Thanks for the reply. I have seen that you’ve taken pains to acknowledge that you don’t feel that other arrangements are inferior or to be looked down on, and I do appreciate it. I was primarily reacting to the flat statement you made when you said “But it is not a marriage.” It seemed to indicate to me that you weren’t open to accepting that other people have different definitions.
I guess what I don’t understand about this portion of your position is where you’re getting the restriction against multiple marriages. If you’re relying on the strict definition, where in that definition that you linked to is the restriction against being involved in more than one marriage at a time?
This I can understand, even if I don’t fully agree with you. The way I look at it, the meaning that you ascribe here to the public declaration of partnership (and that I agree with, btw), is why marriage is so important. It’s exactly why my wife and I got married; to show publicly, and have publicly acknowledged, how we felt about each other. It’s also why it would mean a lot to me to be able to have the same sort of public acknowledgement of my relationship with the other woman I love.
The term marriage has a lot of weight behind it. No matter what group you belong to, marriage is used to refer to a bond between people that is important and highly emotional. When I say I would like to be able to marry both of the women I love, I’m not trying to pervert or change what marriage means. I’m trying to achieve a public acknowledgment and understanding of how I feel about each of them.
Another term might be easier to accept, or even more accurate in definition. But it wouldn’t have the same weight, the same visceral understanding of the commitments and emotions involved, that marriage does. I don’t feel that that reduces the importance of marriage. If anything, I’m trying to acknowledge exactly how important I believe it is.
I would be willing to accept the OED definition of “marry” that you posted in the other thread:
When I asked you to show how this somehow excludes multiple partners, you responded:
Which, of course wasn’t in the definition. Even if it was, so what. Please tell me how the following two statements are contradictory:
I have a dog. Actually, I have two dogs.
I don’t believe the two sentences are mutually exclusive. A does not imply only. Nor do I believe the term “marry” implies mutual exclusivity - and the OED doesn’t support it, at least in what you quoted.
(Emphasis added)
I’ll accept the implied meaning from your use of the term above.
Or we can go another way: John and Jane Jones have a church wedding, where they both sincerely pledge to be faithful and sexually monogamous within their relationship, for as long as they both shall live. They have no other spouses. We would (should) both agree that they are married. Twenty years later, John has a one night stand affair while out of town on a business trip. He got drunk, lost control, made a BIG mistake, and sincerely regrets it.
Are John and Jane still married? Are John and Jane monogamous?
I agree with rjung. The world may be coming to an end.
From your dictionary cite, Wrenchslinger marriage is "the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law ". Simply remove the “of the opposite sex” part and you’d have a perfectly valid definition. That is, marriage is “the state of being united to a person as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law”. Or more simply, “the state of being united to a person”.
To me this is the essential characteristic that you were getting at in your OP. This uniting of 2 people into one family. Uniting in a way which is kept exclusive of everyone else. If those 2 people later want to expand the relationship to a willing third party, what exactly is lost? Assuming you still have a “uniting” amongst all the parties what could be different from a marriage. Certainly, this would be different than we are used to, but would it really be different in some essential or important way?
What marriage is:
Marriage in the USA is currently a hodgepodge of Jewish, Roman, and Christian historical traditions, with an overlay of ones own ethnic background. Muddled into this is the 19th-century romantic concept of “true love”, but within a moralistic framework that is actually antithetical to much literary romance (which occurred in opposition against marriage). To make matters more complicated, the custom is also used as the basis to recognize lasting legal, property, and commercial ties. In short, it’s a mess, so ill-defined that it is impossible to actually validly define. Any one simple definition can only be had by violating some terms of marriage as it now exists. Man and woman only? That would violate the whole “love and romance” schtick. Two people who love each other, yadda yadda yadda, no matter what? That would violate millenia of legal and social usage that sets marriage as a framework for successful propagation of new citizens and their inculcation with social values. It’s a mess. If marriage really did have a definite and provable definition, there’d be no argument over it.
What marriage should be: Marriage should be a purely religious institution. The government should have no say on the question of marriage. By the same token, if it is a purely religious institution, then marriage or its lack should have no bearing, whatsoever on insurance, property, custody, etc. Instead, the government will issue recognition of the state of civil union for these legal and property purposes.
Marriage is a basic human ritual, which is neither religious in origin nor ownership. It belongs to the people whose religions do not consider it a religious ceremony, the atheists, the agnostics, the doubters, and those who have mixed marriages as much as it does to those people who have the mistaken belief that it’s a purely religious thing.
The government has NO PLACE AT ALL dictating what marriage is and is not. No government office, whatsoever, should have anything at all to do with marriage. It is not a place for the state. Let civil unions handle that matter.
Not a problem…as long as civil unions give the same rights and freedoms as ‘marriage’ does. Unfortuntately, this doesn’t seem to be the case from a legal or financial or tax stand point. THATS the problem and why there is all this fuss, no? If the religious idiots would have just minded their own business and allowed same sex civil unions to have the same basic rights with respect to the government as marriage does, we wouldn’t be in this current mess. But they couldn’t do it and so we are where we are.
