Is gender a social construct?

September 19, 2022October 12, 2021 by Unfakely

Is gender a social construct?

Do we identify as man, woman, or in between because of social conditions and teachings?

Is gender a social construct?

Agender, Bigender, Butch, Gender outlaw… Where do they all come from? And are all these labels motivated, or are they just a way to express a disaccord with the “normal”, boring binary male and female?

So, before jumping into all the terminology, I set out to try to answer the first question… Is gender a social construct, or is it something we are born with?

This is what World Health Organization has to say about it:

Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls, and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviors, and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl, or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time.

And this is what the Oxford English dictionary has to say about it:

(Gender is…) The state of being male or female as expressed by social or cultural distinctions and differences, rather than biological ones; the collective attributes or traits associated with a particular sex, or determined as a result of one’s sex.

So, is gender a social construct? Well, it seems that way, but let’s dive in a little further:.

What is biological sex?

Your sex is what is determined by your chromosome setup. If you are born with two X chromosomes in your 23rd, and last, chromosome pair in your DNA, then you’re a woman. If you have one X- and one Y- chromosome, then you’re a man. As simple as that.

An effect of the XX or XY chromosome setup is the physical attributes. Penises and vaginas, as well as all the rest… Body structure, breasts, hair growth, voice pitch, etc. These attributes are not always easily detectable, or even always present. There are many variations. And defects in the chromosome structure can occur.

Man, woman or intersex?

You can be a man, a woman, or neither of those. The male-female binary system has only two outcomes. But someone may not have all the attributes to be determined only as a boy or only a girl right at birth.

In that case, the child can be determined as intersex.

What is gender identity?

If you think of it, we don’t really know at all who our colleagues, friends, and relatives are from a sexual point of view. At least I have never seen the penises and vaginas or breasts of my acquaintances. Nor have I ever seen a testosterone test or anything similar on any of my friends. We trust the outside, the clothes, the makeup or absence of makeup, and the general physical characteristics…

Gender identity actually is what determines much of all that. It’s what we feel inside, what we identify as. The biological sex scale is somewhat limited. There’s only man and woman, and a blending of those two. But gender identity, in theory, has no limits. What you feel inside and how you express yourself is for you to decide.

…Or is it?

But, what if there’s a difference between your biological sex and your gender identity?

Someone who is a biological man, and has the gender identity of a man, is called a cis man. A biological woman who has the gender identity of a woman is called a cis woman. “Cis” from the Latin prefix meaning “on this side of”.

If a biological man identifies as a woman, he’s called a trans woman. A biological woman who has the gender identity of a man is called a trans man. “Trans” from the Latin prefix meaning “on the other side of”.

People who identify as their biological sex are cisgender, and those who identify as the opposite sex are transgender.

A transsexual person is someone who physically transitions from male to female or vice versa.

Do sex and gender have anything to do with sexual orientation?

Apart from the biological sex, which is the Chromosome setup, and the gender identity, there is a third part of the equation. And that is sexual orientation. Are you straight, gay, bisexual, or something completely different?

Sexual orientation does not necessarily have anything to do with the previous. Sexual orientation is simply what we are attracted to, and apart from rare examples of very strange sexual fantasies, we are most often attracted to women, men, or both.

Is it more natural to feel like a man/woman when you, in fact, are a man/woman?

Very often people refer to what’s natural and what’s not. Natural, is a difficult concept, though. Sometimes it just means that I, myself consider it acceptable. And that is often based on my personal view, which is based on my personal background and convictions.

Natural, as in nature… That is often a totally different story.

Can an animal identify as something that it does not appear to be?

Can a dog be transgender?

We simply don’t know how they feel, because we can’t ask them. But we can observe the observable, and we can draw conclusions from that.

We do know, that many animals demonstrate homosexual behavior. And that would indicate that sexuality among animals isn’t as simple as only a treat that aims at reproduction, even though we cannot say for sure how they feel about their assigned sex.

So now, Is gender a social construct or not?

It is true that transgender really exists? I mean that it is something more than just an expression, a way to dress? And not only trans… There are Agender, Bigender, Gender fluid, Genderqueer, Gender expansive, and many more. For this article, we would need to determine if all these genders come from the environment, or if they are within us from the beginning.

Judith Butler

She introduced the term gender performativism in 1988. In the book Performative Acts and Gender Constitution, she develops the idea that gender is something we perform. It is the stylized repetition of acts through time. According to Butler, it is not a performance that you can choose in any way you like, as an actor plays a role. Instead, performative speech can constitute an identity. It’s not so much the subject expressing her-/himself but the repetition of stylized actions that actually make up your gender identity.

– Performativity is a matter of reiterating and repeating the norms through which one is constituted.

Your gender identity is not an expression of something inside yourself. Instead, IT IS yourself. And so, you can actually never really be wrong about it. You are what you are.

