Linguistic change keeps pace with social change. If Jane Austin jumped two hundred years in a time machine, she would notice the change in language. In her day

Linguistic change keeps pace with social change. If Jane Austin jumped two hundred years in a time machine, she would notice the change in language. In her day (and social class) marriage is permanent and adultery and divorce mostly absent due to heavy social penalties. Also, no premarital sex, no unwed mothers. Surveying today's social scene, she would notice that we have totally abolished marriage as she understood it. She would also notice that we were sentimental about words. We reused the word marriage for the very different social institution that replaced marriage, rather confusing ourselves about the extent of the change. Well, no. We are not in fact sentimental about words. Jumping 200 years in a time machine creates the cognitive illusion of a year when things changed. Jane expects to be told that we abolished marriage in 1917 and held a competition for a new word for the new world. Why did "marriage" win? But there was never a single year when the world changed. All the changes were small enough that it never made sense to coin a new word. Yes, we can see now how temporary our sexual pair bonds are. If there have been a single year when it happened, we would have coined a new noun("tempriage" instead of "marriage") and a new verb ("to tempry" instead of "to marry"). If we had new words, linguistic change would reveal social change instead of concealing it. We would have a very different take on "progressive" versus "traditionalist". The progressive position approves of homosexual tempriage. The traditional position rejects homosexual tempriage. At this point we spot that "traditional" need scare quotes around it. There is no traditional position on tempriage. Tempriage is thoroughly new. Some 21st century people want to shape the new social institution one way. Others disagree. We have no authentic traditionalists. Jacob Rees-Mogg thinks he is arguing that against gay marriage, because marriage has traditionally been between a man and a woman. In fact his is arguing against gay tempriage, on the basis of an unspoken and tenuous analogy between tempriage and marriage. I don't know what to make of all this. I would love to understand the world around me, especially social change, but it is so confusing. Not only are social changes very large, but we try to understand them through a rhetoric of tradition versus progress, without understanding that our "traditions" are new-minted.