I just bought a book, "On The Value of Scepticism" by Bertrand Russell. This
is a paragraph from his introduction. He is using marriage customs as an
example of a subject that people tend to get passionate (and irrational)
about, and I don't think they had invented Gay Marriage yet (by the way, and
slightly off topic, this morning I heard that two STRAIGHT GUYS in Montreal
are getting married so that they can get the Canadian marriage tax
breaks...they claim they will be having an open marriage. I haven't stopped
laughing since).

"When we open any scientific treatise on the subject (marriage customs),
such as (for example) Westermarck's History of Human Marriage, we find an
atmosphere extraordinarily different from that of popular prejudice. We find
that every kind of custom has existed, many of them such as we should have
thought repugnant to human nature. We think we can understand polygamy, as a
custom forced upon women by male oppressors. But what are we to say of the
Tibetan custom, according to which one woman has several husbands? Yet
travellers in Tibet assure us that family life there is at least as
harmonious as in Europe. A little of such reading must soon reduce any
candid person to complete scepticism, since there seems to be no data
enabling us to say that one marriage custom is better or worse than another.
Almost all involve cruelty and intolerance toward offenders against the
local code, but otherwise they have nothing in common. It seems that sin is
geographical. From this conclusion, it is only a small step to the further
conclusion that the notion of 'sin' is illusory, and that the cruelty
habitually practised in punishing it is unnecessary. It is just this
conclusion which is so unwelcome to many minds; SINCE THE INFLICTION OF
CRUELTY WITH A GOOD CONSCIENCE IS A DELIGHT TO MORALISTS. That is why they
invented Hell."

The capitals are mine. And duke et al will probably atrtack Bertrand Russell
once again, thus avoiding the issue- they are essentially sadists.