Butler also emphasizes that the repeated stylized actions that make up your gender don’t come from you. They are taught to you. In that way, gender is a social construct.

Julia Serano

Serano introduced yet another idea. The Subconscious sex concept. What she’s talking about is an unconscious and inexplicable self-understanding regarding what sex one belongs to or should be.

Someone would explain why people act against what we would expect their gender expression to be, with genetic anomalies. But Serano notes that these non-coherent people occur far more frequently than can be accounted for by biological factors.

Transgenders are aware of the painful dissonance between the subconscious sex and the biological sex, while cisgenders are not.

Serano argues that the subconscious sex is innate in some way, but social conditioning can play a role in how you interpret it. Is gender a social construct? Yes, but only partly so.

Other research

This study from 2016, and this study from 2017 both conclude that boys play more with typical boys-toys, and girls play more with toys typed to their own gender. The 2017 study included children until 8 years, and the 2016 study started at 9 months. A large spectrum.

There are many more studies like these, and none of them is really conclusive. Yes, we know that boys are boys, and that girls are girls, but it’s very difficult to be able to definitely say if they were born this or that, or if they have become such.

9 months is also reasonably old, in this context. We know that a lot of imprinting happens before that age.

Is gender a social construct? The many studies of children’s preferences of gender-type toys, don’t really conclude anything.

… And at the end of the day, maybe everything is a social construct.

I remember my uncle, who used to work as a land surveyor far away up in the mountains in my home country. When he visited the farmers up there, they offered him huge quantities of liquor. Only after that, and of course, him being pretty stoned, he could go to work. They wanted to be sure that he was Ok for the job, and being an Ok man in that context, meant being able to drink a lot of alcohol.

Being this or that depends on geography, time, and type of society. When I dress in jeans and a t-shirt, get on the bus with mixed men and women, and speak my native language in a certain way, I am just being me. But I too am a result of social conditioning. My identity is a social construct if you will.

In tropical parts of Africa and South America, men and women wear almost nothing. Scottish men wear skirts. In the middle east, they wear Thawb, and I wear my T-shirt. In the 90s many women in Europe walked around topless on the beach. In some parts of Afghanistan, the Burqa, covering every single part of the woman’s body, is now mandatory if she wants to stay safe. And a thousand years ago, dress codes and gender codes were radically different from today.

We live in a world of social constructs, and that includes not only gender but everything in our daily life. People who dare to step outside our well-defined binary gender system, have always been looked upon with everything from distrust to persecution and oppression. As has any other diversion from the accepted codes.

In India, the Hijra community has suffered oppression and violence under the British administration, for hundreds of years. In 2019 The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act was passed by the Indian Parliament. The objective is to provide protection of rights of transgender people, their welfare, and other related matters.

Conclusion.

Maybe one thing we can learn is to stop being so afraid of things we don’t understand. If someone or something appears strange, why not ask, inform yourself and reflect. Learn about the other…

But even more so, learn about yourself. You, just like me, are just a product of a whole lot of coincidences, of which most, probably are social constructs.

… And you should always respect a person’s preferred way to be addressed. It’s okay to ask, but then always use the name and pronouns they tell you.

Back to the top of the page

Yes, Gender is a social construct… At least mostly so.

home

sources

Was the true story about Romeo and Juliet different from the one told in the play by William Shakespeare?

February 23, 2023June 24, 2020 by Unfakely

Was the true story about Romeo and Juliet different from the one told in the play by William Shakespeare?

yes or no?

Romeo and Juliet. The true story.

Romeo and Juliet is a play by the extraordinary English author William Shakespeare. Written probably in 1595 (we don’t know the exact year…), it is, together with Hamlet, maybe the most famous text in all of Shakespeare’s production. And it has reached an audience far beyond book readers, and theater public. The title, Romeo and Juliet, has become a sign of deep and true love, so strong and passionate that living without the other becomes unbearable.

It was an immediate success when it came out and has been played from its birth date until modern days all over the world, probably hundreds of thousands of times. Romeo and Juliet has been filmed more than 150 times for TV as well as for the big screen, it’s been turned into ballets, operas, modernized plays, and musicals, of which the most famous is of course West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein.

A short synopsis.

Verona, Italy. The two families Montague and Capulet are at “war”. The young girl Juliet from the Capulet clan falls in love with Romeo from the Mantague-clan. Juliet is supposed to marry another Capulet guy but she marries Romeo secretly.

Romeo, together with two other Montague buddies, meets Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin. They start to fight and Tybalt and one of Romeo’s friends die. Tybalt by the hand of Romeo.

Romeo becomes the main target for the Capulet family and The feud ignites. And now we reach the famous ending…

Juliet gets a poisonous potion from a monk, but one that will only make her seem dead. Instead, she will sleep for several days, before waking up again, as good as new. She sends a message to Romeo, but he receives only half of it and thinks she’s really dead.

