"Marriage" reform?

(subtitled: An Etymological Viewpoint)

Now that Equal Rights for Gay Marriage is being scrutinised, why stop there? Polygamy is a tradition in many diverse cultures all over the world. It is largely Christianity that stands apart as the last bastion of refusing to sanctify or recognise the practice of taking more than one partner or spouse. Now, what could be the ramifications of the Church modifying its stance sometime in the future?

This would open the door to a multitude of scenarios. Combine the two and next we could have Bisexual Polygamy, an obvious result of mixing Gay and Heterosexual Polygamy. Again I say, why stop there?

Animal Rights activists could have bestiality legalised and have Polygamous Bestial Marriages. Ageist activists could have sex with minors legalised resulting in Paedophile Marriage. Eugenic activists will refuse to breed outside their bloodlines, giving rise to Incestual Marriage.

GABBIP. Gay And Bisexual, Bestial, Incestual, Paedophile marriage.

Time to go back, back to the word "marriage". It supposedly comes from French for marry but ultimately, the Latin maritus , husband, as in "marital", of the husband. But it's not essentially Latin - maritus is translated into husband for lack of another word. "Husband" is a contraction of the feudal housebonder (house + bond are of Nordic and Gothic origins, not Latin) meaning the titleholder of farming property (presumably male at the time) which is where we get "animal husbandry" from. Conversly, nuptial refers to the wife, and matrimony, to the mother. It is only when we enter into the terms betrothal, wedding (from wedlock) and espousal that we find no gender-specificity. Essentially these words refer to making pledges, taking vows, ie to plight one's troth.

The argument that marriage is between a man and woman, or husband and wife, stems from Holy Matrimony which denotes a sanctified union for the bearing of child offspring. This is the literal meaning of marriage. A Civil Union can only be correctly called a wedding, a betrothal or an espousal, but never a marriage, because regardless of whether or not there is any offspring, it isn't sanctified.

Leaving all that aside, let's now consider progeny. If "marriage reform" keeps going in this way, what on Earth are we going to do with all the inbred mutant bastards?