Graduation Year
2015
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Politics and International Relations
Second Department
Religious Studies
Reader 1
Thomas Kim
Reader 2
Erin Runions
Rights Information
© 2014 Rebecca C. Shin
Abstract
In this thesis, I seek to contextualize the exclusivity of traditional marriage in the United States. I investigate the use of Christian beliefs applied to the American legal system, consequently becoming the foundation of American commonsense. I draw out the ways in which Augustinian thoughts on marriage have inadvertently been used to justify institutional favoritism toward heterosexual, monogamous couples. Through examining the Christian-American lens that shapes our understanding of traditional marriage, I argue that previous and current secular opposition to non-traditional marriage is fundamentally grounded in Christian faith, furthermore, American cultural understanding of marriage is unconsciously lined with Augustinian thought.
Recommended Citation
Shin, Rebecca C., "The Christian Influence Over Secular Understandings of Marriage in the United States: A Critical Analysis of Augustinian Theology" (2015). Scripps Senior Theses. 516.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/516