Well now you see what you all are having trouble with and nobody has brought up is that there are two definisions of marriage.
There is whatever your priest says it is.
Then there is the legal definition.
The former is irrelevant to anyone but you and your preist. The latter is all that matters to the rest of the world. It is only the latter that should ever be discussed when it comes to the government. Your religious opinions are meaningless when we are crafting a law for everyone who gets married. All the law needs to do is provide a framework whereby two peoples personal business can be combined and, if necessary, disentangled in an orderly way. To the government marriage is only and should only be a business transaction, like the forming of a limited partnership in business. Like in business it is the governments role to decide who is old enough to consent to a contract and so on.
The entire gay marriage dust up is a result of this simple misunderstanding. All the religious mumbojumbo is a waste of breath. The New Jersy court decided that, under the state constitution, the government doesn’t care who the two individuals are who wish to enter into this contract. Everyone has the same opportunity.
That being said the decision in no way impacts your religious definition of marriage anymore than my marriage does. I’m a Pagan married to a Pagan bisexual. I couldn’t get married in your church. But you can still do so. Guess what? After May (when gays start getting marriage sertificates in MA) they won’t be welcome to marry in your church either. Guess what part 2? You can still do so.
The government recognition of a valid contract between two individuals has zero effect on you as a third party.
If you say, “I have a dog.” That means to me that you are the keeper of a single dog. Should you next say to me, “Actually I have two dogs.” Then you’re first sentence becomes meaningless to me. In actuality you don’t have a single dog, you actually have two dogs. While the two statements may not strictly negate one another, the second statement belies the sentiment of the first.
Likewise, should you say to me, “I am married.” I take that to mean that you have a spouse. If you then say to me, “I have two husbands.” Then your first sentence becomes meaningless to me, because you don’t have a spouse, you have more than one.
Until either John or Jane actively seeks to end the marriage, they are still married. John is not considered monogamous any longer. I assume Jane still is.
What are the reasons for defining marriage as a sacramental union between a man and a woman specifically?
(BTW, I’m not trying to avoid more discussion of the polygamy/monogamy issue, I just want to hear views from the rather silent “majority.” Plus I don’t want to be accused of having it in for the polys.)
“Marriage.” It’s that damn word. As the number of posts in in the number of threads have illustrated, that word is all connotation and little definition.
You can have people who spend their entire lives together in love and have children without ever getting married. Because they’ve made a commitment to one another. You can have people who hate and disrespect one another and be married. You can even use marriage to gain citizenship to a particular country, without any love or devotion.
It seems to me the root of the problem is that the term “marriage” exists in very different domains: the legal and the religious. Would people be getting their noses bent out of shape if gays were getting “Legally United” instead of “Married?” Well, some would, but I bet a lot fewer would be.
What if the various homophobic religions got exclusive use of the term “marriage” which gets the dual-benefit of being recognized by church and state, wheras “civil union” becomes the name for all “marriages” conducted outside the church that are recognized only by state (for legal benefits) and no church has to acknowledge whatever they don’t want to.
After all, we all admit (begrudgingly so for some people) that there are homosexuals on this planet. We all admit (begrudgingly so for some people) that they are human beings, and we all admit (begrudgingly so for some people) that all human beings should be treated with equal rights. Right?
Before I sign off here, I’d just like to say that if people REALLY wanted to save the institution of marriage, there would be an ammendment against divorce rather than against people wanting to be marriage.
Are you intentionally refusing to understand what I have written? I wrote previously that “marriage” as it currently exists is a mess and a muddle.
But the topic of this thread is in TWO parts, and the second was a question on how marriage should be. Marriage should have NO LEGAL STATUS, WHATSOEVER. Only the governmental civil union should have legal status. It is not the business of the government to define marriage. It is not the business of the government to grant marriage any special legal status. Legal status is a matter of licensure and civil law, in this case. That should be handled by a purely civil document. Keep marriage out of it entirely. Marriage should grant NO legal priviliges or rights, whatsoever. Those legal matters should be handled by a purely governmental process, one utterly separate from marriage.
A few posters have talked about the legal and the religious uses of the word “marriage.” I think we need to add a category to that - common usage. “Marriage” and its related terms (“husband,” “wife,” etc.) are used all the time in regular conversation, and that’s really where their definitions come from; that’s where all definitions come from. And it seems to me that the definition of “marriage” has already begun to shift. If you read an article about, say, Melissa Etheridge, it will probably make a reference to her recent marriage. Same with Rosie O’Donnell. There was an article in People about the same-sex marriages (there it is again!) in San Francisco, and that was the word they used - marriage. They wouldn’t use the word “marriage” if they didn’t think that the readership couldn’t understand the word applying to a same sex couple. (“Rosie O’Donnell can’t get married! She’s gay! This article makes no sense!”) People may not like the concept, but they understand the word. So, as far as common usage goes, the definition is already expanding.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that we can sit back and twiddle our thumbs. All married couples should be allowed the same basic rights, privileges, and protections, regardless of what you call it. But for people to say that same-sex marriages aren’t marriages strikes me as being incredibly obtuse. The word has changed. The laws need to catch up.
