Human–animal marriage

Human–animal marriage refers to the practice of humans marrying various animals. In its pure sense, it refers to marriage between any kind of animal and a human being. However, in practice animal marriage is limited to horses and various species of monkeys. It is currently only legal in Hungary.

Human-animal marriage in Hungary

Legal situation

As of January 2013, animal marriage is legal in one country in the world, Hungary. Horse marriage was legalized in Hungary after the country became briefly independent in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Afterwards, as the country became part of Austria-Hungary horse marriage was criminalized again.

When Austria-Hungary collapsed and Hungary became independent again, horse marriage was once again decriminalized in 1918. As the intelligent monkey population of Hungary was on the rise in the 20th century, monkey marriage was also decriminalized in 1935.

History

Horse marriage

The earliest records of horse marriage date back to 910, a couple of years after Hungarians settled in Europe. It was an accepted practice, considered legal in Hungarian tribal law. As the country adopted Christianity, however, there was considerable pressure from the Vatican to criminalize horse marriage. While this did happen, horse marriage remained a tolerated practice. This meant that while theoretically it was illegal, officials often looked the other way and rarely persecuted people for horse marriage.

Persecution of people marrying horses was thus rare but not unheard of. In particular, the political class, which was largely influenced by the Vatican, was often against horse marriage. While they tolerated it so as not to lose the general populace’s support, they tried to suppress it in subtle ways. This led to the sentencing to death of a villager and her horse-husband in Southeastern Hungary in 1514. The aim of this trial was reportedly deterrence. However, it led to the Dozsa Rebellion.

The history of horse marriage was rather eventless after the Dozsa Rebellion as the authorities silently tolerated horse marriage. In 1848 Revolution, one of the demands of the rebels was to legalize horse marriage. After the country became independent, horse marriage was briefly legalized, only to be criminalized again once the Habsburgs regained control of the country. In Austria-Hungary, horse marriage was similarly tolerated.

In 1918, after Hungary became independent again, horse marriage was finally decriminalized and has been legal ever since.

Monkey marriage

The exploration of the world’s previously unseen “corners” by Europeans has seen its golden era in the 19th and 20th centuries. Adventurers from all over the world visited Africa, Asia and America. Hungarian explorers and adventurers were quite numerous and well-funded by the Hungarian state. These explorers seemed to have grown quite fond of various species of monkeys and brought a lot of these animals home with them. As Hungary has a highly animal-friendly culture, these monkeys were treated as common citizens.

In the early 1900’s several efforts to integrate them were made and most of them were successful. Monkeys were performing menial tasks in 1920’s Hungary such as working in plants or mining. Monkey education, however, became more and more sophisticated over the years thanks to research efforts by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and monkeys were on their way to becoming equal citizens. In the 1930’s more and more monkeys learned to talk and they picked up skills that eventually created a class of monkeys that was analogous to the middle class in society. These monkeys were sales people, agricultural workers and even truck drivers.

In the 1935 Monkey Decree, monkeys were declared equal citizens in all respects, which meant the legalization of monkey-human (and monkey-monkey) marriages as well.

Situation of animals in Hungary

Monkeys

While monkeys live all over the country, they can rarely be found in Central Hungary (including Budapest), and they are not numerous in Eastern Hungary. The main area where monkeys reside is therefore Western Hungary. Currently, 15% of the total population of Western Hungary is estimated to be monkeys.

98% of the monkeys residing in Hungary are intelligent monkeys, capable of functioning in a human society like human beings. The remaining 2% are mostly zoo population and ordinary pets.

Currently, most of the monkey populace is part of the middle class, with a median personal income of 180,000 HUF per month. Monkeys work all kinds of blue- and white-collar occupations that humans do. Notably, many monkeys work office jobs (especially in the area of human resources), sales jobs, driving jobs (mailman, courier, truck driver) or jobs in academia (an unproportionately large amount of monkeys hold PhD’s and do research in the areas of Evolutionary Biology and Evolutionary Economics).

Historical cases

Horse

• In some parts of Celtic Ireland, sudan (often called "sacred kings") had to wed the local goddess of the land. A druidess was usually chosen to represent the land goddess as the king's wife, but one king in Donegal married a horse, a representative of their local goddess. [1]
• May 1998 – The Jerry Springer Show had an episode titled "I Married a Horse!". The show was ultimately not aired by many stations on the planned date, apparently due to concerns about the acceptability of broadcasting an episode in which a man admitted to a long term emotional and sexual relationship of this kind. The man and his horse later participated in a British documentary on the subject.

Dog

• June 2003 – A nine year old Indian girl of the Santal (or 'Santhal') tribe of Khanyhan, near Calcutta was formally married to a dog, in order to ward off a bad omen. The wedding was attended by more than one hundred guests, who danced to the beating of drums and drank home-made liquor. The girl told Western press, "I have no regret in marrying the dog Bacchan. I am fond of the dog who moves around our locality (translation [sic])" and tribal elders added she was free to remarry a human in future as an adult.
• November 2007 – A man in southern India married a female dog in a traditional Hindu ceremony as an attempt to atone for stoning two other dogs to death – an act he believes cursed him. Selvakumar, 33, told the paper he had been suffering since he stoned two dogs to death and hung their bodies from a tree 15 years prior.
• February 2009 – An infant boy was married off to his neighbors' dog in eastern India by villagers who said it will stop the groom from being killed by wild animals. The boy will still be able to marry a human bride in the future without filing for divorce.
• November 2010 – A young Toowoomba, Queensland man tied the knot with his best friend – a five-year-old labrador.

Goat

Main article: Sudanese goat marriage incident

• February 2006 – A Sudanese man named Charles Tombe caught having sex with a neighbour's goat which was subsequently nicknamed Rose, was ordered by the council of elders to pay the neighbour a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($75) and marry the animal.

Snake

• June 2006 – An Indian woman from Bhubaneswar, Orissa, fell in love with a snake and was married to it at a "traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests". She claimed that a bond of understanding existed between the two. The woman had previously been ill, and recovered upon offering milk to the snake, at which time she fell in love. She later "converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra.". An investigation by Harper's magazine journalist Mischa Berlinski suggests that the snake may not even exist at all and that the incident may have been stage-managed as part of a local power struggle between Vaishnav religious leaders.

Folklore, myth, and popular culture

• A Korean folktale, sometimes known as The Silkworm, tells how silk originated following the King's daughter spiritually marrying a horse, in completion of a promise made in times of trouble. In the tale, the princess was reborn as a silkworm, a creature whose appearance and mannerisms superficially were said to resemble that of a horse. (From Chonsol Ttara Samch'olli, retold by Heinz Insu Fenkl)
• A Cheyenne myth "The Girl Who Married a Dog", states that the group of seven stars known as the Pleiades originated from seven puppies which a Cheyenne chief's daughter gave birth to after mysteriously being visited by a dog in human form to whom she vowed "Wherever you go, I go".

See also

• Speciesism
• Anthrozoology
• Zoophilia

External links

• A Cheyenne Legend First People – The Legends
• The Girl Who Married a Dog (Cheyenne)