Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human–animal marriage

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Might have considered closing this as NC, but most of the delete arguments are rather vacuous, and the list of sources supplied by TheBlinkster seems well researched, so going with keep. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:13, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Human–animal marriage

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Indiscriminate collection of nonsense reports. E Eng 01:22, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:29, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:29, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete yeah, just a bunch of tabloid junk from the looks of it. Not even any anthropological description or analysis, just people doing things to get in the news/ Tpdwkouaa (talk) 05:00, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as absolute nonsense. This is not a real topic. Legacypac (talk) 06:25, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete nonsense and collection of tabloid posts. Arthistorian1977 (talk) 12:36, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve The topic is a real topic. There are a number of book and scholarly sources on both Google Books and Proquest (where I'm seeing 3 dissertations, 2 journal articles, and 2 book sources), some of them dealing with human-animal marriage in mythology or in particular cultures, some with the subject as a modern legal topic. Howver, the article as it stands is very poorly written and just a list of trivia which does not properly show the credence of the topic. Someone needs to write a real article on the topic that doesn't read like a sensational tabloid. The sources are out there to do it. If for some reason the article absolutely can't be kept, even though the topic is clearly notable based on the many good sources, then it should be merged to Zoophilia, but frankly I think the topic of human-animal marriage with its both mythological and legal ramifications is quite different from that of just humans loving animals. TheBlinkster (talk) 15:46, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you can list a few of those sources, you may have saved the topic. Theses/dissertations don't count at all, though, and there needs to be GNG-worthy mass for all the rest. E Eng 18:26, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK let's see what books we have...

Margo DeMello, Animals in Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies has it listed in the index as being discussed on pp. 310-311 although those pages are not part of the free preview so I don't know what they say.
Sadhana Naithani,Folklore Theory in Post-war Germany discusses it in the context of folktale themes
American Folklore Society, Journal of American Folk-lore from 1898 has a whole list of tales involving a human-animal marriage
Mayako Murai, From Dog Bridegroom to Wolf-Girl has a whole discussion of this in the context of Japanese fairy tales (there are also other book sources talking about human-animal marriage in Japanese fairy tales as it is a frequent theme)
Anthropology, vol. 5 (1982) appears to have substantive discussion of the topic although it's snippet view so I cannot see what exactly is said.
Rather than list each one, here's a list to a second page of my Google search showing at least four or five more books on this topic in folk mythology of different cultures and countries

There are more out there, but I think this establishes that human-animal marriage is a real notable topic about which someone has written a lousy article. TheBlinkster (talk) 20:28, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add on, here are a couple more from the animal law/ animal ethics perspective, as the topic also has some significance in areas like animal personhood. I am willing to bet there are more in the animal law literature, but the databases I have available aren't great for searching those (you need specialized legal databases).

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics talks about the subject in the context of whether allowing animals to have rights of personhood would lead to marriage.
Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum, Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions mention that animals historically did not marry in the context of the bigger question of animal personhood. (Sunstein and Nussbaum are pretty eminent legal scholars.) TheBlinkster (talk) 21:09, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Just discriminate and make sense. Problem solved. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:03, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - The subject has received serious kinds of discussion and debates, as pointed out above, and that the article has a lot of problems isn't necessarily a justification for deletion. I'd also like to point out that concepts explored in fiction as well as thought experiments are perfectly valid for articles even if not applied in the real-world. The 'time travel' page comes to mind. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 00:43, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I withdraw my nomination with thanks to those who scared up sources. The article should be cut to a stub and the sources listed on its talk page for future development. E Eng 01:17, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.