Timeline of Same-sex Marriage - Ancient Times

Ancient Times

Various types of same-sex marriages have existed, ranging from informal, unsanctioned relationships to highly ritualized unions.

Cicero mentions the marriage (using the Latin verb for "to marry", i.e. nubere) of the son of Curio the Elder, but he does it in a metaphorical form to criticize his enemy Antonius. Cicero states thus that the younger Curio was "united in a stable and permanent marriage" to Antonius. Martial also mentions a number of same-sex marriages, but always in derisory terms against people whom he wants to mock at.

Same-sex marital practices and rituals were more recognized in Mesopotamia than in ancient Egypt. In the ancient Assyrian society, there was nothing amiss with homosexual love between men. The Almanac of Incantations contained prayers favoring on an equal basis the love of a man for a woman and of a man for man.

At least two of the Roman Emperors were in same-sex unions; and in fact, thirteen out of the first fourteen Roman Emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual. The first Roman emperor to have married a man was Nero, who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions. First with one of his freedman, Pythagoras, to whom Nero took the role of the bride, and later as a groom Nero married a young boy, who resembled one of his concubines, named Sporus.

Child emperor Elagabalus referred to his chariot driver, a blond slave from Caria named Hierocles, as his husband. He also married an athlete named Zoticus in a lavish public ceremony in Rome amidst the rejoicings of the citizens.

These same-sex marriages continued until Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. A law in the Theodosian Code (C. Th. 9.7.3) was issued in 342 AD by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans. This law prohibited same-sex marriage in ancient Rome and ordered that those who were so married were to be executed.

In the Middle Ages, a same-sex marriage between the two men Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain occurred on 16 April 1061. They were married by a priest at a small chapel. The historic documents about the church wedding were found at Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova.

In ancient India same-sex marriage was more common. One example being a Princess named Shikhandi (born Shikhandini) who was married off to another princess by her father King Drupada. According to traditions in South India, Krishna married Iravan to fulfill one of his three last wishes.

The Siwa Oasis in Egypt had an historical acceptance of male homosexuality and even rituals of same-sex marriage — traditions that Egyptian authorities have sought to repress, with increasing success, since the early 20th century. The German egyptologist George Steindorff explored the oasis in the year 1900 and reported that homosexual relations were common and often extended to a form of marriage