(I haven’t addressed polygamy in this - for myself, I have nothing against it. But it seems to me that most current marriage laws involve the joining of one or two incomes. If you were going to legalize polygamy, you could be dealing with more than that, and I think the laws might need to be tweaked a little bit to make them work. I could be way off, of course, knowing precious little about tax law - someone more knowledgeable can correct me if I am.)
So what, exactly, does monogamy have to do with marriage? In the OP, you suggest that a couple need only make a public monogamous commitment. But whether they keep the commitment or not isn’t important?
If Julie came on the scene, fell in love with John, and with Jane’s consent, moves in and joins the family (where John has a sexual relationship with both Jane and Julie), are John and Jane still married?
First let me say that this is a great thread, and I love the SDMB for being a place where people with differing views actually try to understand each other, rather than attempting to shout each other down. The dialog between Wrenchslinger and Teine was a particularly excellent example of this mentality.
Second, I would like to point out that all of our well reasoned arguments to each other are really misdirected, in that it is our legislators who will be voting on any proposed ammendment.
I suggest that we draft a letter to our congresspeople, and let them know our collective view(s). It would appear, from reading this thread, that while we may differ on the details, we are primarily in agreement regarding the role that the Government should play in dictating who should and should not be allowed to enter into marriage.
I had intended to sit down this weekend and compose my own letter, until I read through the wonderful comments above, now I find myself inspired to take a crack at it immediately.
It is my strong belief that the U.S. Constitution is a declaration of the rights and freedoms of American Citizens, and SHOULD NOT be used as a venue to specifically limit those rights for any reason. Especially not a reason so obviously politically and religiously motivated as this. This Nation was founded with tolerance for all ways of thinking, and all belief systems. Leave behind for a moment whether Gay marriage is legal or illegal, moral or immoral, as that is largely immaterial. What is at hand is an ammendment which specifically contradicts the principles from which America was forged.
A fantastic letter could be compiled primarily of quotes from this thread, but I’m afraid that the gay marriage argument is not going to win this one, as someone mentioned above. We need to show that this proposed ammendment is, at it’s very core, Un-American, and despite the current clamor for legislation to curb gay marriages, the Constitution is precisely the WRONG place for such legislation to occur. Judges seem ready to take a stand and defend this obvious right, but they can hardly declare a thing un-constitutional if it is expressly spelled out in the constitution. This is another example of the Administration trying to circumvent the Checks and Balances system that has served us so well in the past. The legislature PROPOSES laws, while the Judges rule on the consitutionality and interpretation of those laws. By going directly to an ammendment, Bush is bypassing the judicial system because he knows that, with the current judicial uprising against such things as the Patriot Act, and gay marriages, he hasn’t got a prayer of defending such laws in the court system.
As I understand it, monogamy is a part of what defines marriage and differentiates it from other commitments. All it takes to GET married (outside of all legal considerations) is a publicly made monogamous commitment to one other person. Of course, it takes a hell of a lot more to STAY married, but that’s not part of this discussion.
As for your second question, of course it is important for people to attempt to keep the promises they make. Sadly, we live in a world where few people manage perfection in their lives. However failure to keep a promise does not necessarily release us from the moral obligation to continue trying to keep it. However, in a situation like the one you spoke of:
the original promiise has beomce moot. The inclusion of Julie into their relationship automatically alters the nature of the original relationship, and changes what was a marriage into something else. Therefore, John and Jane are not still married. Besides, unless John and Julie made arrangements for such a situation at the beginning, it probably also violated the terms of the marriage vows they took. I’m not trying to say that John and Jane love each other any less, I’m merely pointing out that their love life is fundamentally altered by the inclusion of another.
Why do you feel so strongly about the word marriage? If you and your partners are happy, and (let’s say) you were able to receive the tax benefits/legal recognition you felt you deserved but were told that your relationship was actually a “pollage,” would that be satisfactory?
It doesn’t take that; I made no monogamous commitments, publically or otherwise, and nobody asked me to. Yet, I am married, without making any vows of monogamy or signing any paperwork claiming it.
Because it contains a weight of meaning and tradition upon it (I feel extremely strongly about the value of tradition), along with a set of established etiquette, and because I am married. I’m not in some sort of newfangled, traditionless, created-specifically-to-deny-people-the-value-of-the-word civil union, I’m married. I’m not going to pretend that my relationship with my husband is anything other than a marriage. And when I proposed to my mate, I asked him to marry me, not made-up-word me.
I mean no offense to polygamists - I don’t particularly care about things that don’t affect me - but it seems to me that a monogamous marriage and a polygamous marriage are distinct enough to be different things. The defining characteristic of marriage - to me, at least, and I think this is pretty reasonable - is the dedicated commitment. Sharing it with others necessarily changes the commitment; it makes the commitment less… potent, I guess you could say. I’d be happy to debate this and change my mind, but I need someone to bounce ideas off of right now.
That said (and for the record), I don’t care who marries whom if they’re consenting, committed and in love.
