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¿Por qué nos CASAMOS? Una HISTORIA INCÓMODA — Transcript

by Pupina Plomer · 6,461 words · 971 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Why do we get married? How long has
0:02marriage existed? It's always been
0:04celebrated the same way. You don't know
0:06how much I had to read to make this
0:07video, so right off the bat I'm asking
0:09if you can give me a like, because
0:11today we're going to talk about the
0:13origin of marriage in the West and how
0:15this institution changed the way people
0:17love each other. Hello, my lanteris. To
0:19think about this video, I suggest you
0:21imagine a trip back in time. It's the
0:24year 100 BC in ancient Rome. Two people
0:27love each other and want to celebrate
0:29this act of love in some way. A man and
0:31a woman are going to live together, but
0:34there's no ceremony, no priest, no
0:36registry, no papers to sign, no white
0:39dress. They're married simply because
0:42they want to be married. According to
0:44Roman law, that's enough. To be married
0:47, you simply had to want to be married.
0:50The day one of the two wants to break
0:51that union, they simply break it off
0:53and that's it. There's no divorce, no
0:56trial, they simply separate. That was a
0:59marriage. Now let's go back, for
1:01example, to the 11th century somewhere
1:03in Western Europe. A man and a woman
1:05who love each other are in the forest
1:07alone, with no one else present, and
1:09they tell each other that they want to
1:10be married, that they are a married
1:12couple. Again, there is no priest, no
1:14witness, no paper to sign, no party,
1:17but they are married. For the Catholic
1:20Church at that time, those two people
1:22lost in a forest with no witnesses are
1:24married simply because they said their
1:26vows out loud. That was also a marriage
1:29. Now let's go to the year 1600, to
1:31what is now Peru. A man is brought from
1:34Mexico as a slave and when he arrives
1:37in Lima he decides to go to court to
1:39claim that he was brought against his
1:41will and that he should not have been
1:44transferred because he was legally
1:46married in Mexico and slavery was above
1:49marriage. He was married in the church
1:52and said that it was not fair that
1:54slavery should be above marriage. That
1:56was also a marriage, but later in the
1:58video we will see how it went. These
2:00three scenes do not share protocol,
2:02forms, temporal location, or
2:04geographical location; but they are
2:05about three marriages, three very
2:07different marriages that make us think
2:09that there was no single way to get
2:11married throughout history and that, in
2:13reality, the question is poorly
2:15formulated because we cannot trace the
2:17origin of marriage. We should ask
2:20ourselves how the institution or
2:22tradition of two people getting married
2:24was transformed. So, throughout this
2:27video, we are going to see how this
2:29institution was transformed and we are
2:31going to see something that blows my
2:33mind, which is: in the same century in
2:35which romantic love was understood as
2:37the criterion for getting married, it
2:39was decided to prohibit people from
2:41marrying whomever they wanted. But
2:44anyway, let's start by tracing the
2:46early origins of what we understand as
2:49marriage. You've probably heard a story
2:54about the origin of marriage,
2:56especially from the Marxist tradition,
2:58which goes something like the one I'm
3:00going to say next, greatly simplified:
3:02that, first of all, humans lived in a
3:04state that could be described as
3:05promiscuous, where the way in which we
3:07should relate to each other was not
3:09institutionalized. Then came a
3:12supposedly matriarchal stage where
3:14women made the decisions, where a
3:16mother goddess was worshiped. This
3:18wasn't the case, but anyway, I have to
3:20tell you the story. And then with
3:22agriculture and the emergence of
3:24private property, men needed to start
3:26organizing inheritance and so they
3:28imposed the rule of monogamy in family
3:30ties to establish how they were going
3:32to organize property based on the bond
3:34between mother and father and that's
3:36supposedly where patriarchy was born.
3:40Well, this is a 19 th-century theory
3:42that is no longer accepted, but it was
3:45the traditional explanation for the
3:47origin of monogamy or marriage, where
3:49it was understood that it was the way
3:51to organize society at a time when
3:53family structures required an order
3:55based on how they were going to
3:56distribute goods in a supposed
3:58inheritance. A theory that is quite
4:01particular because it assumes that
4:02matriarchy is like a primitive way of
4:04organizing patriarchy in a more modern
4:06and civilized way. But well, we are not
4:08going to go into details because this
4:10is not just for you to think about.
