A tax on love
David B Lawrence illuminates some interesting Quaker history
I wonder whether anybody remembers that early Quakers rejected marriage because it was a sacrament; that is, they regarded it as one of the extortion rackets run by the established church. A fee had to be paid to the priest for perfectly ordinary everyday events, such as birth and death. Marriage, therefore, was nothing more than a tax on love contrived by convincing people that it would all go wrong – unless they received a supernatural blessing at the altar.
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