inheritance claimed by the early medieval papacy was incorporated it into its own and Western Europe’s religious tradition. The popes who still use the signifer of the priesthood of the Roman emperors – Pontifex Maximus or Summus Pontifex, the title commonly found in inscriptions on papal buildings, paintings, statues and coins, usually abbreviated as “Pont. Max” or “P.M.” The office of Pontifex Maximus was held by Julius Ceasar and thereafter by the Roman emperors until Gratian (375-383) relinquished it.The Popes began to use this title regularly only in the 15th century. Often what appears continuous turns out to be more complicated. And the papal claim to powers over civil legal code rests upon this historical anachronism.

Against this there are other traditions buried in libraries which indicate a complicated history between the church and at least same-sex friendships which may have owned particular function, perhaps similar to a nineteenth century religious, and been  of chaste nature but were nevertheless apparently reverenced with particular prayers as expressions of Christian witness and love.

Ruler and Lord Our God, who hast called the congregation of thy holy apostles ‘to one shepherd and one brotherhood’  and sent them out unto all corners of the world to preach thy commandments bless now also these thy servants whom thou hast found worthy to stand before thy glory to be united in spirit. Keep them in thy name; sanctify them in thy truth; so that according to thy commandments they may become heirs of thy kingdom…..

( From J E Boswell* Same Sex Unions; this Greek Text may be seen in The National Library in Paris. It is dated 1027/29 may have been used to bless same sex unions p. 298)

*not the best photgraph – JEB was a great historian; great man; great friend & great loss even amongst so many. lost of my generation. I was lucky to have known him and luckier to have been able to call him a friend. I met him through Ralph Hexter another distinguished academic whom I cherish as a friend and Ralph did much work on traslation for JEB. They were both truly in the vanguard of making ‘gay studies’ as a proper subject for acdemic research.

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