# "Marriage is between a man and a woman. Period." **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 12, 2008, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188 "2008-09-12T00:12:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/121 "2008-09-12T23:56:06Z")
> [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](#): > > Preach it, brother Miller! > > I’m sure this has already been asked and flamed elsewhere already, probably many times, but I am curious if the sanctity-of-marriage-protectors (and magellan01 in particular) feel at all threatened by other uses of the word. I’ve rewritten this post seven times to stay within the rules of this forum, but **Cookies** , in short: I couldn’t agree with you more. I love the English language; I’ve spent my whole life studying it and working with it. It’s such a great tool to clarify and explain; it bugs me when it’s used the way you’re trying to use it. If you don’t complain when somebody talks about the strange “marriage between placid head coach Marvin Lewis and outspoken star wide receiver Chad Johnson,” or when someone expresses an opinion about where to go for dinner and then says, “but I’m not married to it,” or tries to reconcile “Barack Obama’s uneasy marriage of reason and faith,” how do you justify complaining about “the marriage of Ted to Steve?” I rarely get angry reading this board, but using my language to justify exclusion is, to me, intellectually bankrupt. Words mean things, indeed. So _learn what they mean_ before you lecture others on that meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/122 "2008-09-13T01:14:29Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > As the OP, I must say that I have not seen a single poster even attempt to answer my original question with anything other than a repetition of the title of this thread. The most I have read is that “because that’s the way it’s been for hundreds of years, and if we change it bad things will happen.” > > Explain why and what. A few entries in the dictionary will change? I think you’re asking for a non-existent justification. The most I’ve heard is that kids will be exposed to two guys kissing (which won’t change) or that “real” marriage will be devalued (in ways never explained) or that righteous Christian men will feel they can come out of the closet (which in my neck of the woods is the case already.) I actually think that the rejectionists are disgusted by the prospect, have lost a lot of ground, and are making what they see as a last stand. (I do not include **magellan01** in this group, just to be clear.) The disgust may be religiously based, or it may be just upbringing. I don’t think it has anything to do with sexual orientation. IIRC, at least one poster with an anti-SSM argument, who was willing to be open to discussion, dropped his opposition after dispassionately considering the arguments. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/123 "2008-09-13T01:37:02Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > Words mean things, indeed. So _learn what they mean_ before you lecture others on that meaning. when you alter the word for the normal union of man and woman to include same sex unions or multiples thereof the meaning is changed. What don’t you understand about this? Do you think gay people would want zoophilia morphed into the lexicon of the word gay? Do zoophiles get to make that change? How are you defining marriage? ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/124 "2008-09-13T01:39:51Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > IIRC, at least one poster with an anti-SSM argument, who was willing to be open to discussion, dropped his opposition after dispassionately considering the arguments. **Bricker** I believe. On my way home, I thought of something. Just how far down the line does this ‘gay couples can’t use the word married’ thing go? If we choose to get married or civil unioned or whatever, can I call my partner my husband? my spouse? Or are those terms off limits too? What about before that, can we say we’re engaged? Is it ok if he’s my fiance? Are those reserved for straight couples as well? I realize this sounds snarky, but it really isn’t. I’m honestly curious just where the line is drawn. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/125 "2008-09-13T01:42:28Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > when you alter the word for the normal union of man and woman to include same sex unions or multiples thereof the meaning is changed. What don’t you understand about this? Do you think gay people would want zoophilia morphed into the lexicon of the word gay? Do zoophiles get to make that change? > > How are you defining marriage? The word already _does_ refer to such same-sex unions, as **Sage Rat** and **storyteller0910** aptly point out. It has such family resemblances to more prototypical usages to as have caused it to join the web of situations referred to by the word in ordinary language; the way people talk is all the evidence one needs of this. It’s only as a legal term that there may remain differences. But legal language is a thing of its own (for example, as someone pointed out above, the legal definition