Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 June 18

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June 18

Audioguide

What was the first museum that used audioguide?--2001:B07:6463:31EE:18BE:29CB:CC58:33C7 (talk) 14:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

There's some information in audioguide. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:21, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Banana label

Could someone remind me what company labeled its bananas with stickers showing a woman with a flower in the head (possibly pinning the flower to the head)? Not Chiquita. Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 18:01, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Pretty Liza Bananas Ecuador ? -- (e.g.}—2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 03:56, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 07:01, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

How can one prove that one has consummated the marriage?

A marriage is consummated by sexual intercourse. Does one just have to say that relationship has been consummated or not, or is more proof required? Children are obviously proof that the relationship has been consummated, but then, it is also possible that the wife has been unfaithful, and the man is not the father of the child. Where do same-sex couples fit in? Where do infertile couples fit in? Also, if consummation completes the marriage, then does that mean the partners in the marriage are obligated to engage in intercourse? If the wife refuses to engage in intercourse, then the husband can file for an annulment? If money is involved in the marriage deal, then the husband may demand a return of the money? What happens if the husband refuses to engage in intercourse? Can the wife ask for an annulment and a return of the dowry? SSS (talk) 18:42, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

You state "A marriage is consummated by sexual intercourse." as if it is a law. Where is it a law? If we knew the legal system you are referring to, we can help locate laws on the subject. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:54, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

In most of the United States, "failure to consummate" is considered legitimate grounds for annulment based on either statutory or case law. I'm assuming SSS is American based on prior questions, but I could be wrong. As to part of the question, this does not mean that an unconsummated marriage is not "complete" - the rules are typically rather strict. In California, for instance, it is generally required that one partner be incapable and/or unwilling to consummate, that this incapacity was not known to the spouse prior to marriage, and that annulment be requested within the first year of marriage.[1] Someguy1221 (talk) 06:32, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Lack of sex is a reason to dissolve a marriage (see for example Effie Gray), but it isn't mandatory. A platonic marriage is perfectly acceptable, as is a marriage of convenience most of the time, so no proof is required. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:52, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

In some cultures, it was formerly traditional to pass a bloodstained sheet from the bedroom on the wedding night, this supposedly attesting to the bride's virginity and the groom's virility... However, in Western cultures, the legal tendency has been for the law not to take note of, or examine, what goes on intimately between a married couple, unless there's a dispute and one or both persons are complaining. AnonMoos (talk) 02:08, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

In some cultures, it was not understood that nearly half of all women do not bleed after the first act of vaginal intercourse.

That said, the Catholic Church’s stance has long been that a) a marriage is not perfected until it is consummated, *but* equally b) a marriage is assumed to be true unless one of the parties applies for annulment. Basically non-consummation can be used as a reason to request annulment, but the Church doesn’t stick its nose into random marriages; if the parties don’t mind, neither does the Church.

As for evidence...the Church will of course ask the parties to the marriage if they’ve had sex but other evidence can also be gathered as well - what the parties said to others after the wedding night, for instance, or whether the woman has become pregnant (but given how commonplace modern reproductive procedures such as sperm donation and IVF are, that’s not remotely slam-dunk proof). Given that about half of women don’t possess a large enough hymen to be visible and many others don’t completely lose the hymen until childbirth, a physical exam is useless as evidence, although that wasn’t always understood in the past; even thirty years ago P.D. James had medical examiners in her murder mysteries affirming that a victim was virga intacta as a shorthand for “she wasn’t raped”. In reality it isn’t that easy to tell. --24.76.103.169 (talk) 06:18, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

"...the Catholic Church’s stance has long been that a) a marriage is not perfected until it is consummated". There are many examples of older, widowed people marrying. It would be my guess that some never engage in sex. Is that against Catholic church rules? HiLo48 (talk) 07:51, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Many older Catholic women go to the altar after having informed their partners the marriage will be sexless. P D James was born in Oxford, educated in Cambridge and moved back to Oxford later. I doubt that she would have mis-spelt a Latin phrase, as suggested by 24.76 above. 86.132.186.246 (talk) 13:45, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

That supposedly dead language, Latin, is showing signs of life. Edward Stourton lamented in Saturday's Daily Telegraph:

After an afternoon of binge viewing, how dearly I wish I could return to that state of grace, of virgo completely intacto. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.186.246 (talk) 10:11, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Birth date of Bud Grace

