This story was originally published on July 21, 2008. President Barack Obama, who has said his views on gay marriage have been evolving, said today he is personally in favor of allowing same-sex couples to marry. Tuesday, North Carolina became the 29th U.S. state to ban gay marriage in its state constitution. As California last month became the second state in the union (after Massachusetts) to legalize marriage for lesbian and gay couples, opponents of same-sex marriage have warned of dire consequences to the institution of marriage. Depending on one’s point of view, the Rev. Louis ... Read More
Monogamy, Polygyny and the Well-Tended Garden
September 27, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
We have all seen the bumper stickers insisting that marriage "is between one man and one woman," but throughout most of human history, that hasn't really been the case. Anthropologists say 83 percent of societies they have studied traditionally permitted polygyny — marriage with multiple wives. (The more common term "polygamy" has the broader definition of having multiple spouses.) Just 17 percent insisted on monogamous marriage. So how did social monogamy, which has spread in the past few centuries thanks to the influence of Euro-American culture, come to be? Most evolutionary ... Read More
Big Love Soaking the State
May 19, 2010 • By • 5 Comments
Last month a Muslim woman in France, driving her car in a niqab, was pulled over and fined $30 for wearing clothes that blocked her vision. A niqab is a full veil with just an eye slit, and the traffic stop has become a comedy of unintended consequences, in part because it's not clear that driving in a veil transgresses any French law. But the unnamed woman is married to Lies Habbadj, a halal butcher in Nantes who appears to be a polygamist in every sense but the French legal one. He lives in a house with his wife, surrounded by houses where four other women raise a total of 12 children, ... Read More
