What is marriage?

What do we mean by marriage?

There are many aspects of marriage – these are some of the more apparent ones:

Every marriage is different and falls in a different place in this spectrum. And what’s important in a particular marriage changes over time. So it might start out with the personal commitment and ceremonial aspects in the forefront but, for end-of-life issues, the legal aspect might become most important.

And bear this thought in mind – during this time of controversy about the rights of same-sex couples, the only aspect of marriage not available to them is the legal. They can have a ceremony, it can be recognized by their faith, they can get the societal acceptance of their families and friends, and they have the personal commitment. The only thing they don’t have is the legal recognition from their government.

The personal commitment aspect is pretty obvious. We assume that when a couple gets married, each of them has a personal commitment to each other and to the marriage. That’s not always the case however.

Some couples want kids right away and, for them, societal acceptance is their prime motivation for getting married. But having kids isn’t the only reason for seeking the societal acceptance that marriage confers. Even couples who won’t be having kids still look to marriage to provide this societal acceptance by their family, friends, neighbors, their employers and co-workers, and even from strangers like the hospital nurse and the hotel clerk.

Many couples, both same- and opposite-sex, are religious and get married in a religious ceremony in a house of worship. For other couples, religion isn’t important and they’re happiest getting married by a justice of the peace in their friends’ back yard. It’s important to note, however, that religious practices aren’t threatened by legal recognition of marriage. We have this neat little part of our Constitution that says government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. That means if a particular religion chooses to marry, for example, only opposite-sex couples who are of the same race and religion and neither of whom were previously married, it will remain perfectly free to do so, even if the government recognizes other kinds of marriages.

The primary aspect we’ll be dealing with is the legal aspect, with only a little attention paid to the societal acceptance and personal commitment aspects.

Marriage, not “gay marriage”

This site does not use the term “gay marriage” since that is a misnomer. There’s no such thing as “gay” marriage, there’s just marriage. And it’s important, when we talk about marriage, that we don’t use a term that tries to make an invalid distinction between what gay people want in marriage and what non-gay people want. Instead, we can talk about marriage equality, the freedom to marry, marriages of same- or opposite-sex couples, or, best yet, just marriage.