4:13This theory, as I say, was developed
4:15towards the middle and end of the 19th
4:17century by European intellectuals of
4:19the time who, of course, had a highly
4:21evolutionary view of humanity. We saw
4:24this in the video that came out last
4:26week about prehistory, where they
4:27thought that the least organized or
4:29ancient societies were primitive; that
4:31supposedly, over the years those
4:33societies were going to become more
4:35complex and were going to reach a more
4:37advanced and more civilized stage,
4:38which was the present one. A view that
4:41today, of course, we reject precisely
4:43because it is Eurocentric, biologistic,
4:46evolutionist, but that at that time was
4:48, let's say, what was thought in the
4:51academic world. In that context where
4:54different academics and different
4:56thinkers tried to find an origin for
4:58the institutions in which they lived.
5:01Federich Engels, a very important
5:03intellectual at the time, very close to
5:05Marx, with a very close and very
5:07strange bond because, well, later if
5:09you want to Google Engels Marx and you
5:11will see that there is a bond of
5:12friends maintaining other friends, but
5:14that is a topic for another video. But
5:17anyway, Engels, a very important
5:19thinker of the time, develops a
5:21hypothesis about what is the origin of
5:23the traditional family, of marriage and
5:25so on. In his thesis, The Origin of the
5:28Family, Private Property and the State,
5:30which is a key book, let's say, for
5:32Marxist thought, of course set in the
5:34late 19th century. Today we can make
5:36many criticisms of it, but for its time
5:38it was something quite novel. It
5:40introduced questions that until then
5:41had not been present, let's say, in the
5:43discussions. And in that thesis is
5:45where he tries to explain the origin of
5:47the monogamous, patriarchal family and
5:49so on at that time, somewhat with the
5:51story I told you a moment ago. What he
5:54established is that the entire family,
5:56the entire institution of the family
5:58and so on, is organized based on
5:59private property. The State organizes
6:02it precisely with the question of
6:04inheritance and ownership of goods in
6:05mind. And fundamentally the
6:08subordination of women within that
6:10family has its origin in private
6:11property, which is something truly
6:13novel, important, but well, nowadays it
6:15has been overcome. He is going to say
6:17that the way in which we organize
6:19families is not natural, it is not
6:20something eternal, but rather something
6:22historical, it is precisely a product
6:24of capitalism, of the demands that this
6:26capitalism is having, which was already
6:27consolidated towards the end of the
6:2919th century. I was going to say that,
6:32precisely, this monogamous family does
6:34not arise from love or personal
6:35decision, but rather comes from the
6:37first oppression in history, which is
6:39the oppression of men over women, who
6:41are considered private property within
6:43this capitalist structure and that,
6:45from the consolidation of the family,
6:47the State later emerges to control it.
6:49Well, but I do not want to get into
6:51that, I do not want to bring up such a
6:52complex debate, but you have to
6:53understand how they explained the
6:54origin of the monogamous family until
6:56the 19th century. The problem is that
6:58this explanation, as I said a moment
7:00ago, was based on this evolutionary
7:02theory that is now being overcome. And
7:05here comes Levistro, a very important
7:08anthropologist for the new currents of
7:10thought of the 20th century, who
7:12refutes these evolutionary ideas that
7:14there are primitive and civilized
7:16stages. On that subject, on incest, I
7:19have a video in particular, which is
7:21about incest, about the prohibition of
7:23incest. A widely viewed video, I'll say
7:25something very disturbing, widely
7:27viewed by many men. I have two videos
7:29that have more views from men than
7:32women, which are about the prohibition
7:34of incest and about why women have
7:37breasts. I don't know if it's
7:39disturbing or if it's good, but it's
7:41striking, at least that these are the
7:43most viewed videos by men, because they
7:45also coincide with the most searches on
7:48pornographic pages where the incest
7:50category is one of the most searched. I
7:53don't know, I'll put it out there;
7:54leave your thoughts below. But let's go
7:56back here to the origin of marriage.
7:58Although these theories were surpassed
8:00in the following decades, they laid the
8:02foundations for the main questions that
8:03we were going to ask ourselves about
8:05human behavior. For example, why choose
8:08monogamy or why choose marriage? Here
8:11we are not yet talking about marriage
8:13as a religious or state institution,
8:15but rather as a choice to bond based on
8:17monogamy, to choose a partner
8:19supposedly for life. Although Engels is
8:22being questioned today, he lays the
8:23foundation for questions that will be
8:25useful to us later on, because this is
8:27something that the social sciences have
8:29: although ideas raised in the past can
8:30be refuted, those ideas at least leave
8:32us with questions to continue
8:34questioning ourselves. So, it is not
8:36that what we say today diminishes,
8:38eliminates, or removes the past from
8:40the focus of discussion, but rather
8:42that it adopts and complicates it. So,
8:48it is clear that we cannot trace a
8:49single origin of marriage as a social
8:51norm. So, perhaps it is worth asking
8:55ourselves, what does marriage convey,
8:57what is the idea of building a
8:58monogamous relationship in a society?