Overcome by grief he runs to her tomb, sees her lifeless body, and kills himself, he too with poison, but real, strong, killing-10-men-kinda-poison. Then Juliet wakes up, sees her lover dead, and ends her life with Romeo’s dagger.

The context in which the play was written.

Shakespeare was reasonably young when he wrote it, around 30. The play was designed to be performed in daylight on a simple thrust stage, a very economic and minimalistic setup. One balcony and one tomb. Apart from that, there should be no or very little scenery. The costumes and the skill of the actors together with the text should be enough to grasp the concentration of the audience.

Romeo and Juliet. The true story.

Romeo and Juliet was in no way an invention by Shakespeare. The sad love-story frame was popular throughout Europe, and not only in western renaissance literature but since the beginning of writing itself. People have always loved to cry over innocent, true, and deep love that goes wrong. It’s in our DNA.

The story about Pyramus and Thisbe in Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid, tells a story about two young lovers who run away together, since their parents don’t consent to their love. Pyramus mistakes a bloody veil for the death of Thisbe, and kills himself. When the girl comes back, she too puts an end to her life.

The story is interestingly included in A Midsummer Night’s dream, by Shakespeare

Ephesiaca by the Greek 3rd-century writer Xenophon of Ephesus is often mentioned as another source.

Matteo Bandello was a very famous Italian novelist, as well as churchman. He rewrote the novel of Luigi da Porto (more about him in a while…) and published it in French in mid 16th century. He lived his last years in Agen in France, where he was appointed Bishop. This is how the names changed into the French Juliet, Montague , and Capulet, from the Italian Giulietta, Montecchi, and Capelletti. Romeo got to keep his name.

Arthur Brooke wrote The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, published in 1562, based on Bandello’s work. Shakespeare probably got quite a bit of his material from that novel.

But let’s go back to Italy and try to find the origins of Romeo and Juliet there.

Il Novellino is a book with 50 short stories, probably written by Masuccio from Salerno in mid 15th century. It tells the story, number 33, of a love couple in Siena, Toscana. Mariotto och Ganozza is the youngster’s name. They’re involved in a much lighter, happier, and more erotically charged affair. Mariotto doesn’t kill himself, but he’s decapitated, and Ganozza doesn’t die but seeks solitude in a convent after her lover’s death.

And here we return to the text by Luigi da Porto. He wrote the novel Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti, Newly found story of two noble lovers at the beginning of 1500. He was definitely inspired by Masuccio’s story but changed the location to Verona. Da Porto was born in Vicenza and both cities were important metropolis of the very powerful Republic of Venice. (Venice was at the time fighting The League of Cambrai; the Papal states, Maximilian I of Habsburg, Spain, France, and the Dukes of Mantova and Ferrara… Most of Europe all by themselves.)

The names of the two feuding clans, Montecchi and Capelletti as well as Romeo, could have come from Dante Alighieri and his Divina Comedia written already in the beginning of 1300.

Fighting for Venice.

It is highly probable that Da Porto at the time of writing the book just had experienced a love affair, with his 16 years old cousin, Lucina Sarvognan in Udine, north of Venice. He is supposed to have entered a Carnival Masquerade Ball in Udine, with a false invitation. Maybe so that he could be with his love for just one evening. The novel is dedicated to her.

The Sarvognans was an extremely important noble house in Friuli. They controlled politics and business and they were respected among the highest authorities in Venice. So powerful that the different branches of the big family tree had feud-like disagreements for lengthy periods of time.

Lucina Sarvognan and Luigi da Porto were cousins, but Luigi on his mother’s side. Unfortunately, they were on different sides of the Family tree and they couldn’t show their love openly. They were supposed to have been married secretly, but we have no evidence for that. Da Porto was 26 years and Lucina was 16. It could have been more of Da Porto falling in love and Lucina being flattered, but as said, we don’t know. Anyway, this could have been the origin of Romeo and Juliet the true story.

Romeo and Juliet, the true story. Time of War.

Juliet's balcony, Verona, Italy — A balcony in Verona said to be the one where Juliet stood when approached by Romeo. In reality, it’s just a balcony.

When Da Porto wrote his book, there was a multitude of disorder in Udine and Friuli. Two political movements fought over the territory, the Strumieri, who included Nobles like the Castellani, and on the other side, the Zambarlani, who were more or less the big part of the Sarvognan family, Burgers, and farmers. Da Porto’s uncle Antonio Sarvognans was the leader of the latter.

To this came the wars with the French and with the Habsburgs (Austria), which also divided the loyalties of the Friulians. Not everybody was in favor of Venice.

Da Porto participated in the battles against the Habsburgs at the northern borders, and he was badly wounded. He retired to his Villa outside of Vicenza. From his bedroom window, he had a spectacular view of the hillside city of Montecchio Maggiore with its two hilltop castles. That is what he was looking at outside when he wrote the novel and it surely had an impact on his choice of names as well as subject.

