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["Alan MacHett" <machett AT ibiblio.org>]

In response to K. Jo Garner's message(s):
> Man - hunter. Woman - gatherer. Tribe dynamics dictate the two genders
> make a household. This is not indicative of religion swaying the masses,
> it was a matter of survival and therefore independent of that (though
> eventually everything gets tangle in religion).

I thought of that after I sent my message, but naw, that's just biology. 
I suppose concepts from economics can be applied to evolutionary theory,
but I'm speaking of concious decisions.  Being a couple is one thing, and
it usually just sort of happens, but marriage is a formal arrangement.

Of course, that far back in time we get into a chicken or the egg dilemma.
 Which came first, the human concept of marriage or the human concept of
religion?  I'll leave the debate to anthropologists, but I suspect the
answer is religion came first.

No matter, though; the point, and the crux of Diana's question, is that
religion is very much tied to marriage nowdays.

-Alan