9:01What is that decision that we do not
9:03know if it is individual or, let's say,
9:05imposed by some institution that
9:07reproduces in a society? Well,
9:10throughout history, all types of
9:11marriage that we can find, I mean, from
9:13this Roman marriage to the one in the
9:15Middle Ages, to that of colonial
9:17America, have something in common,
9:19which is that all marriages throughout
9:20history sought to organize society.
9:23They regulate a transmission. You might
9:26ask, "A transmission of what?" of goods
9:28, of status, of belonging to a group,
9:30of inheritance, of children. Marriage
9:33regulates all of this, and that is the
9:35key to understanding why marriage has
9:36always been a public matter; because it
9:38regulates things outside the State,
9:40outside the Church. But, for example,
9:42in ancient Rome, depending on who you
9:44married, what status you were going to
9:46transmit to your child in the next
9:47generation: whether he or she would be
9:49a citizen or not. When you get married
9:52in the Middle Ages, let's say, you
9:53regulated what you were going to pass
9:55on to your children in terms of goods,
9:57tools, trades, titles. In other words,
10:00the transmission of something in a
10:01marriage is always at stake. The first
10:03thing that comes to mind is the
10:04transmission of the dowry. The dowry is
10:07a set of goods, money, or resources
10:10that is transmitted in marriage through
10:13the bride. The bride enters the
10:16marriage with a dowry, which would be
10:17like an advance on her father's
10:19inheritance. This is what gives a woman
10:22value in the marriage market, making
10:24her more or less coveted in that
10:25marriage market. So, marriage regulates
10:28the transmission of the dowry, what the
10:30bride brings to marriage. This tells us
10:33something very interesting, which is
10:35that in the marriage of women from
10:37wealthy sectors, marriage was not an
10:39individual decision, but rather a
10:41family patrimonial transaction. In
10:44other words, if you are giving your
10:45daughter an economic value in a
10:47marriage market, it will not depend
10:48solely on your daughter's decision to
10:50get married or not, but rather it will
10:52depend on the family to say: "Hey, no,
10:53look, I'm leaving you all this
10:55inheritance so that you can marry a
10:56good suitor." Well, find one who is
10:58economically on par with us. I gave
11:01this example to understand how in all
11:03marriages there is always the
11:04transmission of something. Now, in
11:06addition to transmitting these goods or
11:09this status or this place in society, a
11:11woman is also being exchanged, let's
11:14say. Here I am going to return to the
11:16theory of Levistro, this structuralist
11:18anthropologist who is super important
11:20for anthropology and I am going to go
11:22back a little to what I talk about in
11:24the video on incest, where Levistro
11:26proposes that marriage is a form of
11:28exchange of women. In the first forms
11:30of social organization, different
11:32groups established bonds with each
11:33other through marriage alliances. For
11:36example, group A establishes a
11:38relationship with group B, marrying the
11:40daughter of one of group A to one of
11:42group B, exchanging women. We are
11:44allies. In that sense, where the
11:47marriage alliance was very important to
11:49make alliances with other groups, that
11:51is where the taboo of the prohibition
11:54of incest appears. The prohibition of
11:57incest has to do with the fact that I
11:59do not want there to be endogamous ties
12:01within my group. For example, my
12:03daughter marrying her cousin, because
12:05we are all from the same group. I want
12:07my daughter to marry someone from the
12:08other group. So, that is where the
12:10taboo of incest appears. I explained it
12:12very simply. I have a video of almost
12:15half an hour talking more in depth
12:17about this, but anyway, and I want it
12:19to be clear that within marriage, in
12:21its origins, there was the issue of the
12:22pure transmission of women, an exchange
12:24of women between groups to seal
12:26alliances. In the video on the
12:29prohibition of incest I also talk about
12:31this, but although Listro's thesis is
12:33super important and is, let's say, a
12:35founding one in anthropology, it has
12:37been reviewed with a gender perspective
12:39mainly by Gale Ruby, an anthropologist
12:41who says something very interesting
12:43about the origin of marriage. Also,
12:46Listro's main criticism, as I say in
12:48that video, is that he takes women
12:50simply as an object of exchange,
12:52without will, action, interference, or
12:55ability to say anything. But you will
12:58see how this system of exchanging women
13:00, these marriages, generate a system of
13:02subordination for women, which helps to
13:04explain that patriarchy is a
13:06construction and not something innate
13:08in nature. But I'm getting off topic.
