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...for his article on marriage, probably even more so with its recently being linked to by the Daily Rotten. He went so far as to amend the online edition of his 'World Watch' column with a response to a critical letter to the editor. However, there were still two unadressed problems with his article.
First, he claims that there has never in the history of the world been a marriage between two men or between two women. Secondly, he claims that marriage has always existed either primarily or exclusively for the production of children. And that's simply not true.
Sidestepping the "no true Scotsman" argument, what Card seems to be thinking of when he says 'marriage' has only existed for the past few centuries in the Americas and parts of Africa, and for a somewhat longer time in Europe. Even when one excludes polygamy from consideration, Card's statements are still false.
For example, in many tribal communities, a wealthy woman who may or may not already have a husband may take a wife of her own, for the purpose of helping around the house. And a husband making advances his wife's wife is considered inappropriate. In certain extinct cultures young men could only become the apprentices of the community's warriors by marrying them. And in a few Asian communities, if either the husband or wife in an arranged marriage dies before an agreed-upon period of time, a sibling of the deceased must step in to honor the agreement between the families of the husband and wife. The first two arrangements may seem impractical, until you realize that not all people consider divorce to be sinful.
I'm not going to ask rhetorical questions like, "Why doesn't Card correct these mistakes," but I would like to know that he has some way to respond to people curious about this.
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