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Originally posted by idle acts
I disagree. These notions are older than Western religious tradition (if by that you mean Judeo-Christian trandition), and do not need a religious underpinning to exist.
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The specific notions I was citing (marriage as romantic love, singular devotion, love in eternity and monogamous fidelity) were developed (non-exclusively, of course) by the courtly love traditions of medieval European Christendom.
The versions we see in ancient and non-Western sources had a different take on the "you're my soul mate; we were born to be together" bullshit. For example, we now read the great love stories of the Hebrew Bible through the prism of this tradition, but marriage was less about supposedly passionate infatuation for them than it is for us.
I think these notions do need some degree of religious underpinning to exist. Even atheists have to resort to recockulous religious and spiritual metaphors to describe romantic love.
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You make the point of gay activists who seek equality in this area.
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I know. I make that point because I agree with it.
[Edited to fix quotations.]