13:10The important thing is that she
13:12reinforces this idea that marriage is
13:15the institution that somehow formalizes
13:18the subordination of women by men.
13:20Because in that exchange system, where
13:22men are the ones who choose which woman
13:25to exchange with which group of men, in
13:27some way it is the beginning of this
13:29subordination or this power that men
13:32have over women. She is going to insist
13:34on this: it is a social construct and,
13:36like all social constructs, it can be
13:37dismantled. Another intellectual who is
13:40going to say something about this is
13:41Herna Learner, who for me is a top
13:45academic. In fact, I plan to make a
13:47specific video about her, because she
13:49has a very interesting theory that
13:51explains the origin of patriarchy, that
13:53nothing is crazy, let's say, her book
13:55is actually called The Origin of
13:57Patriarchy, and if you want me to make
13:59that video, you can leave a like, you
14:01can leave a comment and you can make
14:03this video reach 10,000 likes. If it
14:04reaches 10,000 likes, that video will
14:06come out, that video will come out
14:07anyway, but it will come out faster if
14:09this one has 10,000 likes. Well,
14:11Hernarner is going to be very
14:12interesting, discussing and questioning
14:14Engels 'theory in particular. You saw
14:16that I told you about marriage as a
14:18result of private property. She's going
14:20to say the opposite, that marriage
14:22comes first and then private property,
14:24because men's ownership of women's
14:26sexual and reproductive capacity within
14:29marriage precedes the capitalist
14:30private property that we know and, of
14:32course, it's also a social construct.
14:35Her thesis is fantastic because, well,
14:37I don't want to get too involved in
14:38that because I'm going to talk about a
14:39video about it. But anyway, I don't
14:41want to get ahead of myself; I'm going
14:43to continue with this video that I'm
14:45finding quite chaotic because I really
14:47had to read a lot, especially things
14:48that I had already read in college and
14:50I had to read them again. And how is it
14:52that talking about marriage is such a
14:54broad topic? Because, as I told you at
14:56the beginning of the video, we either
14:58talk about the institution of the State
15:00or the Church, or we talk about
15:02monogamous relationships, or we talk
15:04about how we build...since it was so
15:06chaotic, I decided to organize it this
15:08way: first, talking about marriage as a
15:10monogamous union outside the State and
15:12outside the Church, to understand where
15:14this choice of having a supposedly
15:16lifelong bond with another person comes
15:18from, which we are seeing here has a
15:21lot to do with the subordination of
15:23women within the creation of networks
15:26between men. But I think that all of us
15:28who are most closely linked to the idea
15:30of marriage have an idea that has to do
15:32with the Catholic Church, above all,
15:34although all the different societies
15:36had different forms of monogamous
15:38unions or not. But anyway, since we are
15:40talking about the West, we are going to
15:42talk about monogamous ones, and the
15:44different churches institutionalized
15:46marriages differently, because there
15:48are religions that allow polygamy. For
15:50example, here we are going to talk
15:52about Western marriage. The monogamous
15:54marriage that we traditionally know
15:57from our parents' and grandparents '
15:59movies. Let's leave out all the
16:02religious explanations or polygamous
16:04explanations of other types of
16:06marriages that are not the ones we
16:08mostly see in the West, because
16:10otherwise this video would be crazy.
16:13Imagine, it's going to be a 6-hour
16:14video. So I'm going to make this
16:17clarification that I'm only limiting
16:19myself to Western, monogamous marriage
16:21in the Catholic Church. You saw that at
16:27the beginning of this video I gave
16:28three examples of marriages that were
16:30considered marriages in different eras,
16:32none of which had to do with a priest
16:34or a church necessarily, but rather had
16:36more to do with a promise that one
16:38person made to the other. If we imagine
16:41a marriage in our imagination today,
16:44we're going to think of a bride in a
16:47white dress, a best man, a maid of
16:49honor, a groom, a church, a father
16:52giving away the bride. Sure, church
16:56marriages are becoming fewer and fewer,
16:58but hey, when you think about movies or
16:59the cultural constructs in your head,
17:01there's always a priest in what we
17:03imagine as a marriage. The church
17:06intervenes in some way. However, I'm
17:08telling you from the examples I read in
17:10this video, the church wasn't
17:12intervening in any of these forms of
17:13marriage. At what point did the Church
17:16adopt the institution of marriage? Well
17:18, in the 15th century, as I told you at
17:20the beginning of the video, in the 1st
17:23century AD, in ancient Rome, people
17:25chose to get married. All that was
17:27needed was the will of the parties to
17:29get married. The church didn't
17:31intervene in any way. The marriage
17:33lasted as long as the intention to be
17:35married lasted, basically. And during
17:37the first centuries of Christianity's
17:39existence, the church didn't intervene
17:41in these loving bonds between people.
