Marriage: it's about church and state power

[Archaea]

If you are so inclined, you can find studies supporting this. A box about sexual attitudes in colonial American supports this thesis.

Although we LDS tend to believe in Original Truth, which becomes polluted by society, the evolution of man doesn't seem to support this hypothesis.

With that said, some of the reading of research shows people shacked up together over the centuries because they wanted to have sex and to create families. In some instances, the Church co-opted the sanctioning of marriage under the auspices of Divine Authority in order to capture the spoils of controlling marriage, money and authority.

During the 16th century and beyond, battles between the Church and state, and with those within various cultures, including colonial America, who co-habitated as a form of common law marriage, often because pastors were too hard to find, too inconvenient or in some instances too expensive.

So politically the war over marriage has historically been, who had authority and who got to charge for it. It becomes much more sophisticated, in terms of inheritances, rights of support and so forth, but it still remained about money and power.

It is for that reason that many counter-culturalists have rejected this power grab. So I find it odd, that gay activists who have historically come from outside the orthodox power grid, now stab at the heart of power by seeking control over marriage. In some ways, the power play is brilliant, and it will net them disproportionate power and access to oodles of money, but we the public are naive when we gobble it as being about inalienable rights, love (which knoweth no artificial boundaries) and surely not sex.