Should 'Marriage' be re-defined

[John Skelton]

Good old Nick Lowe touches on that image in 'Lately, I've Let Things Slide'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUHWh810L0M

Is there a classical music equivalent, experts ?

Not that I can think of (if I qualify as an expert!) but thanks for Nick Lowe, Paul. Beethoven never washed or changed his shirt, I believe: his landlady complained about it.

[amateur51]

Which begged the stupefyingly obvious question that also seemed to escape all three involved in that particular discussion ... what on earth is the house going to look like lf we have two married men in the home and no wife ... ?

Oh split my sides!

[amateur51]

I have been to such a house, and it was very well designed, very clean, very tidy etc. I'd love to have lived there. On the other hand my wife and I live in a rather cluttered state, and we can barely cope with it all.

So I don't think your "obvious" question had the "obvious" answer you might have been looking for.

[Roehre]

Not that I can think of (if I qualify as an expert!) but thanks for Nick Lowe, Paul. Beethoven never washed or changed his shirt, I believe: his landlady complained about it.

But he washed very regularly - and in the absence of bathroom of even privies he just poured water like a shower over his head and washed his body in his appartment's main room... to great annoyance of his neighbours beneath his appartments and at least once he was evicted for doing so.
Once he did so while his maid was still there - but unnoticed by the composer as he was nearly deaf at that time already - a shocking experience to both of them

[amateur51]

John Skelton you are positively ablaze this morning - many thanks for saying so lightly everything I wanted to say but would have said in my clunking fist style

We do have to remeber that lesbians and gay men have been getting married (not necessarily to each other, although it does happen, certainly) to heterosexual friends since the institution began. This might be as a way of 'hiding', or because two people underdstand each other so well that an elastic marriage seemed like a good idea to both parties, or .. or .. but let's be a bit grown up about this.

Has the sky fallen in? Has the institution of the family as a means of raising children failed because of this?

'Gay' marriage is just another step in the acknowledgement that a lot of people of all inclinations enjoy the mutual warmth and companionship of a long-term special relationship and this step seeks to vaildate 'gay' marriages in the sight of society.

Of course, some of us have not been that fortunate. But if we're ok with that, then society should be too

[amateur51]

But he washed very regularly - and in the absence of bathroom of even privies he just poured water like a shower over his head and washed his body in his appartment's main room... to great annoyance of his neighbours beneath his appartments and at least once he was evicted for doing so.
Once he did so while his maid was still there - but unnoticed by the composer as he was nearly deaf at that time already - a shocking experience to both of them

A lovely aside, Roehre - many thanks

[Roehre]

...Which translates as "I hate gays".

Which in my opinion it doesn't

Point of interest, Magnificat: what if you had a gay child, would your views change?

Having many gay or lesbian friends (I guess more than half, myself being married and "straight") the vast majority of them does share the impossibillity of a "marriage". Obviously civil partnerships, and their relationships blessed, is a completely other matter.

[Paul Sherratt]

>>John Skelton you are positively ablaze this morning

And that's a lovely thing to observe and say, imo.

[Auferstehen2]

Beethoven never washed or changed his shirt

We'll leave the revered name of Beethoven out of this discussion please, and we'll do it pretty damn quickly!

Mario

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

To me, the matter is also "straight - ahem - forward": Marriage is a socio-political public statement that two people intend to share the same feelings about and devotion towards each other for the rest of their lives that they have at the time of making said public statement. Why should such an optimistically unrealistic declaration be denied to any pair of consenting adults?

[John Skelton]

Thank you, ams , although I don't feel all that ablaze this morning (bit of a dodgy back). The institution of marriage / true meaning of marriage line seems pretty weak, given that I'd imagine no one is insisting on the revival of laws dispossessing women in marriage of property, or insisting that if a married woman inherits property or money it goes straight to her husband. (Erm, I'd imagine ....). Marriage has never, in practice, been some immutable God-given entity.

Roehre and Mario - my profuse, if belated, apologies to Ludwig!

[Lateralthinking1]

Post 1 - Should marriage be redefined?

Some thoughts from real history rather than fantasy land

The question I would ask is "should marriage be better understood?" It seems to me that the entire debate is taking place without due regard to history. Marriage as we know it arrived as late as 1215. That is to say that 1215 was the year in which there was a new requirement by the Church for banns of marriage in England and Wales. Even then, a failure to call banns did not affect the validity of any marriage. Actually, marriage licenses were introduced in the 14th century to allow the usual notice period under banns to be waived on payment of a fee. And it was not until 1753 that marriage was built into statutory law. From that date, a marriage was only legally valid if it followed the calling of banns in church or the obtaining of a license.