So, at the end of our journey, let’s go back to Venice…

Even in Venice, there were feuds. The true story of Romeo and Juliet could also be found in the feud between the Castellani and the Nicolotti in Venice.

Venice was practically divided between these two families with their allies. The Castellani controlled the southern and eastern parts, while the Nicolotti held the northern parts. They kept their territories and fought against any kind of connection between the fractions for many hundreds of years. So fierce were the hate and distrust that controlled fist-fights were arranged at the bridges. Two teams lined up from each side, and the object was to simply throw the guy from the other side into the canal.

The San Trovaso-church was situated exactly where their territories met. And it’s maybe the only church in the world that has two main entrances… So that the two clans couldn’t start arguing while entering the holy temple.

Da Porto was familiar with the situation, being a citizen of the Republic. He could very well have included the everyday situation in Venice in his writing.

Romeo and Juliet, summing it up.

William Shakespeare got his story from Arthur Brooke, who got it from Matteo Bandello, who got it from Luigi da Porto, who got the story from Masuccio Salernitano, who at least got a lot of fragments to his story from older writers. Stories about tragic love affairs have always been popular. Especially in the middle ages, stories of family feuds, poison, murders, suicides, and young love were highly profitable.

I believe Da Porto wrote about what he knew, and just like any good writer should, he borrowed from what he had around him.

There is no evidence of his marriage to Lucina. We don’t even know if their love was real or just imaginative from Da Porto’s side.

William Shakespeare then took the story and turned it into a universal masterpiece.

But it doesn’t end there. From the beginning of time, it had continued to grow and it continued to grow even after Shakespeare… And one of the best versions up to date is, without any doubt, West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein.

Watch this video on YouTube

Back to the top of the page

Conclusion

No, Romeo and Juliet in Da Porto’s world, or in the world of any other of the many authors, wasn’t very different from the play by Shakespeare. That’s simply because there is no true story. There are no real-life Romeo and Juliet, apart from the story about every young lover out there who suffers.

Romeo and Juliet is a story… A very good one, but still just a story.

home

sources

Did the China One-Child policy have any significant impact on population growth?

October 5, 2022May 12, 2020 by Unfakely

Did the China One-Child policy have any significant impact on population growth?

yes or no?

What was the China one child policy?

It was a governmental program for slowing down the rampant Chinese population growth by preventing couples from having more than one child. From the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, efforts had been made to reduce the increasing population. From the beginning of 1970, China had imposed a two-child limit. The population had skyrocketed from 550 million in 1949 to 830 million in 1970. But when Mao Zedong died in 1976, it became clear that the two-child limit hadn’t stopped the fertility rate. In only six years there were another 100 million Chinese children to take care of.

So in 1979, another drastic step was taken… The China one child policy. Chinese couples were allowed to have one child only. Enforcements included financial and other benefits for those who complied and sanctions for those who did not. Information campaigns were rolled out and contraceptive methods were made widely available. Critics have stated that methods like forced sterilization and abortion were also practiced.

The program was applied very unevenly across the Chinese mainland. In rural areas, couples were more often allowed to have a second child. Exceptions could be made based on a variety of reasons. If the first child was disabled, if it was a girl, parents of certain ethnic minority groups… Or parents could simply pay for the second child. From the mid-1980s, about half of all Chinese couples had a second child. The program was abolished in 2015.

Did it work?

It wasn’t the central government that decided about the details of the exceptions and the rules, but the local authorities. That also led to big differences in birth rates across the country.

Chinese officials claim that about 400 million births were avoided thanks to the program, but many scientists dispute these figures. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Chinese population growth diminished radically in late 1900. The dispute is whether the Chinese one child policy had any effect, or if the slow-down in birth rate depended on other factors. Let’s check the charts.

china one child policy — Courtesy of Our World in Data

We can see a significant drop from 1970 to 1980 in China. But the comparable countries have a similar decrease in fertility. We have a very similar development in most of the Asian communities…

From 1979, when the china one child policy Was introduced, we can actually see increased fertility compared to Taiwan.

Factors that really have an effect on population growth.

The world population has more than tripled since 1950. The biggest growth has occurred in Asia simply because there are more people there. From 1,4 billion to 4,6 billion. The biggest growth rate has happened in Africa from 227 million to 1.280.000 million.

The average woman in 1965, worldwide, had 5 children.
The average woman in 2015, worldwide, had 2,5 children.
UN expects that the average woman in 2100, worldwide, will have less than 2 children.
In 2019, 29 countries in the world had a fertility rate of over 4 children per woman. 27 of them were in Africa.
The three countries in the world with the highest birth rate are Niger, the Central African Republic, and Somalia. Niger and the Central African Republic hold the two bottom positions in the chart of the Human Development Index (HDI).

Human Development Index (HDI) — Courtesy of Our World in Data

The top image shows HDI – Human Development Index, a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators. The bottom image shows worldwide fertility.

