Every Sperm is Sacred
I've always thought the Monty Python sketch "Every Sperm is Sacred" was taking things too far. That was until I watched a BBC series about Sex and the Church and it makes sense why things have developed as they have. In Old Testament times, the Jews needed to increase their population. They also believed that the whole child was contained within the sperm, and that the woman only provided an incubator. No wonder they didn't want to waste those potential children!
Marriage and the Church
For the first thousand years of the Church, marriage was purely a civic concern and the Church kept away from it. When the first marriages were conducted by the Church, they were conducted in the porch of the Church and only after the couple were married did they move inside. This wasn't very practical and eventually it was moved inside.
Internal Personas
We all have multiple internal personas which are the way we see ourselves in different situations. We try to be consistent according to these personas. If we don't see ourselves in a particular way, then we won't do something. However, we may do small things which are only slightly outside our persona. When we do these small things we adjust our persona to stay consistent. This means that something that we previously would not have done because it was not consistent with our persona then becomes consistent with it. I guess that's why small steps work in moving us from one habit or behaviour to another.
