Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage or same-gender marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 billion people (20% of the world's population). The most recent jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage is Thailand; legalization has also been mandated for Nepal.
Same-sex marriage is legally recognized in a majority of the world's developed countries and across much of the Western world. Most jurisdictions which allow same-sex marriage also grant adoption rights to those couples. Some countries, such as Nigeria and Russia, restrict advocacy for same-sex marriage. A few of these are among the 35 countries (as of 2023) that constitutionally define marriage as being between couples of the opposite sex, with most of those provisions enacted in recent decades as a preventative measure.
In Europe, there are records of marriage between men dating back to the first century.Williams, CA., Roman Homosexuality: Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 280, p. 284. Jack Baker and Michael McConnell are the first same-sex couple in modern recorded historyStoryCorps Archive (September 12, 2017). Michael McConnell (75) and husband Jack Baker (75) talk with friend Lisa Vecoli (55) about having the first same-sex marriage legally recognized by a U.S. civil government in 1971, why they chose to get married, and what the response to their marriage was like. JB describes the decades-long (46-year) process from the denial of their marriage license in 1971 until a second request that same year in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, was "declared to be in all respects valid" by Order of Gregory J. Anderson, Judge of District Court. known to obtain a marriage license,Newsletter, "Hidden Treasures from the Stacks", The National Archives at Kansas City, p. 6 (September 2013). Available online. have their marriage solemnized, which occurred on September 3, 1971, in Minnesota,Source: Blue Earth County Certificate 434960: Minnesota Official Marriage System Applicants: James Michael McConnell and Pat Lyn McConnell Date of Marriage: September 3, 1971 Certified Copy: Marriage Certificate and have it legally recognized by any form of government."The September 3, 1971 marriage of James Michael McConnell and Pat Lyn McConnell, a/k/a Richard John Baker, has never been dissolved or annulled by judicial decree and no grounds currently exist on which to invalidate the marriage." Sources: CONCLUSIONS OF LAW by Assistant Chief Judge Gregory Anderson, Fifth Judicial District, (page 4); Copy: Minnesota Judicial Branch , File Number 07-CV-16-4559, "Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order for Partial Summary Judgment" from Blue Earth County District Court in re James Michael McConnell et al. v. Blue Earth County et al. (September 18, 2018); Available online from U of M Libraries; McConnell Files, "America's First Gay Marriage" (binder #4), Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, U of M Libraries.Michael McConnell, with Jack Baker, as told to Gail Langer Karwoski, "The Wedding Heard Heard 'Round the World: America's First Gay Marriage ". University of Minnesota Press (2016). Reprint, "With A New Epilogue" (2020). The first law providing for marriage equality between same-sex and opposite-sex couples was passed in the continental Netherlands in 2000 and took effect on 1 April 2001. The application of marriage law equally to same-sex and opposite-sex couples has varied by jurisdiction, and has come about through legislative change to marriage law, court rulings based on constitutional guarantees of equality, recognition that marriage of same-sex couples is allowed by existing marriage law, and by direct popular vote, such as through referendums and initiatives. The most prominent supporters of same-sex marriage are the world's major medical and scientific communities, human rights and civil rights organizations, and some progressive religious groups,NYTimes.com "United Church of Christ Backs Same-Sex Marriage" while its most prominent opponents are from conservative religious groups (some of which nonetheless support same-sex civil unions providing legal protections for same-sex couples). Polls consistently show continually rising support for the recognition of same-sex marriage in most developed democracies and in many developing countries.
Scientific studies show that the financial, psychological, and physical well-being of gay people is enhanced by marriage, and that the children of same-sex parents benefit from being raised by married same-sex couples within a marital union that is recognized by law and supported by societal institutions. At the same time, no harm is done to the institution of marriage among heterosexuals.Molly Ball, 2024 May 13, Wall Street Journal, How 20 Years of Same-Sex Marriage Changed America Social science research indicates that the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage stigmatizes and invites public discrimination against gay and lesbian people, with research repudiating the notion that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon restricting marriage to heterosexuals.Multiple sources: Same-sex marriage can provide those in committed same-sex relationships with relevant government services and make financial demands on them comparable to that required of those in opposite-sex marriages, and also gives them legal protections such as inheritance and hospital visitation rights.Handbook of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Administration and Policy — Page 13, Wallace Swan – 2004 Opposition is often based on religious teachings, such as the view that marriage is meant to be between one man and one woman, and that procreation is the natural goal of marriage.Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2357-9 ; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2351, 2391, 2396 Other forms of opposition are based on claims such as that homosexuality is unnatural and abnormal, that the recognition of same-sex unions will promote homosexuality in society, and that children are better off when raised by opposite-sex couples. These claims are refuted by scientific studies, which show that homosexuality is a natural and normal variation in human sexuality, that sexual orientation is not a choice, and that children of same-sex couples fare just as well as the children of opposite-sex couples.Multiple sources:
Terminology Alternative terms
Some proponents of the legal recognition of same-sex marriage—such as Marriage Equality USA (founded in 1998), Freedom to Marry (founded in 2003), Canadians for Equal Marriage, and Marriage for All Japan—used the terms marriage equality and equal marriage to signal that their goal was for same-sex marriage to be recognized on equal ground with opposite-sex marriage. The Associated Press recommends the use of same-sex marriage over gay marriage. A further move to more inclusive language has been the shift from same-sex relationship to same-gender relationship, and similarly to same-gender marriage to not restrict individuals within the relationship by sexual orientation, as gender identity is a spectrum and noting that historical terms excluded members of the LGBTQ+ community and were forms of bisexual or transgender erasure.