It is evident that wealth, education, and general development decrease the birth rate. But there are more specific reasons why some countries make more children than others.

Education, the best pill of them all.

Education in general and women’s education specifically slows down population growth.

The reasons for women’s education level as a restraining measure are many.

Women who attend school, have their first child later in life. Their fertile lifespan is shortened.
Models based on the work by the economist Gary Becker give children a “price”. In this framework, a child has a cost. In money, but also in lost time and opportunities. When the education level of women increases, the cost of children increases correspondingly.
Better education for women increases child health and decreases infantile deaths. These factors also make fewer children.
Better education for women increases knowledge about contraceptives.
All these things create a reinforcement loop as lower fertility allows for better education and so on.

Niger, which has the highest birth rate in the world, with more than 7 children per woman, has schooling for women of only 1,3 years on average.

what can we do to save the world — Length of Schooling / number of children

what is wrong with the world today? — The relationship between Fertility and HDI index

How is the world doing?

The world is overpopulated. The earth will not be enough for all of us if we continue to waste energy and resources at the present rhythm. The major problem isn’t just the quantity of people in the world, but more so the speed with which we use up what we have around us. And the filth we spread.

The biggest population growth today is in poor countries, and poor countries are putting less weight on the strained world ecology. From 1950 to 2019, while the world population tripled, Europe and North America went from 650 million to 1100 million, less than doubled. Still, Europe and North America have a much greater negative impact on environmental and economic outcomes, than the rest of the world.

According to the United Nations’ calculations, the world population could level out at around 11 billion in 2100. That would mean a transition from 600 million people to 11 billion in just 400 years, a growth of more than 1800%.

We’ve seen that the slow-down in growth will depend strongly on a better socio-economical standard of living. So, the challenge is not just the total amount of people, but if all these people will use up the resources at the same rate as the rich part of the world does today. And if all those 11 billion men and women will pick up the western lifestyle as we know it.

The biggest challenge of all consists in changing that lifestyle.

Back to the top of the page

Conclusion

No, the China one-child policy didn’t have much impact on population growth. Things that would matter much more are social and economical development, and most of all, women’s education.

home

sources

Was King David, son of Jesse, gay? And was Jonathan, son of Saul, his lover?

October 5, 2022April 26, 2020 by Unfakely

Was King David, son of Jesse, gay? And was Jonathan, son of Saul, his lover?

yes or no?

Disclaimer

As always, discussing the Bible, or any other religious text is a delicate matter. My conclusions are based on facts that are as correct as I can find them. These facts when it comes to the Bible very often boil down to believing or not believing that it’s actually the unchangeable word of God. I look at it from a historical, and anthropological point of view… Not from a religious standpoint.

Who was King David?

In the Bible King David was the youngest son of Jesse and became King of the Jews after the death of Saul. He was picked by the prophet Samuel, who sent by God, traveled to Bethlehem. There he inspected all of Jesse’s sons only to ask if there wasn’t yet another. So, they called the youngest, not more than a boy, And Samuel declared that this youngster shall be the King of Israel.

Then there is the story about how David kills the giant, Goliath with a sling and a stone. After that, he suffers the jealousy of Saul, who tries to kill him for quite some time before he himself dies by the hand of the Philistines. Actually, he kills himself at the end of the battle as a result of the defeat.

David and Jonathan

Jonathan is the son of Saul, the first King of Israel. Jonathan is a very close friend of David’s and he defends him and helps him when his father, in his jealousy, tries to find David and kill him. And it is in this context that the supposedly homosexual relationship between David and Jonathan appears.

The friendship/love between David and Jonathan is described in

1 Samuel 18, 1-4
1 Samuel 19, 1-7
1 Samuel 20
1 Samuel 23, 16-18
2 Samuel 1, 17-27

Of these, the most interesting is the passage in 2 Samuel. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

And the 1 Samuel 18, 4. And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2 And Saul took him that day and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. 3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. 4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

David and Jonathan, were they really homosexual?

The friendship of David and Jonathan is problematic for Christians, as well as for Hebrews, to say the least. It’s none other than King David, one of the most important figures in the whole Bible, and the forefather of Jesus Christ. And he turns out to be gay…?

Some modern scholars claim that the mentioning of the covenant, and the thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women, makes it passionate love rather than just friendship. Covenant meaning marriage.

On the negative side are the facts that David had many wives and many children. God is punishing him for his adultery affair with Bathsheba, but God doesn’t say anything about Jonathan.

Text analysis

The Hebrew word used when describing the love between David and Jonathan is aheb. Aheb means love, but all kinds of love… passionate love as well as friendship. In the original Latin Bible Vulgata, the word used is Diligĕre. This also indicates all kinds of love, brotherly, fatherly, as well as erotic love. Diligĕre is used when Jesus talks about love for your neighbor, love for God, and love for his disciples.

