Classics in Contemporary Culture

Marriage in History

T. R. Fehrenbach (San Antonio Express-News) has a column (part one of two) on marriage, tied to current events:

Due to an upcoming election, the subject of marriage is much in the news.

No, this ain't about the sanctity of wedlock or a diatribe against abominations. I just feel like discussing heterosexual bondage this Sunday, a practice that goes back beyond history to the seminal cultures of our Western world.

We know that some form of marriage between men and women emerged in human societies long before government or the state evolved. (Of course, once you create the state, it tries to get into every act.) All primitive peoples learned the necessity for exogamous mating — the oldest universal taboo is incest — and about consanguinity and descent.

The Indo-European peoples developed customs of private property, aristocracy and kingship and forms of slavery or serfdom thousands of years before they entered Europe. Stone-age males may have been inspired between the ages of 18 and 24 to impregnate every female in reach (and the female of the species is capable of perpetual heat), but institutions had to develop to trace parentage and heirship. The earliest Greeks placed great emphasis on the legitimacy of offspring, and such attitudes only faded in the last century.

Was It the Cats, or the Catullus?

...or the Cash? Retired school teacher Giorgio Angelozzi's want ad--asking to be adopted as some family's grandfather--has received many responses...The old man is surprised and touched:

"So many families want to adopt me as their grandfather," said Mr Angelozzi who promised 500 euros (£336) a month to the family who took him in. "So many families answered my appeal and want me to teach their children and their grandchildren about Horace and Catullus."

Gay Marriage?

A mini-symposium, entitled "Marriage - Gay & Otherwise - in Historical Perspective" will be hosted [click for PhotoShopped perversion of "American Gothic"] by the University of Cincinnati Classics Department on the 13th. Speakers:

Holt Parker, Associate Professor of Classics: "Marriage–Gay and Otherwise: The Ancient World"
Sigrun Haude, Associate Professor of History: "Marriage, Church, and State in Early Modern Europe"
Joseph Tomain, Dean of the College of Law: "Gay Marriage and the Law"

Roman Empire: Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Stephanie Hausner (Johns Hopkins News-Letter), writing about the issue of gay marriage, notes the double-edged sword that is antiquity...[cf. RogueClassicism: "Perhaps, ultimately, this is the real appeal of Classics in the real world ... it can be used as a precedent for practically anything and it has that auctoritas of antiquity?"]

Many Americans make arguments against gay marriage, stating that marriage should only be between a man and woman and that even though homosexual relationships date back to the Roman Empire, marriage has always been recognized as being between a man and women. This should not be allowed to change, they say, it is part of our human history. Using that logic, however, slavery should still be allowed, because it is also part of our human history dating back to the Roman Empire.

Would it be making her point for her if I pointed out that "homosexual relationships" (not to mention slavery) date back to well before the Roman Empire?

Pythagoras and Prada

Jane Ridley's column (Daily Mirror)--a nod (unconscious, probably) to Semonides?--categorizing women into 27 types (a response to a similar survey of men by "gender expert" Stephen Whitehead) includes the following:

BIRD WITH A BRAIN

BOTH an intellectual and a good-time gal. Stuffs her books in her Gucci handbag and knows as much about Prada as Pythagoras.

Prime example: Wildlife presenter Charlotte Uhlenbroek.

Hmm...this article is getting play all around, as (e.g.) in the Hindustan Times--go figure!

In related news...Pythagoras' theorem helps determine how high one's high heels can be! Oh, and he was right about the music of the spheres too...

Everybody Loves a Dialogue

...Except when they don't. In "Five minutes with Socrates," Dominic Hilton conjures up his impression of the Greek sage, to argue that the unexamined life is worth living, that "love is where it's at," etc...sort of mildly amusing, but...a "Socrates Cafe" this ain't. [In another (related?) column, DH points out that 50% of Americans have not read a book since high school. Of course, this is humor, I guess. Ha ha.]

Wives Now and Then

Another Globe and Mail review: this one on The Meaning of Wife, by Anne Kingston. The review notes that Kingston deals with the story of Medea, although if the proportion of ancient references in the review is anything to go by, don't expect more than about 3 pages on ancient history in this book of 338.

Rocked-Up Greeks...

In celebration of International Women's Day? A Wyoming Lysistrata in D.C.:

A University of Wyoming student has won three national playwriting awards, and will have the musical he wrote performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in April.

Sean Koegh, of Casper, had his rock musical "Good Morning Athens," also known as "Lysistrata," selected by reviewers with the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

Er, no: this is the IWD article, which also mentions Lysistrata.

Homosexuality Did Not Topple Rome

Tony Lorenz, in a letter to the editor of the Coshocton Tribune, thinks God has more pressing things on his mind than gay marriage. Here's the historical framework, with a page taken from St. Augustine:

...as a basic historical fact, the Roman Empire did not collapse because of homosexuality. We can all remember from Ancient History 101 that the Roman Empire, by AD 410, was beset with problems internal and external. In AD 406 Germanic Goths broke across the Northeastern Roman border and began to terrorize the countryside. Other non-Christian tribes also posed a threat to the empire; Vandals, Franks, Burgundians, Lombards, Visigoths, and Ostro-goths were all a threat to external Roman security. Internal strife and severe fragmentation of power prevented a unified response from the weakened empire. Finally, in AD 410 Alaric led the Visigoths into Rome and the city was taken for the first time in 1,000 years.

Roman pagans blamed Christians (the official state religion) and Christians blamed the pagans. Augustine, then Bishop of Hippo, refuted the pagan claims in his book "The City of God," and identified other times when Rome had faced difficulties before the Church existed. The Western Roman Empire fell again to the Vandals in AD 455, and again in AD 476, when Germanic tribes over-ran it.

So what can we learn from this brief lesson? That homosexuality or acceptance of homosexuality did not cause the fall of the Roman Empire, anymore than Canada's limited acceptance of homosexual marriage has caused hordes of Canadians to overrun the American borders seeking to topple the world's most stable democracy.

Socratic Dinners in Australia

Helen Madden, of Melbourne, who has been staging Greek drama since 1983, has a new project: weekly Socratic Dinners at the Stork, a pub she owns. The moderator is Stan Van Hooft of Deakin University.

Madden says the sessions are conducted "in the classic style of the ancient philosopher Socrates, in that he would never lecture to people about the meaning of the world, but rather he would draw from them, by questions, their understanding and perceptions".

The first session was on romantic love; on deck: happiness, the limits of tolerance...