Eastern Orthodoxy and gay marriages
Submitted by Heather on November 02 1999 at 23:37:54
In reply to Understood Submitted by Dirk Gently on November 02 1999 at 23:15:53
|
"First, it only exists in the New World -- Australia, Canada, and the US. This may only mean that for most of this century, the traditional Orthodox lands have been under the yoke of either Communism or Islam, neither of which are particularly hospitable to homosexuals. However, I suspect it's more an indication of the relaxed sexual mores of the West than it is the traditional Orthodox teaching." I would say that the most likely explanation is simply that the theology of gender and sexuality has been vigorously discussed in the West in recent years (with relaxed sexual mores being one result, but not the only result). Hence also the fact that Orthodoxy has only recently entered into the discussion of the headship of husbands in marriage and the ordination of women – and where it has, its contributions have been outstanding. (I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions, mind you, but the Orthodox discussions cut through a lot of Western nonsense.) "If you're REALLY interested, I can forward a critique of John Boswell's infamous work" Go ahead, but I'm not a lover of Boswell. :) Of course, Boswell gets away with murder by being deliberately ambiguous by what he means by— I can't remember the exact word he uses, but it's something like "homophilic." Obviously, it would be hard to argue that the rites don't promote same-gender relationships, when they blatantly say that they do. The question is whether they promote same-gender sexual attraction or behavior, and Boswell is mealy-mouthed about that whole question, probably because he follows the all-too-common error in much gay scholarship of believing that all romantic texts must promote sexual relationships, whereas, through much of Western history, romance has been equally divided between sexual relationships and friendships. The most interesting critique I've read of Same-Sex Unions was by a book reviewer in The Journal of Homosexuality, who crankily complained that it was perfectly obvious that the rite had nothing to do with a marriage between a man and a man. Instead, he said, it was a marriage between a man and a boy. (Relevant excerpt below.) By the way, I know I owe you an e-mail – I'm trying to catch up with my mail. Heather Boswell fails to tell us that at Rome approved sexual relations between males occurred between men and adolescents who were their social inferiors. Marriage between two adult men, one of whom is effeminate, is a very different kind of same-sex relationship, one that was present among some Mediterranean peoples, but would have seemed foreign and outlandish to Roman patricians, hence no doubt the contemptuous tone of the descriptions. In Greece on the other hand, approved sexual relations between males were between men and adolescents both of whom were free and equal citizens. In at least two areas of Greece, Boeotia and Crete, these relations took the form of marriage. Such marriages between men and boys also occurred among the peoples who lived in the Crimea. Boswell is disingenuous, however, in his analysis of these marriages to boys. For examples of boy marriage in other societies (notably the Zande as described by Evans-Prichard) and from the ordinary life course of the Greek male, it must have been the case that cohabitation and sexual intercourse lasted until the boy entered his twenties, after which he must have taken a boy bride of his own, and his former husband must have married a female wife by whom he could have children. The friendship of the two males no doubt endured, but their marriage had ended. Marriage between a man and an adolescent, which ended when adolescence ended, must therefore have been the form of male marriage known to the pagan Greek world. It was this form of marriage that must have been blessed in church. Two details from the rites confirm this. In all three of the Slavonic texts, the rubrics refer to the two males as the elder and the younger: the priest takes the hand of the elder, and the elder of the younger, the older one is placed on the right side for the blessing, the elder puts his hand on the Gospel book, and the younger's hand on top of his (pp. 305, 317, 322, 335). But Boswell never mentions this; instead he translates all these documents as orders for uniting "two men," implying that these are marriages between two adult men. He is similarly vague in discussing the marriages in Crete and Scythia. I suppose he has a contemporary political purpose – "gay" marriages are hard enough to swallow without raising the spectre of pederasty. But it is poor history to proceed in this way. The best politics is the politics of truth. [Randolph Trumbach, Review of Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, by John Boswell, Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 30 (2) 1995, 114-115.] |