Animals: Married or Mated?

[Denise noe]

The author of "The Secret Life of Dogs" frequently refers to dogs as having
"married" each other. Is this reasonable? After all, marriage among humans is
a formal arrangement granting each party certain legal rights and
responsibilities and usually preceded by a ceremony (which may be either
elaborate or brief). Do you think it's correct to call animals "married" to
each other or should we stick with "mated"?


****************************
Denise Noe
Koko the Signing Gorilla says: "Fine animal gorilla."

[Zbigniew \Zeke\ GLupi]

Denise noe wrote:

The author of "The Secret Life of Dogs" frequently refers to dogs as having "married" each other. Is this reasonable? After all, marriage among humans is a formal arrangement granting each party certain legal rights and responsibilities and usually preceded by a ceremony (which may be either elaborate or brief). Do you think it's correct to call animals "married" to each other or should we stick with "mated"?

That seems like an insulting question. God binds one man & one woman
together in eternal marriage. Why would God be bothered with silly
animals? Of course, then, animals are only "mated" (that goes for
gorillas as well as dogs).

---
Zeke

[Michael A. Ball]

On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 14:55:33 -0500, "Zbigniew \"Zeke\" GLupi"
<glupiz@comcast.net> wrote:

...Why would God be bothered with sillyanimals?

Humans are the only "silly animals" in the world! If God thinks dogs are
merely "silly animals," who needs him!

Michael
Zildjian: world class cymbal of excellence.

[Dr Nancy's Sweetie]

"Denise noe <denisenoe@aol.com>" asked about dogs being "married" to
each other.

Is this reasonable?

No. In the case of dogs, I'm not sure "mated" is even applicable,
except in the case of two dogs who are constrained to live together
because of outside forces (ie, both are owned by the same family).

*

As long as I'm at it:

Koko the Signing Gorilla says: "Fine animal gorilla."

I see no reason to believe that Koko the gorilla says anything. Even
viewed sympathetically, the supposed "conversations" she has are more
"seeing what you want to see" than language use:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030328.html


This reminds me a bit of the disaster over "facilitated communication",
when a bunch of people ignored all evidence and facts and their own
training. Instead, they saw what they wanted to see:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...info/1202.html

The full transcript of the program is here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ipts/1202.html


Darren Provine ! kilroy@elvis.rowan.edu ! http://www.rowan.edu/~kilroy
"The federal budget deficit continued to worsen, despite the concerted
effort of virtually every elected official in Washington -- Republican
or Democrat -- to spend more money."
(Dave Barry, 2004 Year in Review)

[Tai]

Denise noe wrote:

The author of "The Secret Life of Dogs" frequently refers to dogs as having "married" each other. Is this reasonable? After all, marriage among humans is a formal arrangement granting each party certain legal rights and responsibilities and usually preceded by a ceremony (which may be either elaborate or brief). Do you think it's correct to call animals "married" to each other or should we stick with "mated"?

Some animals copulate, others mate and a few species appear to pair-bond for
life.

Human animals are capable of the full mammalian range, but only they
actually go to the trouble of marrying.

Tai