17:45It blessed them, gave its opinion on
17:46them, sometimes saying they were good
17:48or bad, but it didn't organize them, it
17:50wasn't part of the institution, let's
17:52say, the institution of the church. It
17:55was still a purely family matter. The
17:58first change we see occurred in the
18:0011th century, when the Church decided
18:02to introduce a series of changes to the
18:04sacrament of marriage and proposed that
18:07for a marriage to exist, two things had
18:09to happen. First, there had to be
18:12consent from both parties to want to be
18:14in that marriage, and second, that
18:16marriage had to be consummated with a
18:18sexual act. Of course, this had to do
18:21with the need that the Church was going
18:22to start to have for a larger
18:24population, for more people to be born.
18:26So, within marriage, the sexual act was
18:28going to be something that the Church
18:29encouraged in order to have children,
18:31because, well, more people were needed
18:33in the world at that time, in the 11th
18:35century; but a priest was not needed
18:37for that marriage, witnesses were not
18:38needed, and the parents did not need to
18:40be willing. All that was needed was for
18:43both parties to want it, to have the
18:45will, to have the consent, and to
18:47consummate their act. What is important
18:50, however, is that once that act is
18:51consummated, the marriage is
18:53indissoluble, you cannot separate. This
18:56is important because this change, which
18:58was introduced in the 11th century, was
19:00radical for the Middle Ages, because it
19:02introduced the issue of women's consent
19:04. During most of the Middle Ages, there
19:07was the issue of arranged marriages,
19:09which would continue to exist; arranged
19:11marriages, especially among the upper
19:12classes. But up until that point in the
19:15Middle Ages in Europe, a father could
19:16choose who to marry his daughter to,
19:18and it didn't matter whether his
19:19daughter wanted to or not. Well, in the
19:2111th century, the issue of consent was
19:23introduced, where the woman had to give
19:25her consent and had to say she was in
19:27favor of who she wanted to marry, which
19:29gave her a certain autonomy. And let's
19:31look at this again in the 11th century,
19:33in a couple of centuries this went back
19:34. In other words, we're going to see
19:36that the history of marriage, now yes,
19:38as part of a Catholic institution
19:40within the church, has its twists and
19:41turns all the time that had to do with
19:43the needs of the church at each moment.
19:45I won't even mention when the state
19:47steps in. Now, in the 10th, 14th, and
19:4910th centuries, the Church began to
19:50have a series of conflicts regarding
19:52the issue of what marriages were valid,
19:54because if you don't have witnesses, if
19:56you don't have an order, if you don't
19:58have a structure that somehow organizes
20:00or allows you to have, I don't know, a
20:02registry of marriages, there's a whole
20:04mess between people who want to annul
20:06marriages, but don't annul them. So, in
20:09the 15th century, the Church,
20:11particularly at the Council of Trent,
20:13decided that no marriage would be
20:15considered legitimate unless it was
20:17performed in front of a priest. From
20:20the Council of Trent onwards, in order
20:22to get married you had to go in front
20:23of a priest, and the priest had to
20:25witness that you were getting married
20:26and had to keep a registry. Of course,
20:28you had to have other witnesses in
20:29addition to the priest. It began to get
20:31organized and, for the first time,
20:33marriages began to be registered. Here
20:35begins a tradition that would continue
20:37for centuries, in the case of Argentina
20:40until the end of the 19th century,
20:42where the church kept records of all
20:44civil matters of the population, births
20:46, deaths, marriages and baptisms. It is
20:49the church that now has this very
20:51important record. From then on, the
20:54form of marriage did not change much,
20:57it is quite similar to what we have
20:59today, with a priest, witnesses, and
21:01the bride and groom. Then the issue of
21:04the party and the berequetengue were
21:05added, that came a little later, but we
21:07have this structure where you have to
21:09present people who can testify that
21:10people are loving each other because
21:12they want to get married and not
21:13because they are being forced to, and
21:15the priest is the one who authorizes or
21:16not the marriage. It is important to
21:19note here that, already in the 15th
21:21century, we have the occupation, the
21:23conquest, the invasion, the Spanish and