Use of the term marriage Anthropologists have struggled to determine a definition of marriage that absorbs commonalities of the social construct across cultures around the world. Many proposed definitions have been criticized for failing to recognize the existence of same-sex marriage in some cultures, including those of more than 30 African peoples, such as the Kikuyu and Nuer.
With several countries revising their marriage laws to recognize same-sex couples in the 21st century, all major English dictionaries have revised their definition of the word marriage to either drop gender specifications or supplement them with secondary definitions to include gender-neutral language or explicit recognition of same-sex unions. The Oxford English Dictionary has recognized same-sex marriage since 2000.
Opponents of same-sex marriage who want marriage to be restricted to pairings of one man and one woman, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Catholic Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention, use the term traditional marriage to mean opposite-sex marriage.
History
Ancient
The Book of Leviticus prohibited homosexual relations, and the Hebrews were warned not to "follow the acts of the land of Egypt or the acts of the land of Canaan" (Lev. 18:22, 20:13). A reference to marriage between same-sex couples appears in the Rabbinic literature Sifra, which was written between 200 to 300 CE. The Sifra clarifies what it calls ambiguous acts, and that they included marriage between same-sex couples: "A man would marry a man and a woman a woman, a man would marry a woman and her daughter, and a woman would be married to two men."Rabbi Joel Roth. Homosexuality rabbinicalassembly.org 1992.
A few scholars believe that in the early Roman Empire some male couples were celebrating traditional marriage rites in the presence of friends. Male–male weddings are reported by sources that mock them; the feelings of the participants are not recorded.Martial 1.24 and 12.42; Juvenal 2.117–42. Williams, Roman Homosexuality, pp. 28, 280; Karen K. Hersh, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 36; Caroline Vout, Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 151ff. Various ancient sources state that the emperor Nero celebrated two public weddings with males, once taking the role of the bride (with a freedman Pythagoras), and once the groom (with Sporus); there may have been a third in which he was the bride.Suetonius, Tacitus, Dio Cassius, and Aurelius Victor are the sources cited by Williams, Roman Homosexuality, p. 279. In the early 3rd century AD, the emperor Elagabalus is reported to have been the bride in a wedding to his male partner. Other mature men at his court had husbands, or said they had husbands in imitation of the emperor.Williams, Roman Homosexuality, pp. 278–279, citing Dio Cassius and Aelius Lampridius. Roman law did not recognize marriage between males, but one of the grounds for disapproval expressed in Juvenal's satire is that celebrating the rites would lead to expectations for such marriages to be registered officially.Williams, Roman Homosexuality, p. 280. As the empire was becoming Christianized in the 4th century, legal prohibitions against marriage between males began to appear.
In 17th century China, writer Li Yu and scholar-bureaucrat Shen Defu wrote about a system of male marriages in the Fujian region. The older man in the union would play the masculine role as a qixiong or "adoptive older brother", paying a "bride price" to the family of the younger man—it was said virgins fetched higher prices—who became the qidi, or "adoptive younger brother". Li Yu described the ceremony, "They do not skip the three cups of tea or the six wedding rituals- it is just like a proper marriage with a formal wedding."
Contemporary
Michael McConnell and Jack Baker are the first same sex couple in modern recorded history known to obtain a marriage license, have their marriage solemnized, which occurred on September 3, 1971, in Minnesota, and have it legally recognized by any form of government. Historians variously trace the beginning of the modern movement in support of same-sex marriage to anywhere from around the 1980s to the 1990s. During the 1980s in the United States, the AIDS epidemic led to increased attention on the legal aspects of same-sex relationships. Andrew Sullivan made the first case for same sex marriage in a major American journal in 1989, published in The New Republic.