Traditional Families

Well, this is interesting. All that stuff about the Christian "traditional family" that you hear, that always struck me as kind of funny. Families in the Bible, it seems to me, might be a guy and a couple hundred wives, several thousand concubines, and then there might be a cutie next door in the tub that catches his eye or whatever. And then, all those olde-thyme families with grandma and grandpa and all their kids and all their kids, a few dozen younguns doing errands on the farm, that seems pretty traditional. War-widows and soldiers' wives raising the kids: traditional. Dad with a gang of kids after his wife died in childbirth: traditional. Stepmom marrying into a family like that: traditional.

A study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Modern History talks about another traditional form of marriage. Science Daily summarizes it:

A compelling new study from the September issue of the Journal of Modern History reviews historical evidence, including documents and gravesites, suggesting that homosexual civil unions may have existed six centuries ago in France. The article is the latest from the ongoing "Contemporary Issues in Historical Perspective" series, which explores the intersection between historical knowledge and current affairs.

Commonly used rationales in support of gay marriage and gay civil unions avoid historical arguments. However, as Allan A. Tulchin (Shippensburg University) reveals in his forthcoming article, a strong historical precedent exists for homosexual civil unions.

Opponents of gay marriage in the United States today have tended to assume that nuclear families have always been the standard household form. However, as Tulchin writes, "Western family structures have been much more varied than many people today seem to realize, and Western legal systems have in the past made provisions for a variety of household structures." Are Homosexual Civil Unions A 600-year-old Tradition?

I admit, I get a certain sense of glee out of this kind of thing. The Family Blah Blah groups have made such a big fake deal out of family-this and family-that, at the same time undermining the love between gay children and their parents, discouraging long-term relationships between people of the same sex... like their One Kind of family is the only "traditional" kind.

This next section is kind of long, but let's go ahead and get the whole thing on the table.

For example, in late medieval France, the term affrèrement -- roughly translated as brotherment -- was used to refer to a certain type of legal contract, which also existed elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe. These documents provided the foundation for non-nuclear households of many types and shared many characteristics with marriage contracts, as legal writers at the time were well aware, according to Tulchin.

The new "brothers" pledged to live together sharing 'un pain, un vin, et une bourse' -- one bread, one wine, and one purse. As Tulchin notes, "The model for these household arrangements is that of two or more brothers who have inherited the family home on an equal basis from their parents and who will continue to live together, just as they did when they were children." But at the same time, "the affrèrement was not only for brothers," since many other people, including relatives and non-relatives, used it.

The effects of entering into an affrèrement were profound. As Tulchin explains: "All of their goods usually became the joint property of both parties, and each commonly became the other's legal heir. They also frequently testified that they entered into the contract because of their affection for one another. As with all contracts, affrèrements had to be sworn before a notary and required witnesses, commonly the friends of the affrèrés."

Tulchin argues that in cases where the affrèrés were single unrelated men, these contracts provide "considerable evidence that the affrèrés were using affrèrements to formalize same-sex loving relationships. . . . I suspect that some of these relationships were sexual, while others may not have been. It is impossible to prove either way and probably also somewhat irrelevant to understanding their way of thinking. They loved each other, and the community accepted that. What followed did not produce any documents."

He concludes: "The very existence of affrèrements shows that there was a radical shift in attitudes between the sixteenth century and the rise of modern antihomosexual legislation in the twentieth."

I don't have anything to add to this, just wanted to make sure you didn't miss it.