of “assault” isn’t the same as the ordinary language definition of “assault”); as ordinary language, the battle over the word “marriage” has long been decided. (Besides, whatever the United States government does, we’ll still keep employing the word “marriage”, as ordinary language foremost and even as legal language secondarily, to refer to same-sex couplings of that sort elsewhere) (Are you terribly upset when gay men talk about their “boyfriends”, given that that word, presumably, was also once traditionally used mainly only of heterosexual couplings? If not, why the difference? Oh, “boyfriend” is just a trivial word, but we need to preserve that sacred word “marriage”. Really? Why? If it’s about defense of the language, I imagine they’d be equally important. But it isn’t really about defense of the language, is it? No, I suppose it’s about preserving that sacred _concept_ of marriage. But how is the concept damaged by expansion of legal recognition? We need to preserving the traditional legal definition of marriage? But why? What’s the point? Who is better served by this? Now we are directly up against the nub. Once you strip away the misguided linguistic purism, it becomes really hard to keep agitating against SSM) ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/126 "2008-09-13T01:46:52Z")
You know that in a good chunk of the world, the word “marriage” does cover multiple spouses, right? In Cameroon there is a little check box on the marriage for for if it is a monogamous or polygamous marriage. Has this hurt your precious word? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/127 "2008-09-13T02:03:42Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Then we’re on the same page. I’ll tell you what I would do if I was a gay activist-type: I’d find a new word, a new term. I’d make it a national cause to find that term. Then I would embrace it. This is what blows my mind about you, **magellan**. You regularly lay out a stated goal, and then you suggest a way of achieving it that has precisely the opposite effect! You say you want gays to have equal rights, but you want to do it in a way that avoids ambiguous and unnecessary changes to language. Your solution? Invent entirely new words! Because that’s not ambiguous or unnecessary at all! Let me break it down for you this way. Let’s say I introduce you to someone. I say, “This is my husband, Steve. We just got married last week.” Is there anything ambiguous about that statement? Are you in any way unclear about what sort of relationship Steve and I are in, or what we did last week? I’m going to venture the answer is, “No.” However you feel about my word choice, you still know exactly what I’m talking about, and what Steve means to me. Now imagine I say instead, “This is my farstook Steve. We just got pernagled last week.” What the fuck does that mean? It doesn’t make any sense. You’ll probably ask, “What does ‘pernagled’ mean?” And I’d have to say, “It means ‘married’.” Which raises the inevitable question, “Why not just say, ‘married,’ then?” It’ll be even more confusing, because we’re almost certainly not going to come up with a single term that everyone likes. It’s unlikely that you’d get a national consensus on what the new word for “gay marriage” should be for some time. I might be pernagled to Steve, but Nancy insists she’s poculated to Barbara. How many other neologisms for “married” do you want to have to sort through to understand what should be a pretty basic concept? Using some newly invented term there is unclear. It’s ambiguous. And most of all, it’s entirely unnecessary, because we already have this perfectly fine word, that everybody knows, that communicates exactly what I want to communicate about my relationship with Steve. This is, as you’ve articulated in this thread, exactly the goal you want: the language remains clear and unambiguous: married means married, and it means the same thing for everyone. Communication is facilitated, because everyone is using the same vocabulary. Unnecessary change to the language is avoided, by not adopting dozens of new words to explain the same concept. And, most important of all, gays have exactly the same rights as heterosexuals. How on Earth is your solution preferable to that? Maybe you can give me some sort of similar scenario that demonstrates why it’s so much more beneficial to invent wholly new words for established concepts? How would having a new word for “marriage” make things easier for anyone involved? How would it make communication clearer, easier, and/or faster? