Electric Josh

I took the train today for the first time in a while, which afforded me the chance to read the New Yorker while the sun was still up. (Why doesn't this space's sidebar have a link to the New Yorker?) At any rate, I seem to have pretty much known nothing about the history of marriage.

...Marriage as we know it today is the product of a particular history—a history that explains both its public character and the private expectations we have for it. The advent of same-sex marriage brings into focus a much larger transformation in how we have come to imagine the institution.

Marriage as institution. I finally got annoyed by the recent sudden increase in the casual use of a secondary (or tertiary, depending on the source) definition of the word institution, so I looked it up. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) said:

2. That which instituted or established; as:
      (a) Established order, method, or custom; enactment;
          ordinance; permanent form of law or polity.

                The nature of our people, Our city's
                institutions.                     --Shak.
      (b) An established or organized society or corporation; an
          establishment, especially of a public character, or
          affecting a community; a foundation; as, a literary
          institution; a charitable institution; also, a
          building or the buildings occupied or used by such
          organization; as, the Smithsonian Institution.
      (c) Anything forming a characteristic and persistent
          feature in social or national life or habits.

                We ordered a lunch (the most delightful of
                English institutions, next to dinner) to be
                ready against our return.         --Hawthorne.

(I wonder if Governor Romney stays up at night worrying about those damn, dirty, immoral dieters who would attack the institution of lunch. A-and just imagine the legal confusion that would ensue if people were allowed to skip dinner. "Ye who eateth but Snacks in Dinner's stead have brought Shame upon the whole Commonwealth!")
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