It’s always the smallest things that seem to end up creating the biggest noise. Take the current debate over marriage: I know it seems like a big issue, but if you really look, it’s a debate about semantics and contracts that’s become complicated by the fact that history is so unclear about its origins.
The Church thinks that marriage is theirs and that therefore they have a right to dictate who gets to do it. I used to be partly persuaded by the fact that marriage was the Church’s brand and that those of us who don’t believe in God should not try to muscle in and should instead celebrate our own way which could include vodka, pop tunes and high jinks on YouTube.
However, things just aren’t that simple. Why? Because when an act, however it may have been formed, becomes mainstream in society its relevance and ownership changes. Then, because we are democratic, people want their say on how it continues to evolve.
Of course, it is not clear that marriage was ever the Church’s brand anyway. Don’t tell UKIP but the word marriage is derived from Old French marier (to marry) and ultimately Latin marītāre meaning to provide with a husband or wife and marītāri meaning to get married. Not a word invented by the church, not one that appears until later versions of the bible and even then the Bible does not speak to the topic clearly and consistently.
Marriage, as an act, pre-dates reliable recorded history. Most cultures have their own version, legends and customs that have evolved over time, nearly all of which began with the need to formalise a financial transaction, secure fidelity, stop or start wars, or own a woman. How romantic is that!
Yes, the Church does have views and teachings, but they came after the event. From the early Christian era marriage was thought of as primarily a private matter, with no uniform religious or other ceremony being required. Churches stepped in to become the record keepers of those contracts as society developed and grew. The role of the church in a community for recording all of those life events was unique, and – more importantly – they had the only venue big enough to serve the purpose.
However, being the official record keeper (or, in today’s increasingly secular society, one of them) should not mean the Church can dictate on its significance or who can or cannot get married.
It is wrong of the Church, then, to claim that marriage has always been a religiously motivated ceremony that is governed by the rules in the Bible. If it still wants to get funny about it it should look at what its own aspirations for marriage have been over the decades. The Church has always promoted marriage, wanting it to be a societal norm and using its non-elected places in the house of Lords to try and make that so. On that basis, equal marriage should make the Church jolly happy. It is, after all, what it prayed for.
For me the debate about same-sex marriage is a really a prelude to the real issue: that is of equality of marriage and non-marriage. I am not sure if everyone is aware, but marriage isn’t compulsory. We are conditioned from an early age to accept that, as life progresses, it is something that we should all do and it will make us happy/stable/normal/popular (delete as applicable). But our lives are full of many relationships based on love and not necessarily sex. So why can someone who is not married, who has not chosen that particular contract, have a mutual relationship with someone else that allows them some of the same benefits the state offers to those who choose the marriage contract?
This of course could be expensive. If all the single people decided to set up a mutual contract with a sibling, friend or lover to benefit from the same state pension, succession and other rights then the financial argument would outweigh the argument of rights!
So, let’s look at what the state is really doing: it is funding its “relationship of choice”, the one it has decided, in its infinite wisdom, is right for you. Surely it’s about time that Nanny let go of the reigns, reviewed those rights and either gave them to everybody or no-one at all. It’s radical stuff: those tax-paying singletons would get equal rights too!
Marriage is, at its most basic level, an efficient and (if you make it so) cheap way to make a legal contract in way that allows you to pay for a party rather than lawyers and solicitors. Let me go to a lawyer and make a contract that allows me to have a mutually beneficial contract with someone, to share our state pension, succession and rights, without the need to declare to the world whether or not we are having sex. After all, if there’s one thing that marriage has taught us, it’s that sex is no indicator of a strong and durable relationship!
Marriage is not the Church’s – it belongs to all of us. So let’s make it equal. Voting for same-sex marriage is another step on that journey.
* Laura Willoughby MBE is a Lib Dem member in Islington
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13 Comments
In the 1980s I used to go around predicting that marriage would die soon after the turn of the century, what I didnt imagine was that everyone would just redefine what marriage meant.
Back in the “swingin” 60s sex before marriage was forbidden, if you did it you pretended you didnt. Sex before marriage now is close to being compulsory. Having children outside marriage was technically legal but parents ran the risk of having their kids taken away.
The irony is that marriage now is closer to the romantic myth than its ever been before, its now close to being a genuine choice.
You do realise that “the Church” doesn’t exist as an entity and that the Church of England is very split on this ???
I don’t plan to get married: it seems pointless. However, others can do what they like.
Equal civil partnerships would have been an interesting first move, but presumably conservatives were worried heterosexual marriage would decline?
