anthropological reading for my wedding

March 11, 2019 7:04 AM

We are looking for an anthropological reading about marriage as a rite of passage and/or as a contract with community.

My partner is a medical ethicist and I have a background in critical sociology, ie. we are both big nerds. We are having a religious ceremony, but we have a super rad, queer minister who is open to including non-traditional elements. We see marriage as, among other things, a symbolic contract with our community where we make a commitment to contribute to our community, and they agree to witness us and support our relationship.

posted by unstrungharp to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

Khalil Gibran said.some.things about marriage. Here is a piece of it.

“Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts,
but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together,
yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other’s shadow.”
posted by Oyéah at 8:59 AM on March 11, 2019

Majority ruling in Obergefell v Hodges:

From their beginning to their most recent page, the annals of human history reveal the transcendent importance of marriage. The lifelong union of a man and a woman always has promised nobility and dignity to all persons, without regard to their station in life. Marriage is sacred to those who live by their religions and offers unique fulfillment to those who find meaning in the secular realm. Its dynamic allows two people to find a life that could not be found alone, for a marriage becomes greater than just the two persons. Rising from the most basic human needs, marriage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations.

The centrality of marriage to the human condition makes it unsurprising that the institution has existed for millennia and across civilizations. Since the dawn of history, marriage has transformed strangers into relatives, binding families and societies together. Confucius taught that marriage lies at the foundation of government. 2 Li Chi: Book of Rites 266 (C. Chai & W. Chai eds., J. Legge transl. 1967). This wisdom was echoed centuries later and half a world away by Cicero, who wrote, “The first bond of society is marriage; next, children; and then the family.” See De Officiis 57 (W. Miller transl. 1913).

...No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.

And from the earlier Goodridge v Department of Public Health:

Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. "It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects." Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965). Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition.

posted by hellopanda at 9:42 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

" Lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community. If they had only themselves to consider, lovers would not need to marry, but they must think of others and of other things. They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers, pledging themselves to one another 'until death,' are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could join them. And so here, at the very heart of community life, we find not something to sell as in the public market but this momentous giving. If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing."
Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community: Eight Essays
posted by permiechickie at 10:28 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

We read from Goodridge v Department of Public Health at our wedding and it's still my favorite part of the ceremony 15 years later.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:30 PM on March 11, 2019 [2 favorites]

"It is clear enough that marriage is something of a community affair. It is validated by the community, witnessed by the community, commemorated by the community, and every married couple in the world knows something about the pressures exerted on that union by interests outside of it. In one sense, then, a marriage between two persons lies in a kind of gravitational field. The human particles who form the union are held together by interpersonal charges passing between them, but they are also held together by all the other magnetic forces passing through the larger field [...]"
Kai Erikson, from Everything in Its Path
posted by cocoagirl at 6:47 AM on March 12, 2019 [1 favorite]