Being Married

So, this morning, I read an article online about an election in the state of North Carolina, that if passed will permanently define "MARRIAGE" as an entity solely for One Man and One Woman.

 A few weeks ago, I posted into my Twitter feed, the question:
               "What would you do today, if you knew that you would not fail?"

 My answer, when I considered the same question was "get married", and in fact, many of the answers that I received that day, in response to my question reflected that.

 Something that has been rolling around in my head for a few weeks, probably since I thought about asking Prinzzess about this, (because she was one of those that answered my query with "get married") is the very simple question, apparently with a very difficult answer, "What do _YOU_ mean when you say "Get Married"?"

So, off to Merriam's online dictionary I go:

This link, will take you to the actual page:

So, marriage is a consensual, and contractual relationship recognized by the law.  We know this because if you have ever been to a marriage ceremony, the officiator of the ceremony will end it with "....by the power VESTED in my by the , I now declare you Husband and Wife."  Vested as in "The state gives me permission to endorse a legal contract, and create a new legal entity."   If you do not believe that marriage is a legal thing, please do NOT visit Family Court (otherwise know as "Divorce Court").

 So, with those words, and the officiators signature on a "license", two people become one legal entity.  Is there something in that single sentence (which by the way, is ALL that is needed to be said for you to become married) that defines "WHO" or "WHAT" those folks are?  Not to my reading.

 But in the US, traditionally, we have taken marriage to be something that a man and a woman do.  Why do they do this (get married)?  There seems to be a lot of reasons, here are a few:

• For the kids.  As if, biologically, being married is required for the production of children.
• Because in in polite society, such as ours, God fearing people will "Leave their mother's and father's, and become cleaved to his wife... (Gen 2:24)
• Because, statistically, men live longer when married.
• There is also the fact that two people make more money, so there is more financial freedom.
• Sex.  There is more of it, and there is "better" sex than single people typically have.

So, looking through all those reasons, did you see anything about One Man, and one Woman?

So my question going forward, and asked in a forum where I will get no response, is this:


What Does It Mean To Be Married?

Let's take the hypothetical, I am to be married (again, for the third time).

 What would I gain?  I do not want children, although, biologically, I can still produce them.

 Money?  Well, I am not bragging, but, I am finally getting to the point that I can do what I want.

  To live longer?  Well, I have to say that has never played a part in any thought process that I have had in the past about being married.  In fact, in reading through the list above, I think the whole living longer thing is a side benefit, rather than a full benefit.  Because really, it is all predicated on the fact that as a married person, I might not take bad chances with things, because I have to consider what effect my actions would have upon my wife/mate.  There is also what I like to call the "nag factor".  This is not meant to be a negative, but being with a spouse tends to mean that you have to watch your health better, eating better, taking vitamins, going to the doctor when ill, and no more weekends of Nutter Butter cookies, and Hostess Orange Cup Cakes, while drinking copious amounts of Vodka and Bourbon.  (Hello, that was this weekend).

 Finally sex.  Well there would be more than I am having now, but that is easy, since I have been celibate since April 2008.

 But as a legal entity, being married gives me the ability to do a lot of things, like pass on any wealth that I might acquire during my lifetime to my spouse.  I can do this with my children, regardless of my relationship to their mother.  As my spouse, I can have them speak on my behalf.  They can come see me in the hospital, where the rules say only families may visit.

 Does any of that above seem dependent on the genders of the legal entity known as marriage?  Nope.

So, it brings the whole "Marriage is between one man and one woman" to a "rule" that we made up as a "people" or "society".    Because if we write a new rule that says same sex marriages were afforded the same benefits as opposite sex marriages are now, there would be no argument. 

 I talked to my son recently about this, and he asked a very interesting question, which was why not call same sex relationships civil unions.  I think this is a very interesting question, because at its core, marriage is a legal entity that allows the merging of finances, and raising of children, and the "legitimization" of sex between two people.

 However, it has been my experience in speaking to the few gay (EDIT: Yes, I removed the double quotes from around the word gay, because, I realized after having it pointed out to me, that the whole side-rant that I put between two parenthesis, somehow got deleted, so, having them there was not appropriate.  My Apologies) people that I know, that they want to be "married", not "civil-union'ed".  They reason that if it is good enough for opposite-sex couples, then it is good enough for them, because they bring the same things to the table that opposite sex couples do.

 I understand the slippery slope that many people believe we would be on, if marriage was allowed between any two people, regardless of gender.  Would it even stop then?  Would we later further define it as the "union between peoples", allowing a man to marry multiple people, and woman the same?  What about children?  Would we allowed to marry them?  Ducks?  Fido?  I know the last two were factious,  but seriously, if it is between consenting adults, why do we care?

 We care, because of religion.

 Religion has for hundreds and hundreds of years, beat into us that Sex, and Love, and Children are all the realm of the union between a man and a woman that had left their mothers and fathers, and cleaved upon each other.   Step out of that slim life style, and boom, condemnation.  Your sex is "out of wedlock" or "premarital" or "extramarital", children born without the mother and father being married at conception (and later re-defined as "at birth"), were condemned as "bastards", somehow labeling those kids as not having the same chance that other children born "in-wedlock" have.

 Sounds like a lot of negative to me.

 But in the end, its about Morals, and Faith, which are all based on rules.

 How about this, let's stop "getting married", and just join in a civil union?  For EVERYONE.

 Let's take the word out of the vernacular.  Like we changed the word "gay" from meaning, Happy, to "doesn't like sex acts with people of their opposite sex".

 Then we make rules that say you can only marry one other adult.

 For me, MARRIAGE is always going to be about the traditional man/woman union.  No changing of the words is going to change that.  Society redefining the the words to remove gender is not going to change that for me.

 But, having said all of that, I know that if we change it so that it is a union, there will be someone like me, sitting in front of their computer reasoning to himself why a UNION has to be just between two people. 

 And the slope will become more vertical, and more slipperier. 


Peace to You All.

Namaste, My Friends.

See You On The Other Side.