How come the birth date of comics creator Bud Grace is not known? 2A00:801:291:96C8:803F:161B:9CDC:B6DC (talk) 18:57, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

By what rule would you expect it to be public knowledge? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:48, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

He is not born in some backwards country where childbirths are not recorded. -- 14:14, 19 June 2018 2a00:801:291:96c8:2946:d6a4:4b07:679e

Childbirths are recorded in America, but they're not necessarily the general public's business. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:54, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Some public figures just don't want their birth details becoming public knowledge, so they never reveal it (except on official forms, which are, or ought to be, protected by privacy laws). If you really need to know, it might be necessary to do a search for a birth certificate, assuming the relevant jurisdiction allows access. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:27, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

If there is no record of him being born, then how can you know his identity, his parents (legal guardians when he was a minor), his existence? -- 14:14, 19 June 2018 2a00:801:291:96c8:2946:d6a4:4b07:679e

Why do you personally need to know that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:55, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Who says there is no record of him being born? All we know is that the date of his birth is not public knowledge. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:36, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Your IP geolocates to Sweden where everyone's date of birth is a matter of public record available for a small fee, very much as it is in my own country, the United Kingdom. In the United States this seems not to be so, otherwise the kerfuffle over Barack Obama's birth certificate couldn't have lasted as long as it did. Oddly, we don't have an article on Civil registration in the United States that I can refer you to. --Antiquary (talk) 10:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

It is very much not so in the US (or in Canada, for that matter). Birth certificates are not available to the general public. Most people have some kind of government ID - driver’s license, picture ID for non-drivers - but owning ID is not mandatory and birthdates are most absolutely NOT considered anyone else’s business. Not only can’t you look up any random person’s date of birth, trying to do so would make any sensible, reasonable person think you were an identity-thieving scammer. --24.76.103.169 (talk) 19:09, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that Obama thing always puzzled me.-- 14:14, 19 June 2018 2a00:801:291:96c8:2946:d6a4:4b07:679e

Obama was under no legal obligation to reveal his birth certificate. He did it voluntarily, in a vain effort to shut up the "birther" hoaxsters. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:55, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

See birther. And for that matter, natural-born-citizen clause. Incidentally, Obama was not the first president this sort of thing has happened to. See Chester Arthur#Birth and family (in particular, the last paragraph of the section). --76.69.118.94 (talk) 08:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Antiquary -- the title "Civil registration in the United States" wouldn't make all that much sense. In England, the main documentation of births/baptisms, marriages, and deaths was in the local parish registers of the official Church of England, until one day in the 19th century when the government decided to set up a central non-ecclesiastical registry. Analogous events in the United States were much more varied from state to state, and didn't necessarily involve an abrupt ecclesiastical to civil change. AnonMoos (talk) 15:54, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The day was 1 July 1837 (prior to this, Quakers and Jews were able to keep their own registers, but everyone else had to go through their local CofE parish church). See Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836 and Parish Registers, Civil Registration and the Family Historian. Alansplodge (talk) 12:51, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I wonder how closely related this was to the increasing influence of the Wesleyans and the Catholics; as you get more and more Nonconformists, having the Church run everything is less and less useful because it's comprising a smaller and smaller share of the population. Compare that to the USA, where as you note it didn't generally work this way; there's never been a federal establishment of religion, and the last state establishment ended almost 200 years ago, thus necessitating government action if there were to be any centralised register. Outside some (all?) of the original colonies and a few other locations (e.g. Mexican Texas), there was never an establishment of religion in the first place, so registrations presumably didn't exist until the state started them. Nyttend (talk) 03:57, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Many non-Anglicans just didn't bother; "...increasing concern that the poor registration of baptisms, marriages and burials undermined property rights, by making it difficult to establish lines of descent, coupled with the complaints of Nonconformists, led to the establishment in 1833 of a parliamentary Select Committee on Parochial Registration". See General Register Office for England and Wales#Establishment. Alansplodge (talk) 16:15, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

The American equivalent would be the County Courthouse, which is where these things are typically registered in America. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:57, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Or city hall or the state department of public health or the hall of records or something else. You could live your whole life in one city and have your birth, marriage, divorce and death each recorded by different agencies. Rmhermen (talk) 23:37, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Maybe he was actually born in Kenya, and took a job away from a real true blue Murican cartoonist. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:19, 20 June 2018 (UTC)