>Copyright 2005 Richard Keir Once the actual purpose of a wedding had much more to do with property, parenthood and moral propriety in the eyes of the community. And those 3 elements were strongly interlinked, particularly among those members of society who made the rules. In most western cultures, inheritance passed from father to son. So who was the father of the child was an important question, generally answered by identifying the father as the mother's wedded husband. And the issue of moral propriety tended to have to do with the fidelity of the wife rather than the activities of the husband. Those
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