Title: How marriages have changed: past, present and future
Headings: Changes, including re-definitions, of
marriages since before biblical times

Marriages
Changes, including re-definitions, of
marriages since before biblical times
Overview:
The significance of marriage:
Types of unions:
The origins and types of marriage:
Who could marry? -- from the 19th century until now:
Related essay:
More recent trends in U.S. marriages
References:
Go to the previous page, to the marriage menu, to the same-sex marriage menu, or choose:
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Content: We recommend that the term " same-sex families " and " same-sex marriage " be used instead, because some male-male and female-female marriages involve two bisexuals or a bisexual and a homosexual. Marriage brings with it many benefits. Hundreds of these are offered by individual states. In 1997-FEB the U.S. Government issued a list of over 1,000 laws giving special federal rights, privileges and responsibilities to opposite-sex married couples. Because of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) Gay and lesbian committed couples are excluded from these federal the benefits and protections that they would otherwise bring to themselves and their children. However, DOMA law has been found by a number of federal courts to violate the U.S. Constitutional and is currently under appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Only opposite-sex couples can legally marry in most of the world's political jurisdictions. However, a number of jurisdictions have enlarged their definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Holland was the first. Belgium, Canada, the District of Columbia and a few states in the U.S., Spain, South Africa etc.