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

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

It is important to me to have some form of spiritual ritual when I make a lifetime commitment to a partner, because that seems to help make the commitment real to my subconscious self, and that in turn makes the relationship more stable. I also think it's important for the communities in which people live to recognise and, where appropriate, support any commitments they want to make public, and that includes the state - but I'd rather that were done in a way that is free of relgious associations, so I'd prefer civil partnerships for all who want them (including people whose relationships are not romantic or sexual).

Incidentally, it's not entirely clear to me that UK marriage and UK civil partnerships are equivalent in terms of legal rights. The statute in question does not say that - presumably deliberately - but instead lists a whole bunch of other statutes that now apply to civil partners as well as to married couples. What it doesn't do is tell the courts that all our case law now has to be applied equally to both, so (unless I've missed a court case on it, which is possible) we don't know yet whether or not they will do that. Personally, I think it's likely that they will, because our judges are usually fairly sensible about reflecting social changes and have gradually been moving towards treating LGB people more fairly in contexts like custody for a while now, but it's not guaranteed. We had a judge resign recently because he wasn't prepared to enforce the Sexual Orientation (Equality) Regulations, after all.