21:25European colonization of the Latin
21:27American continent; and all these ways
21:29of relating were transferred to the
21:31American continent, where the ways of
21:33relating in pre-Hispanic societies, in
21:35the indigenous societies that inhabited
21:37here, were very different from those in
21:39Europe. For example, there were a lot
21:42of societies that were polygamous where
21:45polygamy was allowed mainly among the
21:47most hierarchical positions. And here
21:51the church was going to tell them, "
21:52Niaca, you are going to mold yourselves
21:54to European ways of relating and
21:56marriage was transferred to the
21:57indigenous societies that were being
21:59subjugated." Of course. And notice how
22:05important marriage was going to be as
22:06an institution. I'll go back to the
22:08example I gave you at the beginning of
22:10the video. You saw that at the
22:11beginning of the video I gave you three
22:12examples. One of a marriage in ancient
22:16Rome, another in the Middle Ages and
22:18another in Lima, let's say, around 1600
22:20, where an enslaved man named Juan
22:22Villegas was taken from Mexico to Lima
22:25to be sold. And when he arrived in Lima
22:28he said, "Hey, stop, you can't move me
22:30from one region to another, you can't
22:33sell me just like that because I have a
22:35wife, my wife stayed in Mexico and
22:37marriage, which is a very important
22:39sacrament for the church, should be
22:41above servitude." So you're telling me
22:43that since the Spanish crown you
22:44endorse what the church says. Well,
22:46it's your own church that made me marry
22:48a woman. I respected that union. Well,
22:50this case is very special because, well
22:53, although it shows the agency that
22:55this enslaved man Juan Villegas had to
22:57seek out the court, to present
22:58witnesses, to initiate a trial, to
23:00demand that he return to Mexico with
23:02his wife. What he said is very
23:05interesting, because he said, "It's not
23:07fair that the law of marriage be broken
23:09by the law of slavery." You know what?
23:12The guy was right. They proved him
23:14right. The church said, "No, yes, stop.
23:16Marriage is very important. You are
23:18married, you are going to return to
23:19Mexico, you are going to live with your
23:20wife, you are going to continue being a
23:22slave." Of course, that does not change
23:23. But we are going to return you to the
23:26region of origin where you were from in
23:28Mexico so that you can live with your
23:29wife, because marriage comes first. I
23:32bring this up as an example so that you
23:34can see how important the institution
23:36of marriage was for the church, which
23:37made it possible to listen to the
23:39demands of an enslaved person that were
23:41not generally listened to. At the
23:43beginning of the video, I also said
23:44that something very curious happens in
23:46the historical journey that we can take
23:48of marriage. It is that in the same
23:50century that it became normal for
23:52people to marry for love, certain types
23:55of marriage also began to be prohibited
23:58. Well, the idea that people marry for
24:03love is somewhat of a historical
24:05anomaly, because the norm throughout
24:07history has not necessarily been
24:09marriage for love, but for convenience,
24:12survival, or arrangement. The thing is
24:14that for centuries marriage fulfilled
24:17many social, economic, and cultural
24:19functions. It responded to individual
24:21needs, and individual needs or
24:23individual desires were actually
24:25relegated to secondary importance.
24:27Throughout history, people got married
24:29more out of necessity than out of love.
24:32Well, the turning point in all this
24:34came in the 17th century with the
24:35expansion of the economy and the
24:37emergence of wage labor, which weakened
24:39the power of parents over their
24:41children, since it was the parents who
24:43most often influenced their children's
24:45marital decisions. At the same time,
24:48the language and ideas of the
24:50Enlightenment kind of revived this
24:52issue of love and individual desire,
24:54and especially since the 19th century,
24:56changes in the way people lived and in
24:58the way people thought led to the
25:00emergence of these individual marital
25:02decisions, where people began to marry
25:04out of love and by choice, and not so
25:06much because of parental mandate or
25:08decision. Here, when I was making this
25:11part of the video, I read something
25:13that I found very funny because it's
25:15somewhat true. It is that when romantic
25:17love triumphed within marriage, let's
25:19say, the seed was planted that
25:21stabilized the institution of marriage.
