I never saw Adam and Eve holding hands.

Throughout my childhood, in all the photos of artwork, I never saw Adam and Eve holding hands as intimates. Come to think of it, I never heard any adult, under any circumstances, speak of the intimate bond that must have existed between these two.

I did see depictions of --and heard stories told repeatedly about-- Adam and Eve disobeying, getting eternally punished for screwing up and having a kid that really screwed up, big time!

Marriage has always been the most complicated institution created by the human race. What governed marriages were traditions, laws, rituals-- and bi-gender only coupling-- established centuries ago. Maybe a re-evaluation is in order? For the most part marriage seemed to be set up just fine for the male of the couple. The women had it pretty good, too. That is if you looked at it from the male perspective, at any rate. Being kept safe, fed, clothed and healthy surely offset being kept financially dependent, politically impotent and sexually captive.

By the turn of the twentieth century, women began to have more of an official voice in politics. Within seventy-five years women had the right to vote, full participation in the judicial system, wider entry into the work force, a dwindling gap in wages, degrees of higher education, safe, reliable birth control and legally protected medical access to abortions. What did not change were those traditions, laws, rituals, and of course that bi-gender coupling rule established centuries ago, governing marriage. As it turned out, the divorce rate soared to an all-time high of nearly sixty percent at its peak. It took very little imagination to draw the conclusion that equal rights and freedom for women were the root causes adversely affecting marriage and family values. Unfortunately, it was epidemic at that time. Victims falling prey to the disease of very little imagination were found everywhere, all throughout the land, in every corner of the country. Rich or poor, educated or not, even one's race offered no protection. People with very little imagination could be found everywhere Their descendants are with us today.

Maybe, just maybe, the deterioration of marriage and family values, as we know them, are occurring for some other reasons?

My own marriage of fifteen years ended in divorce in 1989. It never occurred to me that the marriage might have deteriorated because of the legalization of same sex marriages! Wait a minute. Right. They didn't exist then. Moving on.....

With heterosexual parents auctioning off photos of their newborn (for charity); with news reporters spending hours interviewing a convicted child molester and her victim/husband on their celebrating their one year "marriage" anniversary; with financial stresses incomparable to any other time in history; with government taking more and more authority, and opportunities for responsibility, from parents; with the abundance of -- and glamour attached to -- addictive drugs; with pornography easily accessed in homes and fine art banned nearly everywhere --the difference between porn and art, in my humble yet usually correct opinion, is: porn tells you what to feel and think, while art compels you to discern and freely express what you are feeling and thinking--; with jingoism replacing patriotism faster than we can look up the meaning of jingoism; with our top political leaders totally blinded by their own hubris; with quite possibly the most dull witted, unimaginative, ignorant president, with the possible exception of Millard Filmore, at our helm; with corruption and greed the rules of business; with the unabashed hypocrisy of berating our enemies for barbarically displaying the lifeless bodies of their murdered enemies - while proudly displaying the lifeless bodies of our murdered enemies ...... with fewer and fewer people even knowing that Adam and Eve had a third son, Seth (look it up).....the conclusion drawn from this is "marriages and family values are deteriorating due to the legalization of same sex marriages".

Are you #@$^&%* kidding me?

People are now marrying for so many more reason than land, children and political treaties. Perhaps it's time to amend the traditions, rituals and laws governing marriage to include the sum total of newly gained knowledge we humans collectively accumulated over these centuries?