Gay Marriage comes to Indiana?

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

You're not particularly bright.

I really hate to bring this up again and again but you force me to; It's highly unlikely that someone with a scholarship to Oxford for a course that is extremely academically selective is "not particularly bright". The evidence is against you on this one.

For example, the England and Wales Marriage Act of 1753 (the first to require the formal registration of marriage with regard to vassals of the state; in this instance the Church of England) only recognised a marriage conducted by a Church of England priest. It took a short while to legally recognise that the exemptions of the same act for Quakers and Jews actually meant they could marry according to their law. Catholic, non religious and other religious marriages were not recognised until 1836. There was no indication of gender in the 1753 Act; it simply said 'persons', The same is true of the 1836 Act.

That little curio aside, all marriages through solemnisation (vows) espoused the centuries old principle of erunt animae duae in carne una In marriage, canonical law (which was interchangeable for 'legal' until acts that began to secularised marriage such as the 1836 act) inferred that the very being or legal existence of the woman was suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband. That meant a man could beat his wife and it was not recognised as assault. He could rape her and it was not recognised as rape because her rights were suspended. A bit like the assault of and rape of a slave for example (and I'm not being hyperbolic legally speaking)

Christian teaching (Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1, Ephesians 5:22, 1 Corinthians 11:3 & 7-9, 1 Corinthians 14:34, 1 Corinthians 11:3-9, Timothy 2:11-12) and the teachings from Aquinas to Luther filtered into canonical law and again, canon law on marriage was essentially the de facto law on marriage and the rights of married women until secularisation.

So yes, women were chattel. Because women, in the words of Aquinas were 'defect(ive) in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in a contrary direction to a man. And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives' then their 'patronage' was overlooked by their father and their brother and then by their husband. Women were not treated as equal and independent. Marriage was the purpose by which that treatment was codified.

This is entirely true; men had absolute ownership of women as handed down by law through a marriage. That was a right, as I emphasised above. That didn't form part of the factual, literary and historical definition of marriage. While it may not have been defined explicitly under the England and Wales 1753 Marriage Act in England and Wales, by "persons", it is unambiguous that it refers to one man and one woman. Otherwise, how would the very principle of erunt animae duae in carne una if two persons of the same gender were wed? Which person would have total ownership over the other? Also, do you have evidence of any same-sex marriages being carried out in 18th Century England?

Is the "definition" of marriage not only what the law says it is?