Both words are used many times in the Bible indicating both passionate and non-passionate love. For example, when Abraham is told by the Lord that he must sacrifice his beloved son, the word aheb is used. So this doesn’t get us anywhere.

What the Old Testament says about homosexuality.

There are a few verses commenting on this:

Leviticus 18, 22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

Leviticus 20, 13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

There is also the story about Sodom and Gomorrah where two angels visit Lot and all the men in the city of Sodom shows up to rape them.

Keep in mind that many other things in the Bible are abominations.

Eating with an Egyptian.
Eating shrimps or pork.
For a woman to wear men’s clothes or for a man to wear women’s clothes,
To wear linen and wool together….

We can’t say for sure what the general idea was back then. Though, It’s beyond doubt that both Christians and Jews during the centuries that followed, all the way until the last decades have treated homosexuality with resistance, disgust, and even violence.

The scholars’ opinion – David and Jonathan as friends

The mainstream view among scholars has been that this is an excellent example of platonic love between two men. Close friends who love each other for no gain or winning’s sake. But again, most scholars are believers, Christians, or Jews.

Being close and expressing it, isn’t something that automatically would imply a sexual relationship in the ancient Levant culture. North Americans and Europeans sometimes have a hard time understanding how people (men) can be very close, even touching each other without that having any sexual implement whatsoever. But in many parts of the world, men can be close without being gay.

Abraham Rihbany, a Bible scholar of Lebanese origin writes about this in his book The Syrian Christ: Easterners can use “terms of unbounded intimacy and unrestrained affection” to one another: “my soul,” “my eyes,” “my heart”. with no homosexual intent.

Israel Weisfeld calls the love between David and Jonathan the “classic description of genuine unselfish love”

Jerry M. Landay (1998): “The friendship of Jonathan and David was the embodiment of the sheer love of man for man, an intimacy based on shared experiences and danger.”

The scholars’ opinion – David and Jonathan as lovers

Tom Horner wrote his book Jonathan Loved David, in 1978. In it, he argued for a homosexual relationship and motivated it as following a path of close friendship/love relationships between men in ancient literature. “The love of Jonathan does not have to be nailed to the mast of a late capitalist liberation front whose members, after centuries of sinister suppression of homosexuals, wish to designate homosexual love the highest form of humanity. It would be even less sound to assure us in suspiciously strong tones that Jonathan and David were most definitely not gay.”

Danna Fewell and David Gunn wrote the book In Gender, Power, and Promise, in 1993. “Until recently, most writing on the Jonathan and David story has come out of a strongly homophobic tradition” … “On the contrary, far from stretching probability, a homosexual reading … finds many anchor points in the text.” for example Jonathan’s covenant of love made with David (1 Sam 18:1-4), Saul’s sexual insult hurled at Jonathan (20:30-31), and David’s lament for his lost beloved (2 Sam 1:26).

So, why is the story even there?

Before we decide if it’s true or not, let’s look into what it all means. Why is this so important?

The Book of Ruth and the Book of Samuel tell the story of David, how he was chosen to be King and his ancestry. To both Jews and Christians, this is of extreme importance. Jesus is of the house of David, and the Gospels go through lengthy measures to put him at Bethlehem, the city of David.

But David isn’t the legitimate King, because he is not the son of Saul. If you keep this in mind, the story about Jonathan becomes logical. Saul is described as jealous, unbalanced, vindictive, and not following God’s commands. We can easily agree to David being a much better King than Saul. But he’s still not legitimate.

The story isn’t about love. it’s about the legitimacy of David as King

So, the story about Jonathan describes how the legitimate heir to the throne practically gives away his right in favor of David. The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David. and Thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth, are verses that confirm this. The covenant would be a pact to pass the crown to David. As would the following verse, And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

It’s not David who strips himself, but it is Jonathan.

There are other analogic verses in the Bible e.g.Numbers 20, 28 And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount.

The long story about David, Jonathan, and Saul is supposed to legitimize the Kingdom of David.

The authenticity of the old testament.

the oldest hebrew bilble — The Aleppo Codex

The Old Testament is very old. But unfortunately, we don’t have the original, and we’re not even close. The oldest complete Hebrew Bible is from around the year 1000 A.D and it’s called the Leningrad Codex. Another complete Hebrew bible was the Aleppo Codex about 100 years older. This latter was damaged during the Aleppo fire in 1947 and is now incomplete. The Leningrad Codex has been corrected against the Aleppo Codex and is regarded as less accurate.

David lived around 1000 B.C. From that time, the tales of him and his life were told through generations for some five hundred years. It was then written down together with much of the other stories of the Old Testament during the Babylonian exile or shortly after. Approximately 500 B.C. (500 years. That’s as distant as from today as to when Columbus discovered America…).

After that is was copied by hand for 1500 years (that’s as far back as the fall of the Roman Empire). And we know that copying by hand generates errors, misinterpretations, and simple changes.