Two questions arise. One, "why were banns introduced in 1215?" and two, "what did everyone do prior to 1215"? The answer to question one is that banns were intended to enable anyone to raise any impediment to the marriage so as to prevent invalid marriages. Impediments included a pre-existing marriage that had been neither dissolved nor annulled, a vow of celibacy, lack of consent, or the couple's being related within the prohibited degrees of kinship. None of these things were stupid. The answer to the second question is that for most of western history, marriage was a private contract between two families. Until the 16th Century, Christian churches accepted the validity of a marriage simply on the basis of a couple’s declarations.

So if two people claimed that they had exchanged marital vows—even without witnesses—the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married. The role of the Church in marriage therefore for many hundreds of years - far more years than have been lived since - was effectively to give a blessing if required to do so by individuals. It wasn't there to endorse. I have no idea whether there were no private declarations of marriage among gay people prior to the 1500s or the 1200s or many thousands of them, even millions. Presumably though there is no evidence to prove that there weren't any at all.

On this basis, it could be argued that all parties involved in marriage - whatever institution, whatever sexual orientation - have placed far too much importance on the supposed link between Church marriage and biblical orthodoxy. We have many churches standing which would have been visited regularly for centuries by people who had declared themselves to be married. While biblically the church would have had a stance on their sexual practices, no one would have been regarded as a sinner for not having had the endorsement of their marriage by either Church or state.

So perhaps it is time to return to that arrangement and remove what in many respects is a money spinner from the entire equation. Let people say they are married if they want to say they are married and ask for a blessing if they wish. The way everyone without exception is portraying marriage is that its links are inextricable with biblical texts which in turn go back to day one. Historically that just wasn't the case. Some might say "oh but how would that work today under the law?" My answer to that is "Precisely - it isn't really at all about marriage per se is it. It is about consenting to being ordered around even more than usual by third parties".

[scottycelt]

John Skelton wasn't being entirely serious, but John Skelton still doesn't see the glaringly obvious (no surprise there). Perhaps a significant number of men living with women take it for granted (or lapse into taking for granted) that women will pick up after them, rather like their mothers did when they (the men, not the mothers) were five? Whereas men living with men (in your example) are more considerate by default? Though as a so-called heterosexual man I like to think I've always done my bit domestically.

(Erm - what is the glaringly obvious point? That God created woman to tidy up after man?)

Well, neither was I (being entirely serious), which was why I included all those silly smilies just to ram home that very point ... Ams51 never does that, of course.

I simply referred to the findings of the poll that apparently discovered that most 'married men' do not 'pull their weight' when it comes to domestic chores, so my own question does seem rather 'obvious' in the now possible case of two 'married' homosexual men living in the same house?

You apparently also believe that most heterosexual men (apart from your good self, of course) are lazy slobs around the home, but this does not generally apply to homosexual men or women. Can you just imagine the furore in some quarters if anyone dared to suggest the reverse might be true? Ridiculous words like 'hate' would soon be flying!

In any case, what solid evidence do you have to make such an outrageous accusation regarding the majority of heterosexual males? You appear to have peeped through even more curtains than God!

[Ferretfancy]

This gets sillier and sillier!

I've been in a civil partnership since it first became possible in 2005, which was an important step in a very long relationship. Together we have witnessed a great deal of prejudice since the 1960s, although luckily not affecting us, and we have seen a slow but steady growth of understanding. In fact, the majority of people, gay or straight, who are not shackled by superstition or political bigotry have learned how to create a kinder society.
As it happens, neither of us want to have a marriage ceremony, we are happy as we are, but there are gay people who feel that they need the same formal recognition and status as their married friends, and if this is important to them, why not? The current proposals make it quite clear that the churches will not be obliged to perform marriages, but of course, they are making a silly fuss as they always do.
Deep beneath the homophobia there is a darker layer. Religions require obedience above all else, that is what drives everything for them, and the catholic church issues the strongest commands.
Sex is a necessary evil isn't it? Human beings have to reproduce as often as possible to defend the demands of the faith, but let's make it dirty and sinful, and certainly not enjoyable, or only a bit at any rate.So let's hedge it around with prohibitions and try to force non believers to follow our rules or a big fist in the sky will come down and thump us all.

Of course, it's OK for the church to treat women as servants, force the children of unmarried mothers into orphanages as laundry slaves, or remove them and sell them at birth and tell the mothers that their babies died. Yes, this happened for a whole generation in Franco's Spain.

But we have to think of the children, don't we?

[John Skelton]

In any case, what solid evidence do you have to make such an outrageous accusation regarding the majority of heterosexual males? You appear to have peeped through even more curtains than God!

Indeed I have. I work for an inter-governmental agency tasked with risk-assessing domestic environment toxicity / hygiene / community impact variables. The number of smelly socks I have encountered in my 30 + years in the job would have to be sniffed to be believed.

Ferretfancy -