Marriage

Apparently California’s Proposition 8, a yes vote to ban homosexual marriage, passed by a margin of about 5%, a considerable drop from the 23% in 2000. I say “apparently” because lawsuits and recounts are still being mounted. What does this tell US about US?

Perhaps the most obvious thing is that during times of actual stress and challenges to our existence, rather than imagined or perceived challenges, we tend to get real. Things like meals and places to live supersede the need to intervene in other peoples’ lives and moral codes. It just doesn’t matter so much. Practical matters and common sense experiences generally guide us through our choices.

This all got me thinking not so much about sexual orientation and civil unions but rather more about marriage. It got me thinking about all the reasons people give for banning gay marriage. They include everything from the sublime to the mundane. Heading off the sublime is the Biblical reason. This is OK, I guess, for people who need a guide book to get through life, but that’s not everyone. Next is procreation. In fact two men or two women (minus in vitro) can’t procreate. But they certainly can adopt, and I know about the hue and cry over sexual identity and social ostracism, but in the long run, if a child feels love in the home, the child will prosper very well. Besides, heterosexual marriage doesn’t guarantee stellar parenting. We also have the fraying-of-the-social-fabric concern. We have so many things fraying our social fabric that this would simply be another yet very minor one. Then there are proprietary concerns: In gay marriages which of the two partners has more dominant rights to the property. Much of this has been resolved by the courts, but we still have tons of law suits about it, no matter the sexual orientation. Similar to this are the health and death benefits concerns. Notice that these and proprietary rights obtain no matter who’s doing what with whom.

But the most important issue is not being dealt with —What in fact is marriage? What should it be based on? How does it function? Incidentally, like Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, my only credentials to answer these questions are my experiences. Having married twice, having three married children and having lived a fairly long time mostly among married people, I have learned things that are not articles of faith or sociology. They simply are.

First, let’s make clear that marriage can by only a secular covenant or only a religious covenant or both. My position is that the only people who should be concerned about this are the two who want to partner for life. This idea of partnering for life ought to be viewed, in fact, as an awesome decision. Think about it. Under any other circumstances would you choose to live with any other person for that long. We don’t even usually live that long with our parents! And we are obliged to love each other! So marriage is both a secular and a spiritual bonding; it needs to be sanctioned by the state and needs to be consistent with our spirituality (with or without formal religion).

But mostly it is a bond. And like all bonds (or covenants, i.e., contracts the terms of which are agreed upon by both parties) it is founded on trust and symbiotic interests. That seems simple enough, but when you consider the long haul and the human tendency (perhaps even requirement) to change attitudes and lifestyles during time, it is indeed daunting.

And here’s my point, which I hope I have at least hinted at during this discourse: Marriage is daunting for anyone, because he or she cannot possibly know the consequences during forever. And this is a human thing. It is not contingent upon sexual preference or Biblical codes. What makes the Wife of Bath one of the most intriguing characters in all of Anglo-Saxon literature is that she is so remarkably human, combining crassness, humor, sensitivity and especially perseverance all in her discourse on the plausibility of marriage—of which she has had five! And what she demonstrates is that marriage is all about experience. Her first four marriages included everything except the essential thing a marriage needs: Love. The love in her fifth marriage finally allowed her to have trust and to appreciate her husband’s interests in light of her own. Marriage is the ability to allow one’s love to carry one through the years of adjustment marriage requires. If you have it and you know it, you are fortunate. If you think you don’t, think again and keep on seeking it.

Why would anyone want to take this away from anyone else among us?