[lbo-talk] Re: arranged marriages

kelley at pulpculture.org kelley at pulpculture.org
Thu Dec 11 12:41:58 PST 2003


At 03:31 PM 12/11/03 -0500, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>Marriage IS a religious institution.
>
>Not necessarily. I married Liza because I wanted to tell the world how
>much I love her. I even felt a druggy rush during the vows. And the
>officiant was a judge reading an entirely secular text.
>
>Doug

heh. Randall Collins has a nifty little discussion of how sex can be understood as an exchange of erotic property (not as bad as it sounds Joanna--since property here is understood sociologically: property is nothing more and nothing less than a set of formal and informal rules regulating how we behave toward and think about objects, people, and animals).

he goes on to point out how sex, love, and marriage can also be understood as the enactment of rituals between the couple and the couple and the rest of the world and how these are not unlike those found in religious institutions (as we conventionally define them).

Kelley



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list