# "Marriage has a specific meaning!" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765 "2010-08-09T23:13:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GHO57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df788c/32.png) [@GHO57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GHO57)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/41 "2010-08-10T17:32:05Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > > [@John\_Mace](#): > > > > I think you’re generalizing your own liberal views onto the majority of Americans. “You mean that Bob and Frank are married? How can two men be married?” That’s a lot more common than you think. > > What do they call it when two men get married in one of the many locations in the world where same-sex marriage is legal? Well, we don’t actually allow same sex marriages here… What we allow is a “registered relationship”… which is exactly like s secular marriage, with the same people officiating, and the same legal obligations and rights. Then again… a non-church marriage is a…“civilian union”. So marriage does have a specific meaning here…although possibly not for long as there’s been talk about stripping the whole right to marry people away from churches; their refusal to marry gay people seems to piss most people off. If they don’t want to play by the same rules, they won’t be allowed to play at all. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/42 "2010-08-10T17:34:50Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > The government has a legal institution called “marriage.” That has nothing to do with anyone’s religious marriage. The government doesn’t care whether or not your religious institution recognizes your marriage, all it cares is that a set of specific legal requirements are met. All you are doing here is changing the legal term “marriage” to the legal term “civil union.” This is like proposing that the government start using a different word to refer to corporations or that the government start using a different word to refer to estates. What’s the point? I think it’s a pretty effective argument. From what I gather people who yak on about the “sanctity of marriage” and “you can’t just redefine words” can either put up or shut up. Call the governmental arrangement marriage and let the gays in too, or “demote” all of it to civil unions (and also let the gays in). Either way, I don’t doubt there are churches willing to marry you even if you’re a same-sex couple, so this whole religious/semantic argument is just bigotry pretending to be clever. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/43 "2010-08-10T17:36:43Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > > [@magellan01](#): > > > > And a look at the natural world around us makes the case that a male-female pairing is what nature intended. > > Based on sheer numbers, nature apparently intended asexual reproduction. Introducing males and females into the equation is an unnatural abomination. And its comments like this that degrade serious discussion. But feel free to list all the mammals that produce asexually. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/44 "2010-08-10T17:42:33Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > > [@42fish](#): > > > > Based on sheer numbers, nature apparently intended asexual reproduction. Introducing males and females into the equation is an unnatural abomination. > > And its comments like this that degrade serious discussion. But feel free to list all the mammals that produce asexually. Attempting to argue about the definition of the human term for the human institution of marriage in terms of _animal_ interaction does nothing but degrade discussion. **Animals don’t get married**. Some (a small minority) pair-bond for life, but if humanity wanted to emulate they’d ban marriage for everybody and some people would just move in together. Personally I think that comments that point out the absurdity of the supposed ‘natural world’ argument for the definition of marriage _elevate_ discussion. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/45 "2010-08-10T17:46:26Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > That’s anthropomorphizing: nature doesn’t _have_ intent. If you’re invoking nature in an argument against same-sex pairings, or for marriage or monogamy, I don’t think nature backs you up. I’m not so sure it doesn’t have intent. Isn’t the intent of an organism to stay alive, at least long enough to procreate? And for us primates that means a man and a woman must be involved. Throw two men or two women on an island and the island will be vacant after they die. One man and one woman can start a civilization. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/46 "2010-08-10T17:52:56Z")
Limit marriages to opposite sex couples on deserted islands? That’s stupid. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/47 "2010-08-10T17:54:23Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > > [@magellan01](#): > > > > And its comments like this that degrade serious discussion. But feel free to list all the mammals that produce asexually. > > Attempting to argue about the definition of the human term for the human institution of marriage in terms of _animal_ interaction does nothing but degrade discussion. **Animals don’t get married**. Some (a small minority) pair-bond for life, but if humanity wanted to emulate they’d ban marriage for everybody and some people would just move in together. > > Personally I think that comments that point out the absurdity of the supposed ‘natural world’ argument for the definition of marriage _elevate_ discussion. I’m not surprised that you think that. If you’d like to argue that SS sexual bonding is as much the norm as OS sexual bonding, I’d love to hear it. Your position is what I see as the height of unreasonableness. To not accept that male-female pairings are the norm in nature is absurd. BUt you go right ahead and not concede one teensy weensy obvious little point. You’ll sway and impress many. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/48 "2010-08-10T17:57:19Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > > [@begbert2](#): > > > > Attempting to argue about the definition of the human term for the human institution of marriage in terms of _animal_ interaction does nothing but degrade discussion. **Animals don’t get married**. Some (a small minority) pair-bond for life, but if humanity wanted to emulate they’d ban marriage for everybody and some people would just move in together. > > > > Personally I think that comments that point out the absurdity of the supposed ‘natural world’ argument for the definition of marriage _elevate_ discussion. > > I’m not surprised that you think that. If you’d like to argue that SS sexual bonding is as much the norm as OS sexual bonding, I’d love to hear it. > > Your position is what I see as the height of unreasonableness. To not accept that male-female pairings are the norm in nature is absurd. BUt you go right ahead and not concede one teensy weensy obvious little point. You’ll sway and impress many. I am not your strawman. SS sexual bonding is not the _norm_. Obviously. But whether it is the norm or not is utterly and completely irrelevent to the discussion. We are talking about the definition of the _word_, here. And a black swan, despite not being the norm, is still a swan. Despite being _OMG horribly unnatural hide the children and get the fainting couches for the women!!!_ ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/49 "2010-08-10T18:08:33Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > > [@Marley23](#): > > > > That’s anthropomorphizing: nature doesn’t _have_ intent. If you’re invoking nature in an argument against same-sex pairings, or for marriage or monogamy, I don’t think nature backs you up. > > I’m not so sure it doesn’t have intent. Isn’t the intent of an organism to stay alive, at least long enough to procreate? And for us primates that means a man and a woman must be involved. Throw two men or two women on an island and the island will be vacant after they die. One man and one woman can start a civilization. I’m sure we’ve done the “marriage is for procreation” thing more than enough times already. Unless you’re also advocating forbidding hetero marriages when one or both partners are sterile or just not interested in having kids, this argument makes no sense. ETA: And to be consistent, you should also be willing to forbid adoption for anybody but married hetero couples, ban procreation outside marriage and possibly forbidding single parents, IVF and other means of procreation, some of which are currently already open to gay people. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/50 "2010-08-10T18:10:26Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > That’s anthropomorphizing: nature doesn’t _have_ intent. If you’re invoking nature in an argument against same-sex pairings, or for marriage or monogamy, I don’t think nature backs you up. There was a time when answering the question “What are the biological imperatives?” on a science test at school, you were expected to answer “survival and procreation”. Even now, with the expansion to territorialism, competition, and quality of life seeking, scientist still regard any organism that lacks any of these imperatives is described as maladaptive by scientists. Hey, all I’m doing is making a counter argument. I’m all for SSM. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/51 "2010-08-10T18:11:35Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > > [@magellan01](#): > > > > I’m not so sure it doesn’t have intent. Isn’t the intent of an organism to stay alive, at least long enough to procreate? And for us primates that means a man and a woman must be involved. Throw two men or two women on an island and the island will be vacant after they die. One man and one woman can start a civilization. > > I’m sure we’ve done the “marriage is for procreation” thing more than enough times already. Unless you’re also advocating forbidding hetero marriages when one or both partners are sterile or just not interested in having kids, this argument makes no sense. I disagree. The correlation is high enough that we equate the two, even though there are plenty of instances of the two being discreet from each other. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/52 "2010-08-10T18:13:42Z")
discrete ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/53 "2010-08-10T18:16:45Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > discrete Yeah, that too! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/54 "2010-08-10T18:17:10Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > > [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > > > I’m sure we’ve done the “marriage is for procreation” thing more than enough times already. Unless you’re also advocating forbidding hetero marriages when one or both partners are sterile or just not interested in having kids, this argument makes no sense. > > I disagree. The correlation is high enough that we equate the two, even though there are plenty of instances of the two being discreet from each other. So what to do with all these pesky people who fail to fall within “the norm” (you know, regular heterosexual married couples with at least two kids)? You’re not arguing against SSM here, you’re arguing that ANYONE who doesn’t get married and procreate doesn’t deserve the same rights as the “normal people”. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/55 "2010-08-10T18:18:41Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > > [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > > > I’m sure we’ve done the “marriage is for procreation” thing more than enough times already. Unless you’re also advocating forbidding hetero marriages when one or both partners are sterile or just not interested in having kids, this argument makes no sense. > > I disagree. The correlation is high enough that we equate the two, even though there are plenty of instances of the two being discreet from each other. We do nothing of the kind. People have and raise kids all the time without getting married. People marry and have no children. They marry, and adopt. They marry people who can’t have children and know it before hand. People marry, have kids then divorce and raise the kids without a partner. Marriage is NOT about procreation, like it or not. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/56 "2010-08-10T18:27:01Z")
I would say that marriage is about children in the same way that real estate ownership is about having a place to live. That is, it is indeed the case that real estate ownership has indeed had a lot to do with housing, for pretty much ever - to the degree that it could somewhat legitimately be assumed that if the average person owns real estate, it’s probably a house. Of course, this doesn’t meant that _all_ real estate ownership focuses around housing, and in fact there are many other reasons for which people could, and do, own real estate that have nothing to do with housing at all. So: it is indeed the case that marriage has indeed had a lot to do with reproduction, for pretty much ever - to the degree that it could somewhat legitimately be assumed that if the average person its married, they’re probably interested in having kids. Of course, this doesn’t meant that _all_ marriage focuses around reproduction, and in fact there are many other reasons for which people could, and do, get married that have nothing to do with reproduction at all. The argument that real estate ownership is excusively tied to housing is a non-starter. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/57 "2010-08-10T18:28:13Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > So what to do with all these pesky people who fail to fall within “the norm” (you know, regular heterosexual married couples with at least two kids)? Apparently, [couples who voluntary want to remain childless](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2001_Nov_1/ai_79501204/?tag=rbxcra.2.a.11) is trending up … about 7%. It’s interesting that the childless-by-choice percentage is in the same range as homosexuals of the population. What that means, I don’t know. Anyways, what’s the argument for allowing those 7% heterosexual-no-procreate couples to marry? ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/58 "2010-08-10T18:29:05Z")
So folks who are in a marriage are married, but folks in a civil union would be…?? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/59 "2010-08-10T18:31:28Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > So folks who are in a marriage are married, but folks in a civil union would be…?? Sinners. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-has-a-specific-meaning/549765/60 "2010-08-10T18:34:22Z")
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