"Marriage Equality from a Medieval Perspective": A talk with Ruth Mazo Karras October 26, 2007

Imagine two people live together in a joint household, are widely acknowledged as a couple. Yet this union is not recognized under the law as marriage, the partners do or may not have rights as a spouse, upon death or dissolution of the union, to shared property, or even the children. This describes same-sex unions in the contemporary United States, but it also describes the clergy and their female partners in medieval Europe. The striking parallels remind us that the same immutable religious principles can be put in different historical circumstances, and that even if arguments do not change, the world in which they are made does. Ruth Mazo Karras is a Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.

Sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study and the Department of History. Organized by the IAS collaborative on Global Sexualities.

Official Website: http://www.ias.umn.edu