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It probably comes as no surprise that marriage has been a big deal for a [Couple getting married]

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long time even before it was fashionable to hire multiple photographers at your

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wedding, you know so that the secondary photographer can photograph the official [Photographer taking a picture of another photographer]

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wedding photographer as she captures the whole magical expensive experience.

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Well that said not everyone throughout history has considered marriage the

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bee's knees. In the early 1700s more and more people were starting to argue that [Woman trapped in a cage]

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there was something a bit wonky about treating marriage like a business deal,

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even though it might not sound revolutionary to us, these folks believed

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it wasn't right to trade and sell women like property, go figure. [Man gives the woman in a cage to another man]

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Well the philosopher Mary Astell pushed these ideas even further.

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She believed not only that women shouldn't be treated like property but

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that they should also opt out of marriage entirely because as Admiral

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Ackbar would say "it's a trap." Well to understand Astell's perspective it helps [Fish in a spaceship]

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if we understand social constructivism. The idea that certain things and ideas

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emerge out of society without necessarily needing to exist.

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Take facebook, sure it might be a great way to keep in touch with friends and [Boy using Facebook on a laptop]

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earn Zuck obscene piles of money but its existence isn't required. The values and

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desires of our society helped foster its existence but if it didn't happen to [Mark Zuckerburg behind a huge pile of cash]

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exist, well we'd find a way to survive without it and so would Mark Zuckerberg.

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This isn't only true of websites but also ideas. Ideas about marriage didn't

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just fall from the sky, they were thought up by previous generations of people and [Marriage thought bubbles falling]

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taken up by later generations a bit like inherited antiques except ideas about

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marriage didn't just spend all their time locked away in cabinets gathering dust.

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The idea that marriage is a business deal didn't come out of nowhere, it was

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socially constructed by previous generations of men who had selfish [Man brings marriage and business thought bubble together]

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interests. Once an idea is clearly seen to be a social construct it's much easier

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to dispense with it and try something else. Good news for us, but maybe bad news

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for the wedding photographers who want us to believe that no wedding is perfect

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without a battalion of shutterbugs. [Priest looks unhappy as lots of pictures are taken]

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