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/128 "2008-09-13T02:09:06Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > when you alter the word for the normal union of man and woman to include same sex unions or multiples thereof the meaning is changed. What don’t you understand about this? Do you think gay people would want zoophilia morphed into the lexicon of the word gay? Do zoophiles get to make that change? > > How are you defining marriage? But it appears that _you_ also want to alter the meanings of words. Shall we come up with a new Bible translation? “Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five maids, went with David’s messengers and started shacking up with him. David was also shacking up with Ahinoam of Jezreel, and they both were his babymamas.” You can say “Marriage has always been the union of one man and one woman, or fairly often of one man and multiple women, or more rarely of one woman and several men. But it has _never_ been the union of two men or two women! We can’t alter this word with several meanings to include one more meaning!” But that sounds kinda weak and rather arbitary. So you’re reduced to saying “marriage **only** means the union of one man and one woman! Anything else does violence to the language and tears at the very fabric of our civilization!” and _explicitly_ claiming that polygamous relationships as well as same-sex relationships can not be and never have been “marriages”, no way, no how. But that of course is completely contrary to historical and linguistic fact. Now, if you want to argue against same-sex marriage on some basis other than this “the plain meaning of the word!” claim, that’s one thing. Let’s have your argument. But this Etymological Fundamentalism is simply untenable. _Of course_ proponents of same-sex marriage want to change the meaning of the word (or at least extend the meaning: “the union of a man and a woman” –\> “the union of a man and a woman, or of two men or two women”). So what? The meaning of the word has changed in the past, why shouldn’t we change it again? Give us some actual _reason_ why we shouldn’t modify the meaning of the word marriage–“A wrathful and homophobic God will smite us with hurricanes and plagues of locusts!”; anything at all besides this “But this change you want to make will constitute _change_!” along with totally untenable claims that “_this_ word has never, ever, had its meaning changed since the dawn of time!” ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/129 "2008-09-13T02:10:00Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > It’s unlikely that you’d get a national consensus on what the new word for “gay marriage” should be for some time. Hmmm…“garriage”? ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/130 "2008-09-13T02:20:49Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > when you alter the word for the normal union of man and woman to include same sex unions or multiples thereof the meaning is changed. The meaning of the word currently includes nonsexual unions between individuals of indeterminate gender (we refer, as above, to a “marriage” between a coach and a player in sports), or even unions between people and ideas (again, “Barack Obama’s marriage of Reason and Faith”). Reason is not a man and Faith is not a woman; the word is used, entirely correctly, in that sentence to refer to something other than “the normal union of man and woman.” So how does your argument address this? Why is it OK for a woman to be married to her opinion, for a man to be married to his (male) coach in a nonsexual sense, or for two _abstract concepts_ to be married to one another… but not for Ted and Steve to be married. Because if you are arguing, on linguistic grounds, that Ted and Steve can’t be married because marriage is exclusively defined as a sexual/procreative/legal union between one man and one woman, then you _must_ also argue that the above usages are incorrect. And if you argued that, you’d be wrong, and thousands of writers and experts on the English language would tell you so. > [@](#): > > What don’t you understand about this? Do you think gay people would want zoophilia morphed into the lexicon of the word gay? Do zoophiles get to make that change? That has nothing to do with anything; it’s a silly and sad argument. How does the definition of “gay” (by which I assume you mean the secondary definition also meaning “homosexual”) logically incorporate zoophilia? > [@](#): > > How are you defining marriage? Any number of ways. I like the OED, personally, so there’s: **1. The formal union of a man and a woman, by which they become husband and wife.** Which is obviously the definition you prefer. But you can’t ignore: **2. A combination of two or more elements.** Under this definition, gay marriage certainly qualifies (so do the metaphorical “marriages” I’ve described above). But of course, this is all pedantry. Words are defined _as we choose to define them_, collectively. It is disingenuous to argue that anyone fails to understand the meaning of the word “marriage” if it is applied to two men or two women. I’m married (I’m a guy, married to a woman, by the way). If I run into two women in the supermarket and I tell one of them, “this is my wife; I’m married to her,” and she replies, “This is _my_ wife; I’m married to her,” are you really trying to pretend that the definition of the word is made somehow unclear? For myself, I like the second OED definition, above. I think it works, and it’s the motherfucking _OED_. So is the OED wrong, or are you? ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/131 "2008-09-13T02:38:07Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Personally, I think marriage is between a white woman and a white man. Or a colored man and woman if their owners give permission. That’s what our country was based on and I’m stickin’ to it. You raise a good point. For me the idea that marriage can be ONLY between a white man and a white woman is repugnant–but that’s just my personal feeling about it. My feelings as a \*American Patriot \*are different. As a _patriot_, I must agree with \*\*DanBlather. \*\*Our Founding Fathers did not include _any_ language in the Constitution that allowed for marriage between persons of the same sex or of different races. I might not like it, but what they wrote is what we get! Unless… unless… No. That’s too insane. I won’t go there! Well… this is the Dope so I’ll go ahead and say it, I guess… Unless there was some mechanism some… _way_ we could periodically update legal rights, concepts, and definitions to more closely align with contemporary mores and increasingly sophisticated social concepts. Even if those concepts are at first considered “against God’s will” or “an abomination of Nature”. For example, the crazy notion that Negroes are _not_ property! (Can you imagine??? Well… I warned you it was pretty far out there!) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/132 "2008-09-13T02:39:18Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Hmmm…“garriage”? I was thinking “homomimony.” ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/133 "2008-09-13T02:43:38Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > We have no such system of precedents for marriages with more than two partners. Actually, we are developing a system for such marriages; it is called ‘Divorce’. Our current systems for child support, disposition of previous and acquired assets, retirement account rights, health insurance eligibility, and shared custody of children, strongly resembles plural marriage in everything except sex. And I’m not sure about sex. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/134 "2008-09-13T02:43:50Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I was thinking “homomimony.” Say \*that \*six times real fast! ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/135 "2008-09-13T02:44:55Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Say \*that \*six times real fast! In fact, that would be the ceremony required to enter into the institution of homomimony. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/136 "2008-09-13T02:50:11Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > If you don’t complain when somebody talks about the strange “marriage between placid head coach Marvin Lewis and outspoken star wide receiver Chad Johnson,” or when someone expresses an opinion about where to go for dinner and then says, “but I’m not married to it,” or tries to reconcile “Barack Obama’s uneasy marriage of reason and faith,” how do you justify complaining about “the marriage of Ted to Steve?” Because Ted has a wee-wee and he wants to put it in Steve. But Steve has a wee-wee too!!! What more of a justification do you need? Sometimes I think you Libruls just don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/137 "2008-09-13T02:54:28Z")
You know what? If we gave in and had “civil unions,” the homophobes will still complain. It’s not the term of our relationships that they oppose, it’s us. We could call our relationships “elbow,” and they’ll say that elbow is only between a man and a woman. There are people who say that what we do in bed isn’t really sex, since it’s not between a man and a woman. If what we have is in fact a marriage, then that’s what it should be called. They won’t hate and fear us any less if we call it something else, and frankly I couldn’t care less what they think. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/138 "2008-09-13T02:57:20Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > But it appears that _you_ also want to alter the meanings of words. Shall we come up with a new Bible translation? I thought we were talking about marriage in the United States? What’s with the history lesson? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/139 "2008-09-13T03:01:55Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I thought we were talking about marriage in the United States? What’s with the history lesson? Because words have meanings. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188/140 "2008-09-13T03:09:13Z")
Personally I think that we should have more multi-word usage. The gay vote should be separated from the national vote. It will count just as much, but just to make sure that everyone knows, it will be called the “gote.” Special separate water fountains should be set up, using the same city water and fixtures and everything, but clearly marked “water gountains” and a ticket issued for misuse. A special section of the bus should be set up where gay people can sit separately with their own people. The chairs will be just as comfortable and everything, the price for riding just the same, but these will be the “geats.” We should set up a special baseball league for gay people, The Gay Leagues. Stores, companies, and colleges should be able to choose whether they want to accept gay client/students. It’s alright because there will be g’stores, gompanies, and golleges. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-period/463188.md?page=8)