Do you know the Traditional Marriage History

As we can learn from the Bible, the ancient Israelites had a patriarchal family structure. The status of women was low—they were regarded as the property of their fathers or husbands and could do nothing without their consent. The main purpose of marriage was procreation and the perpetuation of a man's name. Every healthy person was expected to marry. Single men and women were despised. A man could have several wives and concubines. (Jacob married two sisters, Leah and Rachel, and Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.) Divorce was not encouraged, but permitted if a man found some "uncleanness" in his wife. In such a case, he simply wrote her a bill of divorce and sent her out of his house (Deuteronomy 24:1). However, it was virtually impossible for a wife to divorce her husband.



The gradual emancipation of marriage and divorce laws from the control of the church resulted in greater individual freedom and further raised the status of women. The parents began to lose influence over the marital choices of their children, and romantic love became an important factor in marriage. Even so, for most couples until well into the 19th century marriage was still basically an economic arrangement. Moreover, the husband was usually the one who profited most, because he was the "head of the household" and controlled his wife's property. He also had many other rights denied to his wife and was favored by a moral double standard that allowed him considerable sexual license. Under the circumstances, women continued to press for further reforms, a process which even today has not yet fully reached its goal.

Before June of 1967, sixteen states still prohibited interracial marriage, including Virginia, the home of Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and his wife, Mildred Loving, a woman of African-American and Native-American descent.

Nine years prior, in June 1958, the couple traveled to Washington, D.C. -- where interracial marriage was legal -- to get married. When they returned home, however, they were arrested and sentenced to one year in jail for violating the state's Racial Integrity Act.

According to court documents, the trial judge suspended the Lovings' sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that they leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And, but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriage. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

After spending five years in Washington, where Richard worked as a bricklayer and where the couple had their three children -- Peggy, Donald and Sidney -- they sought out the help of a young attorney named Bernard Cohen who was volunteering at the time with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The Lovings requested that Cohen ask the Caroline County, Virginia judge to reconsider his decision, a move that would lead to one of the civil rights movement's most pivotal moments: the legalization of interracial marriage.

"They were very simple people, who were not interested in winning any civil rights principle," Cohen told NPR in an interview marking the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the conviction of Richard and Mildred Loving.

"They just were in love with one another and wanted the right to live together as husband and wife in Virginia, without any interference from officialdom. When I told Richard that this case was, in all likelihood, going to go to the Supreme Court of the United States, he became wide-eyed and his jaw dropped," Cohen said.

In June 1967, the court unanimously declared Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 unconstitutional and ended all race-based marriage bans in the U.S.

During Richard and Mildred's epic "Loving v. Virgina" legal battle, LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet traveled to Virginia to cover the case, but his photos offered a more intimate look at the couple and their family, their dedication to each other, daily life in Virginia and the countryside they cherished.

Timeline of civil marriage in the United States

1830 – Married women are granted the right to own property in their own name, instead of being owned exclusively by the husband, in Mississippi.

1848 – Married women are granted the right to own property in their own name in New York.

1856 – The platform of the Republican Party refers to polygamy as one of the "twin relics of barbarism" (alongside slavery).[1] At the time, polygamy was a practice of some Mormons. (See Mormonism and polygamy.)

1862 – The United States Congress enacts the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which made bigamy a felony in the territories punishable by $500 or five years in prison.

1873 – The Supreme Court rules that a state has the right to exclude a married woman from practicing law.

1874 – Congress passes the Poland Act, which transfers jurisdiction over Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act cases to federal prosecutors and courts in Utah, which were not controlled by Mormons.

1879 – The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Reynolds v. United States.

1882 – Congress passes the Edmunds Act, which prohibits not just bigamy, which remained a felony, but also bigamous cohabitation, which was prosecuted as a misdemeanor, and did not require proof an actual marriage ceremony had taken place. The law also allows polygamists to be held indefinitely without a trial.

1887 – Congress passes the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which allows prosecutors to force polygamist wives to testify against their husbands, and abolished the right of women in Utah to vote.

1890 – Mormons in Utah officially renounce polygamy through the 1890 Manifesto.

1900 – All states now grant married women the right to own property in their own name.

1904 – Mormons in Utah officially again renounce polygamy with the Second Manifesto, excommunicating anyone who participates in future polygamy.

1907 – All women acquire their husband's nationality upon any marriage occurring after that date.

1933 – Married women granted right to citizenship independent of their husbands.

1948 – California Supreme Court overturns interracial marriage ban (Perez v. Sharp).

1965 – The Supreme Court overturns laws prohibiting married couples from using contraception.

1967 – The Supreme Court overturns laws prohibiting interracial couples from marrying (Loving v. Virginia).[2]

1969 – The first no-fault divorce law is adopted in California.[2]

1971 – The Supreme Court upholds an Alabama law which automatically changes a woman's legal surname to that of her husband upon marriage.

1971 – The Supreme Court refuses to hear challenge to a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling allowing prohibition of same-sex marriage (Baker v. Nelson).

1972 – The Supreme Court overturns laws prohibiting unmarried couples from purchasing contraception.

1973 – Maryland becomes the first state in the U.S. to define marriage as "between a man and a woman" in statute.

1975 – Married women allowed to have credit in their own name.

1975 – Three states outlaw same-sex marriage by statutes.

1976 – The Supreme Court overturns laws prohibiting abortions for married women without the consent of the husband.

1993 – All 50 states have revised laws to include marital rape.[2]

1994 – 40 of the 50 states amend their marriage statutes to outlaw same-sex marriage.

1996 – President Bill Clinton signs the Defense of Marriage Act into law, which outlaws federal recognition of both same-sex marriage and polygamy, and removes any requirement that states recognize such marriages entered into in other jurisdictions.

1998 – Hawaii amends its constitution to allow the legislature to ban same-sex marriage, in response to a court ruling which would otherwise have allowed such marriages. Alaska becomes the first state to bar same-sex marriage in its constitution.

1998 – South Carolina is the penultimate state in the U.S. to remove the ban on interracial marriage in its state constitution.

2000 – Nebraska amends its state constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage and polygamy.

2000 – Alabama becomes the last state in the US to remove the ban on interracial marriage in its state constitution.

2002 – Nevada amends its state constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage and polygamy.

2004 – Massachusetts grants and recognizes same-sex marriages, while 14 states rush to outlaw same-sex marriage and polygamy through their state constitutions in response.

2005 – Texas amends its state constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage and polygamy.

2006 – 26 states outlaw same-sex marriage and polygamy through their state constitutions.

2008 – New York starts recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other places but does not grant such marriages. Connecticut begins granting same-sex marriages. California briefly grants same-sex marriage until the passage of Proposition 8 later in the year, but continues recognizing marriages entered into prior to the proposition's passage. 29 states outlaw same-sex marriage and polygamy through their state constitutions.

2009 – Iowa and Vermont grant and recognize same-sex marriages; the District of Columbia starts recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other places but does not grant such marriages. Maine rescinds planned legalization of same-sex marriage by popular vote.

2010 – New Hampshire and the District of Columbia grant same-sex marriages. Maryland recognizes same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.

2011 – New York begins granting same-sex marriages.