On Marriage: I welcome discussion

[ailbhe]

I'm pulling this one out for further discussion. I'm particularly interested in the views of people who thought marriage was meaningless, or that it's just unfair because of hetersexual privilege, childrearing privs, etc. I mean, obviously it *is* unfair, but I'm interested in other people's views.

Are you happy that you married Rob?

Depends on what you mean by married. I'm happy we are committed life partners. I'm delighted we're co-parents. I'm thrilled we plan holidays and DIY and grocery shopping and menus together. I'm pleased some of our friends and family came to celebrate our relationship and offer support for our commitment. I'm ambivalent about the legal and social status the legal ceremony gave our relationship. It was originally because of child guardianship laws - only a man (not necessarily the father) married to a woman at the time of birth got automatic next of kin type rights. That law changed I think while I was pregnant, so I felt dreadful. Then civil partnerships showed up and I felt a bit better. It's complicated.

Comments

[firecat]

We didn't get legally married because we don't trust the government, and marriage is a hugely complex legal contract that can be changed by the government any time without our consent.

When we thought we would have kids, we were concerned about how to legally ascertain fatherhood, but we read some legal self-help books that indicated there were ways to do this. But we decided not to have kids, so it turned out not to be an issue.

Privilege is involved in our being able to comfortably choose not to be legally married - we have enough money to hire lawyers to write specific contracts about what we want, and our parents on both sides support our relationship, and (US-centric) we can both afford our own health insurance.

Privilege would of course also be involved if we had decided to get legally married, since we are an opposite-sex couple. Although in California there are some legal rights granted to same-sex couples, at least today.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

marriage is a hugely complex legal contract that can be changed by the government any time without our consent.

Mmm. That's a huge issue that I have with it. Less that my government (Irish) might change it, but that married women are governed by different laws as they move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Obviously, that's the case for any traveller, but the kind of rights that are at stake from jurisdiction to jurisdiction - owning property, the right to say no to sex, custody of children - are particularly gendered.