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The History Of Human Marriage
''The History of Human Marriage'' is an 1891 book by the Finnish philosopher and anthropologist Edvard Westermarck that provides an overview of marriage over time. Blankenhorn 2007. pp. 9-10. The Finnish philosopher Jaakko Hintikka calls the work a monumental study and a classic in its field, but notes that it is now antiquated. Summary In the book, Westermarck defined marriage as "a more or less durable connection between male and female lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring." Westermarck argues that marriage is a social institution that rests on a biological foundation, and developed through a process in which human males came to live together with human females for sexual gratification, companionship, mutual economic aid, procreation, and the joint rearing of offspring. Blankenhorn 2007. p. 37. Besides other observations and propositions, Westermarck also proposes that people who live in close domestic proximity during the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edvard Westermarck
Edvard Alexander Westermarck (Helsinki, 20 November 1862 – Tenala, 3 September 1939) was a Finnish philosopher and sociologist. Among other subjects, he studied exogamy and the incest taboo. Biography Westermarck was born in 1862 in a well-off Lutheran family, part of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland. His father worked at the University of Helsinki as a bursar, and his maternal grandfather was a professor at the same university. It was thus natural for Edvard to study there, obtaining his first degree in philosophy in 1886, but developing also an interest in anthropology and reading the works of Charles Darwin. His thesis, The History of Human Marriage, was published as a book in 1891, and would be published again in a substantially revised edition in 1921. In 1892, Westermarck became a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Helsinki. While at the university, he became the chairman of the Prometheus Society, a student society promoting religious freedom. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. It is considered a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity. A marriage ceremony is called a wedding. Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, and religious purposes. Whom they marry may be influenced by gender, socially determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice, and individual desire. In some areas of the world, arrang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jaakko Hintikka
Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka (12 January 1929 – 12 August 2015) was a Finnish philosopher and logician. Life and career Hintikka was born in Helsingin maalaiskunta (now Vantaa). In 1953, he received his doctorate from the University of Helsinki for a thesis entitled ''Distributive Normal Forms in the Calculus of Predicates''. He was a student of Georg Henrik von Wright. Hintikka was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University (1956-1969), and held several professorial appointments at the University of Helsinki, the Academy of Finland, Stanford University, Florida State University and finally Boston University from 1990 until his death. He was the prolific author or co-author of over 30 books and over 300 scholarly articles, Hintikka contributed to mathematical logic, philosophical logic, the philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, language theory, and the philosophy of science. His works have appeared in over nine languages. Hintikka edited the academic journal ''Synthese'' fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sexual Attraction
Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual's ability to attract other people sexually, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice. The attraction can be to the physical or other qualities or traits of a person, or to such qualities in the context where they appear. The attraction may be to a person's aesthetics or movements or to their voice or smell, among other things. The attraction may be enhanced by a person's adornments, clothing, perfume or style. It can be influenced by individual genetic, psychological, or cultural factors, or to other, more amorphous qualities. Sexual attraction is also a response to another person that depends on a combination of the person possessing the traits and on the criteria of the person who is attracted. Though attempts have been made to devise objective criteria of sexual attractiveness and measure it as one of several ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incest Taboo
An incest taboo is any cultural rule or norm that prohibits sexual relations between certain members of the same family, mainly between individuals related by blood. All human cultures have norms that exclude certain close relatives from those considered suitable or permissible sexual or marriage partners, making such relationships taboo. However, different norms exist among cultures as to which blood relations are permissible as sexual partners and which are not. Sexual relations between related persons which are subject to the taboo are called incestuous relationships. Some cultures proscribe sexual relations between clan-members, even when no traceable biological relationship exists, while members of other clans are permissible irrespective of the existence of a biological relationship. In many cultures, certain types of cousin relations are preferred as sexual and marital partners, whereas in others these are taboo. Some cultures permit sexual and marital relations betwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westermarck Effect
The Westermarck effect, also known as reverse sexual imprinting, is a psychological hypothesis that people tend not to be attracted to peers with whom they lived like siblings before age six. This hypothesis was first proposed by Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck in his book ''The History of Human Marriage'' (1891) as one explanation for the incest taboo. Research since Westermarck The Westermarck effect has achieved some empirical support.''Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge at the Turn of the Century'', Arthur P. Wolf and William H. Durham (Editors), Stanford University Press, 2004, . Introduction Proponents point to evidence from the Israeli kibbutz system, from the Chinese Shim-pua marriage customs, and from closely related families. In the case of the Israeli kibbutzim (collective farms), children were reared somewhat communally in peer groups, based on age, not biological relations. A study of the marriage patterns of these children ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sexual Imprinting
In psychology and ethology, imprinting is any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage) that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behaviour. It was first used to describe situations in which an animal or person learns the characteristics of some stimulus, which is therefore said to be "imprinted" onto the subject. Imprinting is hypothesized to have a critical period. Filial imprinting The best-known form of imprinting is ''filial imprinting'', in which a young animal narrows its social preferences to an object (typically a parent) as a result of exposure to that object. It is most obvious in nidifugous birds, which imprint on their parents and then follow them around. It was first reported in domestic chickens, by Sir Thomas More in 1516 as described in his treatise ''Utopia'', 350years earlier than by the 19th-century amateur biologist Douglas Spalding. It was rediscovered by the early ethologist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Blankenhorn
David Blankenhorn (born 1955 in Jackson, Mississippi) is the founder and president of the Institute for American Values and its initiative Braver Angels. He is also co-director of The Marriage Opportunity Council and the author of ''Fatherless America'' and ''The Future of Marriage''. A noted figure in the campaign against same-sex marriage in the United States, his position changed and he voiced support of legalizing same-sex marriage in June 2012. Biography Blankenhorn received a bachelor's degree in Social Studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1977; he was also awarded a master's degree, with distinction, in Comparative Social History from University of Warwick in Coventry. Blankenhorn served as a VISTA volunteer and was involved in community organizing. Blankenhorn founded the Institute for American Values, a nonpartisan think tank whose stated mission is to "study and strengthen key American values", in 1987. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush appointed Blan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science and various areas of analytic philosophy, especially philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"Bertrand Russell" 1 May 2003. He was one of the early 20th century's most prominent logicians, and a founder of analytic philosophy, along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, his friend and colleague G. E. Moore and his student and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell with Moore led the British "revolt against idealism". Together with his former teacher A. N. Whitehead, Russell wrote ''Principia Mathematica'', a milestone in the development of classical logic, and a major attempt to reduce the whole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marriage And Morals
''Marriage and Morals'' is a 1929 book by philosopher Bertrand Russell, in which the author questions the Victorian morality, Victorian notions of morality regarding sex and marriage. Russell argues that the laws and ideas about sex of his time were a potpourri from various sources and were no longer valid. The subjects range from criticisms of social norms, theories about their origins and tendencies, evolutionary psychology, and instinctual attachment to children (or lack thereof), among others. Notably, the book found marital rape to be common, stating: "Marriage is for woman the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution." Cultural response ''Marriage and Morals'' prompted vigorous protests against and denunciations of Russell during his visit to the United States shortly after the book's publication. A decade later, the book, along with his protest against US involvement in WWI and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
