Traditional Marriage Would Truly Shock Our Ancestors, But Not For The Reason You Think

By Lisa Douglas


Ahh, marriage. It evokes visions of a sweet young couple, standing side by side, loving each other while dreaming of being surrounded by many children until their last, dying days. Your family probably hopes and prays that you will be blessed with such a beautiful union...yet history shows they should be careful what they wish for!

Biblically, a traditional marriage has been defined by “a state instituted and ordained by God for the lifelong relationship between one man as husband and one woman as wife.”

However, your ancestors hoped for in a “traditional marriage” isn’t quite the roses and white picket fence that they believe it to be. Even though the definition of marriage as “an agreement between two people” has never changed, if you take a look into history it seems as though the idea of traditional marriage has.

Here are 15 surprising facts about marriage in the old days that may leave traditionalists shaken to their core.

People didn’t marry for love.

In “traditional marriage," love was considered a childish notion that had no place in a marriage. A conservative once predicted that marrying for love would destroy the institution.

In ancient Rome it was believed to be inappropriate for husbands and wives to be in love; Seneca, the philosopher, said that there was nothing more impure than a man loving his wife like a mistress. The advice in the 1700s was to get married to someone you could tolerate—progress! But it wasn’t until the 1920s that people started marrying for love en masse, coining the term “love marriage."

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Traditional Marriage Would Truly Shock Our Ancestors, But Not For The Reason You Think