Defining Marriage
Language Log’s Geoffrey Pullum points out the fact that gay marriage rules and people who want to define marriage as a “sacred bond between a man and a woman” or whatever are a bunch of assholes.
And they’re no great hands at original phrasing either; observe for instance the frequency of that Christ-y adjective in that stupid phrase, which I keep hearing. I see 738 google hits for “bond between a man and a woman” and 90 for “sacred bond between a man and a woman”. Over 10% — most alarming! Often this sort of parrotism is a sign of a major cultural influence. For English, usually the Bible, often Shakespeare, other sources too of course come into play. But I don’t see evidence of that phrasing being kingjamesical, so who knows. Rhythmic formulaic chanting can make one feel very comfortable with even one’s most infamous actions, so perhaps this chunk of language, rather than having an antient “only begetter”, is a magical refrain of comparative recency.
Defining, in general, is a low tactic. One feels contempt for those who argue from definitions. My particular circumstances tinge that revulsion with compassion, but usually only barely.
Definition, when prescriptive, is an act of violence. The word, of course, comes from Latin finis, an end or border. Building fences is an act of violence which itself doth give rise to more violence.
If you are interested in the word “marriage”, go to the library and use the OED, a real dictionary. Or check out the informative, intelligent and dispassionate entry over at the laudable Wikipedia.
February 25th, 2004 at 6:14 pm
“Union between a man and a woman” is even more popular, and has been used by G.W. Bush.
I still think there’s gotta be some source for this chunk of language before George. The Anglican wedding rite, or something nice and old like that.
I wish I had a search engine which could sort results chronologically. That’d be cool.
February 26th, 2004 at 2:17 am
Definition, when prescriptive, is an act of violence. The word, of course, comes from Latin finis, an end or border. Building fences is an act of violence which itself doth give rise to more violence.
Ooh! Well put, my friend. “Definition” is, in many ways, my own raison d’etre, it being the mainspring of mathematics. Whenever folks wonder if mathematical statements are true, I tell them that yes, they are quite definitely and absolutely true, insofar as they only refer to things that are defined within the same gesture—that is, they refer to things not experienced, but merely defined!
And the goal of all that definition is, in fact, to make an end to all appeals, to have a fundamental source for answering all questions.
But when the things in question are concrete and not abstract, viz. marriage, the act of definition makes a sharp and very partial end to all appeals.
As a mathematician, I would be inclined to say, “Yes, marriage is precisely just a sacred bond between a man and a woman, so long as ‘marriage’ is only the thing which satisfies the definition with which you imbued it.”
Erudite, yes, but illuminating? I think so.
* * *
I’d be interested to find any source of that turn of phrase, “sacred bond. . .” that you might find. But, isn’t it just possible that it was born spontaneously, out of the linguistic framework of the bible, and not out of any particular utterance?
I mean, sure, “Deez nuts” has a specific historical origin, but can the same be said for “step up” or “step back”? What about “I represent” and “Y’all better recognize?” Are these tracable to some “only begetter?”
(Better examples to come with the light of dawn. . . )
February 26th, 2004 at 8:59 pm
Still no luck with it…
I just have a feeling that there must be a specific origin for that phrase. It seems to me too long to be formed so samely by so many people, even in imitation of a Biblical style. And the variations on it are also suggestive of mutation from a common ancestor.
I was surprised when I first started reading old-school stuff at how much of my language was lifted from the Bible or, say, Hamlet. To cite a couple examples from Daniel, “feet of clay” or “the writing on the wall”. That was one of my reasons for wanting to make a literary search engine – to trace these influences. I dislike the m-word but one could call it meme-tracking. People very often will repeat whole chunks of language when they’ve twigged to something new, or when they’re repeating conventional wisdom.
I think this is different from phrases like “step back”, which seems likely to be formed just from the action of stepping and a direction.
“I represent” or “Y’all better recognize” are slangy, meant not just to convey meaning but to convey social information about the speaker. So they are a little less supple elements of constructed speech, and more like incantations. More like the Bible stuff than “step back”.
I’ve been interested in “represent”, in hip-hop especially, for a long time. Early uses always take an object and are similar to the meaning as used of an elected representative, as in “I represent the Bronx” or “I represent the Ward”. This comes to be used intransitively, and to take on a normative sense of not just representing but representing well, as in, you better represent! I can’t think of enough examples though. I wish I had a search engine of all the lyrics to rap albums I own.
February 26th, 2004 at 11:27 pm
You can’t just remember the lyrics to one Raven-Symone album?
Ha ha!
Back to the lecture at hand, it seems like a fairly early appearance of the formulation “union of male and female” appears in the Summa Theologica, Supplementum Tertiae Partis, Section 41, Question 1. See also Section 44 for variations on the “bond” metaphor.
Interestingly, the Supplement was written by Thomas Aquinas’s collaborator Reginald of Piperno, who based it on Thomas’s commentary on some hooey by Peter Lombard. Someone who cares more about this religious horseshit than I do can track it down. But it seems like a useful path to follow, yeah?
BTW, if you want to get a sense of the decrepitude of the Roman Catholic Church, please note that the Summa is still cited as serious source material in Church documents.
February 27th, 2004 at 12:07 pm
Oh Gawd! I’m not up for digging into St. Thomas either at this moment, much less Reginald of Piperno. But many of the ecclesiastical uses of this phrase that I saw were Catholic, Anglican or Episcopalian. So Aquinas seems like a distinct possibility…
July 13th, 2008 at 4:46 am
I see from a little Googling that the phrase “sacred bond” was used by William Bradford, one of the original pilgrims to Plymouth Plantation, to describe the bonds that held their group together:
“We are knit together as a body in a most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other’s good.”
http://tinyurl.com/5vohy4
I don’t see an early reference to that phrase as describing marriage … perhaps that developed later?
July 13th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Just checked that link on another computer, and I’m not sure it will work correctly … it’s a link to a page on Google Book search, which seems to be a bit temperamental.
June 26th, 2009 at 7:13 am
I found this in a friends email, she said that I’d really like it – and I do!
Peace!