Marriage is about defending womenAmong the many different versions of marriage in human history, very few of them have supplied the high-minded qualities that the plaintiffs feel is their right. The vast majority of marriages in the past, perhaps a majority even now, were dictated by families, clans, holy men or magicians, and enforced on the bride and groom by social pressure, enforced if necessary with brutality and violence. True, many marriages promote loving intimacy and enduring fidelity, but that’s an outcome of the relationship itself – not the raison d’etre for the institution. In primordial terms, marriage only exists at all – in all of its permutations, pleasant or barbaric – because of the nature of human heterosexuality. As a species, we need to protect female sexuality in order to assure ourselves of a future.