The federal government defines marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman” (DOMA, Section 3). It passed both houses of Congress by large majorities. Having been a minister who performed marriages for ten years, I have a few opinions about this. I am NOT interested in the genders of the parties concerned. I think this Noah’s ark notion of one of each kind is predicated on the idea that the UNION in question is sexual with the purpose of creating and sharing property, namely children.
What a can of worms. All cleverly sweetened and disguised by the meringue of wedding dresses and the cherry on top of religion. The important word here is UNION. What’s a legal UNION? What if I went partners with someone to buy a house or start a business, wouldn’t that be a legal union?
I was always bothered by the pretense that marriage was religious when people walked into the church asking to be married there because it was “pretty.” The only thing they knew about religion was what they saw in the movies. In fact, that’s about all they knew about raising children. As far as paying off a mortgage or managing household finances, they knew nothing at all. They couldn't cook, knew nothing about nutrition or basic home nursing. And the idea of doing some counseling and exploring of expectations with the minister sent them indignantly stalking out of the church.
When I did my internship, where I was under the supervision of a seasoned minister, a couple came in to reserve the church for a wedding. It was summer. They were quite young. The blonde, gorgeous guy was wearing satin shorts, gold chains and a diamond in his ear. He put his feet up on their side of my desk. The pudgy girl was wearing a sundress and had finger-shaped bruises on her arms. They freely admitted that he did it. I refused to marry them. My supervising minister was very upset. It was “not done” to turn people away and the church needed the money. So that’s what religion means.
The social and economic pressure that used to hold marriage together has little to do with the gender of the partners or even the quality of their sexual unions. It was about maintaining stability in a community so that taxes got paid, inheritance was clear, and ownership of property was registered. It might be meant to create family alliances. Women and children were property, not so long ago. The status of Thomas Jefferson’s white wife was marriage; the status of the mother of his other children was slavery. The two wives had the same father. The subtleties of patriarchy as opposed to slave owning are, well, very subtle. Mostly social and economic pressure.
If women can control fertility, survive pregnancy, and ameliorate the pain and drudgery of having children, that eliminates one set of trading cards. If women can earn their own living, there goes another set of trading cards. If a guy can move in with a gal, get her pregnant without marriage, live an independent life but return any time it’s convenient, is he her husband or her fertilizing son? What happened to the laws about fornication and bastards? Choke. Cough. Surely there are more high-minded and useful ways to define a “union” than by the gender and number of the persons involved. We threw race out. What are the goals? Personal happiness? Social harmony? Not just granting sexual access (Are you kidding?) or forcing compliance (That’s rape!)
When I was called by my own churches, I got so I refused to do weddings unless at least one of the people was a member of my congregation. In some traditions the wedding is performed BY the congregation, the way a congregation ordains someone, attesting to their opinion that this person is qualified and respected. Why isn’t marriage just as important? There is a place in some wedding ceremonies for the congregation to pledge their support and affection for the new family and swear to help if there is trouble. Can’t very well do it if the only reason the couple is there is that the church is pretty and the only reason the attenders are there is to get drunk at the party afterwards. And, oh yes, to provide gifts.
So the law pretends to authorize this “union,” sets no standards for it except sometimes requiring a doctor’s certificate that both people are free of the more threatening diseases, and taking a major interest in the accountability for money and property (children) but providing no support, not even maternity leave. Maybe a tax advantage. Some countries provide by law “maternity” leave that applies to fathers, gay couples, and adopters, because we now know the very crucial nature of the early years of a person’s existence, including the months before birth. Not this country. Births go unregistered, babies are quietly disposed of before and after birth.
Our support for families with children is spotty. Dear Abby this week had a question from the mother of a family with three children. They had lost their jobs and house so were living in their car. The question was that now the father had found work, but it wasn’t enough money yet to get them into housing, so should the mother take the children to a shelter and pretend the father had deserted so they would qualify? Which would leave the kids without their dad. Or should they tough it out in the car until the money for rent accumulated?
There must be thousands of kinds of "unions." Intellectual, dependent, transgender marriage that persist past the gender change, May/December, communal, business-related, and so on. Yet we stick with the same old nineteenth century anthropological rough-cuts of number and gender, ignoring the different advantages and demands under the different circumstances. Always and always, context counts.
I’m not exactly clear what the context of marriage is in the USA right now. Negotiable, I guess. Incest is not a good idea and genetic counseling might be advised if children are the goal. But sometimes the child comes first and then the marriage, which is more or less acceptance of the need to partner up to raise it. Some people use marriage as a rite of passage into adulthood, but what are the proofs of adulthood? Economic success? Who can guarantee it? What about mixed cultures: wildly different ideas about marriage?
The most depraved reason for marriage is the excessive and expensive nature of the ceremony. Maybe we should pass a law limiting the expense of marriage. How about a ten per cent tax on extravaganzas?
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