justifies

Apparently some people (who don't know history) seem to think that marriage 'always has been' exclusively between males and females - and that this modern inequality somehow justifies the enforced continuation of this inequality.

The patriarchy longs for the days 'when men were men' and women were oppressed, subservient - and they can see no wrong in it. It justifies its former power and lust to hold on to it - and if possible, to regain it by quoting fundamentalist and radical religion and tradition and calling it 'love'. Some love. How can oppression and power over another person's life ever be 'love'?