The churches are not saying they own marriage. They are arguing that the best way for society and for the child to bring up children is in a union with the child’s own father and mother. A society that believes this, supports marriage with legal rules, and financial help.
Some of these legal rules are about consanguinity and about sexuality: marriage is not allowed between close relations; marriage must be consummated.
For same sex unions consanguinity rules are not needed because the union of itself cannot procreate. So these unions can be between close relatives: e.g. cousins, aunts and nieces etc. The Government has decided that same sex unions need not be consummated, so sex is not essential.
Rules on insect need not apply. For example parent and child could have a union for mutual support.
For equal marriage the same sex union would have the legal and financial support that marriages have as legal partnership have now.
Choosing the same word to denote these greatly different types of unions looks like a poorly thought through idea.
“Rules on insect need not apply.”
I suspect you were trying to say something highly offensive there, but fortunately it has just turned out laughable.
Down with marriage (headline) – We want it for everyone (subtext)? I know headlines are important for grabbing attention, but in all honesty, it’s not quite the most logical approach to the argument I have come across so far.
In the spirit of ‘Down with marriage’, if the ownership of the term ‘Marriage’ is at the heart of the problem, how would King Solomon have coped? He might suggest that ‘civil partnership’ should be the only union of a couple recognised by the state, and in all relevant legislation the term ‘marriage’ be replaced with ‘civil partnership’. Where this was not appropriate, the legislation would be amended or removed from the statute book. Would anyone be happy?
A civil partnership would simply be a document signed by both parties and witnessed by the civil authority representative.
Partners could of course celebrate in any chosen (legal) way.
Now the term ‘marriage’ would have no legal significance or particular meaning. It would only mean what those who used the term wanted it to mean. A religious wedding could be just one way in which members of churches would choose to celebrate their civil partnership, although this would be a matter entirely up to each church as to whether it performed such a celebration.
Church members could of course believe their ceremony has some special significance. They can believe lots of things, but it doesn’t mean it has any legal significance.
The argument you are using is almost precisely the argument the Church, which can only be taken to mean those who hold there is “The Church” i.e. Catholics, including the Anglo as well as the Roman versions, use to oppose gay marriage.
From their point of view, they are very much saying marriage is not just some arbitrary rule imposed by The Church or The State, but rather something that seems to be a universal part of being human, at least to the extent is exists in almost all human societies, and as such defined almost always as involving a man and a woman. This is why they say it is wrong for the state to step in and redefine it.
Matthew, If that was a reply to me, KS was suggesting that the state would define civil partnership and its legal significance as the only form of legal partnership between two individuals. Every partnership would be equal.
The term marriage would be taken out of the argument, It would have no particular meaning, no legal significance, and could be used by anybody to mean anything.
stephen johnson
Matthew, If that was a reply to me, KS was suggesting that the state would define civil partnership and its legal significance as the only form of legal partnership between two individuals
No, it was a reply to the original article.
@Robert Hamilton
As I understand it the rules about the prohibited degrees of consanguinity will still apply but they are not mentioned in the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill because it is amending the Marriage Act 1949 and not changing the prohibition on marriage to relatives which will apply to same sex couples as it applies to all marriages. This reflects the provisions of the Civil Parterships Act 2004. As you say there is no requirement for consummation as there is no sexual act recognised in law as equivalent to heterosexual intercourse. Also under Part 3 of Schedule 4 of the Bill it is not recognised that there is any sexual act equivalent to adultery (sexual intercourse with a person other than the spouse) which enables a wronged party to a marriage to get a divorce. This is a defect in the draft Bill which should be rectified as it creates inequality. It should be a ground for divorce that the other party has a sexual relationship with another partner during the marriage whether the relationship is with a person of the same sex or the opposite sex It is not sufficient in my view to assume that the courts would define such behaviour as unreasonable behaviour (what used to be called “cruelty”) . If this amendment is made it is not right to refer to this Bill as about “equal marriage.” The same commitment should be required of same sex couples as couples of the opposite sex.
@Michal Hall
Yes, I agree. I believe that rules of consanguinity presently apply to Civil Partnerships. I wrote “need not apply” implying that these rules could be removed from Civil Partnership. The biological arguments for these rules in the case of heterosexual marriage are not an obstacle. When people wish to commit to a mutual supportive union, a laudable wish, why should the consanguinity rules prohibit such a union. I came across a recent report of a union of three (a man who loves two women) being made legal in the Netherlands, which has same-sex marriage, which suggests that the our equal marriage laws could develop into many different types of union, that, though laudable, we would not wish to call marriage.