25:24Because when marriage moves to the
25:26emotional sphere, to love, romance, and
25:28so on, it thrives more as a personal
25:30relationship and less as an institution
25:32. Let's say the institution has less
25:35weight and emotion has more weight. And
25:38that is what ends up destroying
25:39marriage to the point that today people
25:41may not even want to get married. They
25:43are in love, they love each other, they
25:44choose to live together and they don't
25:46get married because the emotional
25:47aspect weighs more than the
25:48institutional aspect. But anyway, I
25:50told you a while ago that in the same
25:52century, in this 17th century, where
25:53this issue of love within marriage and
25:55personal choice flourished or emerged,
25:56and it was no longer so much the
25:58mandate of your parents or survival. It
26:00was the same century where certain
26:02types of marriages began to be
26:03prohibited. This was mainly in Spain
26:06and in the Spanish colonies in America,
26:09let's say. It's the late 17th century.
26:13The Spanish monarchy gave rise to the
26:15Bourbons, a dynasty that tried to
26:17organize the American colonies. They
26:20made a series of reforms to organize
26:22the American colonies, which they felt
26:24were somewhat left to their own devices
26:26, initiating a series of reforms to
26:28extract more money from the colonies
26:30and, at the same time, organize them,
26:32prioritize them, and so on. In this
26:34context, they enacted a series of laws
26:37that sought, as I say, to organize
26:39society and, above all, to prevent
26:41society from mixing with those who were
26:43not so desirable. Basically, they
26:45prohibited people of different castes
26:48from marrying each other, an enslaved
26:50person from marrying a Creole person, a
26:53Spaniard, or an indigenous person from
26:55marrying a Spaniard. They legally
26:58prohibited mixed marriages, we could
27:00think of between castes. This is
27:03something that had already been seen
27:04throughout history. Different societies
27:06prohibited these types of marriages.
27:08For example, at one time in ancient
27:09Rome, plebelli and patricians were not
27:11allowed to marry, but that is very
27:12distant. We are talking about 300 years
27:15ago in the same context, at the same
27:17time when it seems that the issue, one
27:19would think, was more individual, when
27:21the individual desire to marry
27:22prevailed. Well, at the same time they
27:25are saying, "Well, no, marry whoever
27:26you want, but not that one, because he
27:28is not of your caste, he is not of your
27:29class." The law protects the lineage of
27:31the lineages that they want to protect.
27:34Of course, this law applies above all
27:36to the Spanish, to the whites, to the
27:38Creoles, not so much to the indigenous
27:40people and to the slaves and to the
27:42mestizos or the mulattos, who were
27:44considered a lower caste, a lower
27:46segment, but it begins to apply to
27:48these groups with a higher level of
27:49blood purity. They have purer blood.
27:53This does not prevent a series of
27:55marriages from occurring, let's say,
27:57outside of these norms, but of course
27:59it is not the most normal, it is not
28:01the most general, but rather it is a
28:03law that governs society and is more
28:05the rule than the exception. Since the
28:08consolidation of modern states, towards
28:10the end of the 19th century, different
28:13Latin American and European countries
28:15began to have laws of civil equality
28:17and most marriages were permitted
28:19without racial differentiation. In
28:22Latin America, in the United States,
28:24racial segregation laws continued for a
28:27couple more decades, let's say until
28:29very recently. For example, in the case
28:32of Argentina, which is where I am from,
28:35starting in 1853, with the Constitution
28:37, anyone could marry whomever they
28:39wanted, simply by expressing their will
28:41to do so and, well, following all the
28:43steps that the State required, such as
28:45the issue of witnesses, being of legal
28:47age, and so on. With the consolidation
28:50of modern states, until the end of the
28:5219th century and the beginning of the
28:5420th century, a series of secular laws
28:56began to be enacted, for example, in
28:57Argentina, which removed the monopoly
28:59on marriage from the Church; the State
29:01took it over. The State began to
29:03regulate all these civil matters of
29:05births, deaths, marriages, and so on.
29:08And the issue of church marriage became
29:10something more closely linked to each
29:12person's creed or personal choice, to
29:13the point that today, in order to get
29:15married, one simply had to do it in a
29:17civil ceremony; the issue of church
29:19marriage was optional, depending on
29:20each person's beliefs. Of course, in
29:23Argentina and in many other Latin
29:25American countries, church marriage was
29:28also linked to a certain status, but oh
29:30well, I'm leaving the video. Yes, I
29:35found it interesting to think about how
29:38these choices of monogamous lifestyles
29:41or couples, lifelong marriages, and so
29:43on, were not natural issues inherent to
29:46human nature, but rather came from a
29:48social construct. The State does not
29:51legislate against love because it
29:52simply resents love. The State
29:55legislates against love when love
29:56becomes dangerous to the system it
29:58wants to build. When love questions the
30:01system of inheritance and caste, when
30:04it disrupts society, marriage becomes
30:06something serious when marriage
30:08challenges the pre-established order.
