TOWARDS AN AUTHENTIC ONTOLOGY OF MARRIAGE

JIMOH Anselm Kole

Abstract


In recent times, marriage is redefined to accommodate the concerns of “gayrights†movements. Against the classical understanding of marriage as a union between two persons of opposite sex for the purpose of domestic partnership and reproduction of one of its kind, contemporary definitions tend to leave out the gender implicating terminology of “opposite sexâ€. Marriage is thus defined as a union between two persons. This paper argues, using the Kantian notion of marriage that such definitions that deliberately omit the gender implicating terminology of “opposite sex†mutilates the authentic ontological meaning of marriage. Ontologically and etymologically, real marriage is between a male and a female, where the male is the husband and the female the wife. Until we can correctly talk about a “female husband†and a “male wife†without contradictions in terms, the new definitions of marriage that recognizes same-sex unions is incorrect and ontologically misleading.

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JIMOH, Anselm Kole Ph.D. A Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy of the Catholic Major Seminary of SS. Peter and Paul, Bodija, Ibadan. A priest of the Catholic diocese of Auchi, Nigeria, he majored in African Epistemology and currently serves as the Head of Department of Philosophy.

Immanuel Kant, (1790), The Science of Rights, trans. by W. Hastie, (Start Publishing LLC, 2012), # 24. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. (The word in bracket is my addition). 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., # 25. (The explanation in bracket is my addition). 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., # 26. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., # 27 14 Paul Gilbert, “Marriage†in Ted Honderich, (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, (Oxford: University Press, 2005), p. 556 15 Ibid. 16 Evan Gerstmann, Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution, (Cambridge: University Press, 2004), p. 22 17 Anthony Ewherido, “Marriage and Family in the Light of the New Evangelization: Divine and Human Relations in the Biblical Tradition as Locus of Evangelizationâ€, A Paper presented at the 2nd Annual Theological Conference of the Southwest Association of Nigerian Catholic Theologians on the Theme: “Marriage and Family in the Light of the New Evangelization†at SS. Peter and Paul Seminary, Bodija, Ibadan. (May 2015) 18 Edvard Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, vol.1, ( 1922), p. 71. 19 Edvard Westermarck, The Future of Marriage in Western Civilization, (Books for Libraries Press, 1936), p. 3. 20 See www.merriam-webster.com>dictionary. 21 Shaun Kenny, “An Ontology of Marriageâ€, https://bearingdrift.com, (Retrieved July 8, 2016). 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid.


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