There are many older fragments like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Silver Scrolls, but these are fragments. They are not complete.

David and Jonathan – Vulgata

The Christian tradition has its Vulgata from the 4th century, probably based on the contemporary Greek uncial codices, as well as ancient Hebrew texts. But it’s still handwritten from a handwritten copy. And it is at least partly from texts transferred into Greek from the original narratives in Hebrew… And it is written in Latin.

If you want an English Bible, you can choose the King James Bible… Or you can have one of the 60 (!) other versions available in English.

All this to explain that the text has been changed. We don’t know exactly how much, but knowing that the early Catholic church made quite an effort to create a book that they could promote by editing the material.

It is not controversial to imagine that the story about David and Jonathan has been edited, changed, and overhauled during the centuries, just like many of the other stories in the Holy Bible.

The authenticity of David, Saul, and Jonathan.

On the Tel-Dan Stele, there is an inscription that could be interpreted as … House of David, This is about all of the historical evidence we have. And there’s nothing that suggests that he was King over more than a small people in southern Palestine. The great United Kingdom of Israel could have been a myth about an ancient, powerful, and united Jewish Kingdom. Just like the King Arthur Myth in England.

We have no historical evidence that Saul ever existed.

We have no historical evidence that Jonathan ever existed.

Conclusion

In the end, it comes down to if you believe that the Bible you read today, after 3000 years, is the word of God, or not. If you do, then you will have to determine what God wants to tell you with this story.

If, on the other hand, you look at the long line of circumstantial evidence I’ve put up here, then it is obvious that there is no homosexual relation between David and Jonathan. And the reason is this:

There is no way first the Hebrew scribes, and then the Catholic church would have let these small fragments of Gay love live on for 3000 years. There’s just no way the censorship could have allowed it, knowing what effort the religious community has made to prevent homosexuality during the centuries.

This is a story about how the King of all Kings, the creator of the glorious Kingdom of Israel and Judah, came to be. From his ancestors in the Book of Ruth, until the death of Saul and the resignation of the throne by Jonathan. It just couldn’t have lived on if it was about Gay love. It would have been cut out long before it first came into writing if it was meant as anything else than the legitimate King renouncing his throne to David

Then again, does it really matter? We don’t even know if they existed, let alone if they were this or that, tall or small, gay or straight. It could have been a story to tell us that Gay love is Okey, It could have been a way for God to say: “Your love is as good as anybody else’s. I’m totally cool with that”… But it’s not. Homosexuality is not widely accepted. Not among Christians, not among Jews, and not among Muslims.

We can just hope that all the different religions of this world evolve.

Back to the top of the page

No, King David, son of Jesse, did not have a homosexual relationship with Jonathan. He just wanted the throne.

home

sources

Is love the key to a long and happy marriage?

October 5, 2022April 22, 2020 by Unfakely

Is love the key to a long and happy marriage?

yes or no?

Is true love really the best ground plate for a happy marriage?

Love marriage vs Arranged marriage.

Getting married. For billions of people around the world, it’s a milestone, a doorway, a passage to the mature part of your life. Before-After. Child-Adult. And billions of us dream about that special person who is going to conquer our hearts. Or we sip the teacup and lovingly gaze at our partner, happy and grateful for a long life spent together in harmony.

But how do we get there?

How do we find that special one? How do we connect to that perfect stranger who then has to take part in the fullness of our life? … Birthdays, work, holidays, parents, siblings… And our children, the children that are half me and half that other human being that I call my wife/husband. It’s an incredible commitment. How do we choose the winning candidate?

How do we find the perfect partner?

For the sake of this article, we will define the two ways to find your life partner. Love marriage vs arranged marriage.

The love marriage is a term often used in the past to define a marriage of choice. It was often frowned upon as foolish and shortsighted, as two young people clearly didn’t have the experience and wisdom to make a rational choice of partner. The love marriage could also be motivated by money or power, a marriage by convenience, but it’s difficult to distinguish one love from another. Most people wouldn’t admit to choosing money and wealth anyway. So love marriage, by definition, is when the couple decides for themselves. Today, marrying for love is the norm in the western world.

The arranged marriage is everything that isn’t of the pair’s own choice. The parents could choose a partner based on honest concern for their children. It could also be for political, or religious reasons… Or even for money. It can also be outside the parents’ control and totally be decided by other members of the clan or the family. In some countries, it is common to have a third party who evaluates and matches the potential bride and groom.

Marriage in different cultures

There are great differences in how people get together in various parts of the world. Not only that, but the cultural differences can be overwhelming also within one country. We are all different and we seek different things in a partner.

In very general terms, one can say that the stronger the position of the woman is in a community and the more gender equality there is – the more that community tends to promote love marriage.

One can also say that the richer a society is – the more love marriages it shows.