30:11So, marriage does not have a single
30:13origin. We cannot be stuck with a
30:14single origin. The idea of this video
30:17was to demonstrate how over time in
30:19different societies and at different
30:22times it took on different meanings and
30:24uses that were adapted and modified to
30:26the needs of the dominant actors at
30:28each moment. I know this video is a bit
30:32messy, but my idea was to provide you
30:34with a tool to answer something that
30:36has been asked a lot lately. You have
30:38seen that we are into this thing of
30:40returning to traditional values, the
30:41traditional family, mother, father and
30:43children married for life. Well, the
30:46next time someone tells you that we
30:48have to return to the traditional
30:49values of traditional marriage, you ask
30:51them, what traditional marriage?
30:54Ancient Rome, where people got married
30:56and unmarried whenever they wanted,
30:58let's say, they simply had to wish to
30:59no longer be together and then they
31:01separated; the marriage of the Middle
31:02Ages, where to get married you simply
31:04had to go to a forest and swear your
31:06love to the other person without
31:07witnesses, without judges, without
31:08records; or the marriage of the 17th
31:10century, which perhaps did not allow
31:12you to marry someone simply because
31:13they were from a different caste.
31:16Something to think about. Thanks for
31:17watching this video up to this point.
31:19The truth is that it left me a little
31:20crazy. I know it left me crazy, but
31:22I'll tell you why. I was planning on
31:25publishing another video, recording
31:26another video today, but before I
31:27started recording I realized that I had
31:29to read some things that didn't quite
31:30make sense to me. So I said, well, I
31:32had this video more or less
31:34pre-arranged in terms of structure and
31:35I said, well, I'll record it. Anyway, I
31:37more or less know what I want to talk
31:39about. Well, as I was talking I
31:40realized that I wasn't so sure about
31:42what I wanted to talk about. So, I went
31:44a little crazy. But hey, these are
31:46videos that take me a long time to read
31:48because I really read a lot to make
31:49these videos. You know that, well, I
31:51have a commitment to what I talk about
31:53because I am a historian, let's say. So
31:55, I feel a double commitment and it is
31:57costing me a lot to make so many videos
31:59. It is like maybe I get too tangled up
32:02in the readings, but hey, let's wait
32:04and get back into the rhythm. I am
32:06going to start making videos that take
32:08me less reading to have time for the
32:10videos that take me more reading. My
32:12camera turned off 600 times in the
32:14middle of recording for so long, so I
32:16don't even know what I was saying. But
32:18hey, thank you for watching this video
32:19that was crazy, that no one is going to
32:21watch, that is going to be very long,
32:22that I am going to want to kill myself
32:24because I am going to spend 40 hours
32:25editing a video that no one is going to
32:26watch. So your comment is doubly
32:28appreciated, and the like if you want
32:30to see the video about the origin of
32:32patriarchy. And I remind you that I
32:34have my show, uh, "Depende del pasado,
32:36no es el problema", which I'll be
32:38performing in Comodoro Valia, Puerto
32:39Madrín, and Bariloche; my special "
32:41Brujas", which I'll be performing in
32:43Montevideo, Córdoba, Rosario de, La
32:45Plata, and Buenos Aires; and that in
32:46January I'll be in Mexico City and
32:48Tulum, and I'm going to get the tickets
32:50now. I think they're probably already
32:53on sale because I'm recording this a
32:55week before publishing it, but I think
32:57they'll be on sale next week or so:
32:59Mexico City, late January, Tulum, early
33:01February, I think February 3rd in Tulum
33:03, but I can't say anything yet because
33:05I don't know. If you want me to go to
33:08another country, invite me to Uno vuela
33:09, uno sueña alto. I'm distracted, I
33:11don't know if you can tell by the way I
33:13talk that maybe I'm not being that
33:14serious, but I'm fed up. I spent an
33:16hour recording this video, so double
33:18that like, double that comment. And if
33:20you want to subscribe, I'm close to
33:22200,000, and I can't think of what to
33:24offer you for the 200,000, what special
33:26to offer you; because for the 100,000 I
33:28did a special about my thesis, my
33:30research, my undergraduate thesis in
33:32history. Nobody saw it, that video has
33:3420,000 views, so I'm not going to
33:36promise anything, because you won't see
33:38what they promise. I'm exhausted. Now I
33:40have to edit this very long video.

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