DOES HISTORY MATTER? Matt Taylor

Eve asks what we can conclude from the historical absence of SSM, in contrast to the historical ubiquity of (opposite-sex) marriage. In my opinion, these are two separate facts that each lead to different conclusions. The cross-cultural universality of marriage demonstrates that it is absolutely vital to human society; in evolutionary terms, we might say its contributes so much to a group's "fitness function" that those who abandon marriage quickly re-adopt it, or go extinct (e.g. the "Shaker" community of the 18th and 19th century U.S.)

The historical absence of SSM, however, says nothing about whether SSM is detrimental or beneficial to societies. One could argue that it is detrimental if there were examples of SSM's failure: societies that instituted SSM, then quickly abolished it or vanished. But we know of no such examples. It could just as well be that SSM has a neutral or even positive effect on a society's fitness function; its historic absence shows only that SSM has never been tried.
posted by Eve at 2:10 PM VOTE

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