More very general tendencies are, in Europe and in America, it’s often regarded as obvious, that anyone has a free will, with whom to marry, when to marry, or even whether or not to marry at all.

In many parts of Asia and Africa, it is regarded as common sense to let the more experienced choose the right person.

Love marriages are connected to the idea that marriage matters only for the people involved. While arranged marriages are something that concerns the family, and the community, as well.

Love marriage vs Arranged marriage. Which is better?

Looking at the literature, films, and theater plays, there is no doubt which is the preferred system. But it’s evident that a book about passionate love is more selling than a partnership based on rational consideration.

The idea of marrying for love is also rather new. It’s been growing for no more than two centuries:

Stephanie Coontz: People have always fallen in love, and throughout the ages, many couples have loved each other deeply. But only rarely in history has love been seen as the main reason for getting married.

But, is it always better to trust love? To trust your instincts?

What do psychologists say?

Love marriage vs arranged marriage. Most psychologists agree upon love not being nearly enough for a long and happy marriage. And the love they mean is the typical blood-pumping passion that makes us fly two feet off the ground and behave like morons. It takes much, much more than that.

Communication is a keyword. In all interactions between individuals, communication is extremely important and difficult. But in a marriage it’s fundamental. And in a hetero-marriage, you also have the problem to try to understand someone who has a different signal system than you. It takes a lot of work.

Jonathan Robinson: The number one thing is that people want to be understood and they want to feel like their emotions are being valued.

Integrity – Honesty – Trust. We need space, and we need to know that the other person loves us even when we grow, something that will happen inevitably. But to have space we need trust, and to have trust we need the partner to be reasonably honest.

Barton Goldsmith: Honesty builds your internal security so that you not only feel good about your partner, but you also feel better about life…

Commitment. If you want a relationship to last, you have to work on it. And work hard. We’re looking at a lifetime of struggle here. You also need to know that your partner is committed. Invest in your marriage and show that you’re investing.

Thomas Bradbury: There are two kinds of commitment. “I like this relationship and I’m committed to it” and “I’m committed to doing what it takes to make this relationship work”. “The second kind of commitment predicts lower divorce rates and slower rates of deterioration in the relationship.”

The two objections to love marriages

Marriage is a framework of living that includes other important factors besides love.
Passionate love is a short-term experience in our lives.

What do the statistics say?

In 2012 Dr. Pamela Regan of California State University performed a study on two groups of American couples. All of Indian origin, 35 years of age on average, and married for 10 years. In one group the participants had married for love, while the other consisted of arranged marriages. All marriages were conducted in the US.

The result was that there were no differences between the level of satisfaction in the two groups. And both groups scored very high.

In 2005 Jayamala Madathil, Jane E. Myers, and Lynne R. Tingle interviewed 22 couples and one widowed person in arranged marriages in India. They then compared the data to couples in the US who had married for love. Love marriage vs arranged marriage.

Even here the outcome was similar. While differences could be seen in the importance the participants gave to the love aspect of a marriage and the loyalty they felt towards their partner, no difference could be seen in satisfaction levels.

Dr. Robert Epstein studied more than 100 Indian, Pakistani, and Orthodox Jew couples all in arranged marriages. He compared the results to the research on love-based marriages in western countries. His study suggests that feelings of love in love marriages begin to fade by as much as a half in 18 months. The arranged marriage, on the other hand, has a growing curve. In about five years it surpasses the love marriage. After ten years, the affection felt by those in arranged marriages is typically twice as strong as those in love marriages.

The importance of choosing wisely

Most psychologists agree that one very important issue is the choice you make. Whether you marry by love, or by arrangement, or not marry at all… Choosing a partner is a very important step. And although in many countries it’s easy to divorce, and maybe you don’t intend to spend the rest of your life with one single person anyway. It’s still a good idea to think chose wisely.

Child marriages

In many parts of the world, child marriages are common. This is a violation of Article 16(2) of the Universal Declaration of human rights. In the world today there are around 650 million women who were married under the age of 18. Every year more than 5 million girls under 18 are forced to marry.

Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school.
They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers.
Pregnancy during adolescence increases the risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
Child marriage isolates the girl from family and friends and excludes her from participating in her community.

Child marriages are all arranged marriages.

Conclusion

It’s difficult, close to impossible to determine if a marriage is to become successful, harmonic, and happy beforehand. There are so many different issues to account for. And, it depends on factors like traditions, religion, nationality, welfare, wealth, social community structure, and others.

Love marriage vs arranged marriage, which one is the winner?

Interestingly, it seems to be the consensus among psychologists, marriage counselors, as well as scientists, is that passionate love doesn’t make a better platform to build a lasting relationship upon. A happy marriage depends on many other things.

Most important of all is maybe the knowledge that it doesn’t come for free. You have to work on it.

Back to the top of the page

No, it seems that passionate love at the beginning of a marriage doesn’t determine how it’s turning out. There are many other circumstances that are more important.

home

sources