Should Heterosexuals Be Allowed to Marry?
62
What Does Love Have to Do with It?
When I was a teenager, I had this recurring nightmare:
In the dream, I am standing in front of my bedroom mirror in a beautiful white wedding dress with a long white veil. My parents are in the front room watching television. I'm agitated, because I know that I'm not really about to marry anyone. The truth is I have no groom, I don't even have a gum-popping boyfriend much less a lover. I've invented the whole wedding idea and dressed myself all in white just to get my parents to like me, childishly hoping that the groom would just magically appear at the right moment and it would all work out.
Isn't that how it's supposed to happen? I know it's what my parents want for me. I'm trying hard to please them.
But in the dream I've let the whole charade go on way too long; so long now that there is no easy escape. I'm down to the wire: all dressed up with no one to wed, and as I appraise myself in the mirror, my terror at the impending confrontation with my parents builds and builds. Why did I do this? What was I thinking?
Then, quite suddenly, as if an afternoon storm had just blown in, the room grows very dark and even darker as in the mirror a giant black wing rises up behind me and envelopes me completely.
The bridegroom has arrived.
I wake up screaming.
Ah, marriage: That dream within a dream! The happiest day of every woman's life! I've had three blessed days in mine, but really, only that first one; that one in the mirror when I met my true Other.
That's the day I'd like to talk about here, that little-discussed inner event that took place between only me and my Creator. Let everyone else in the country rant about Adam and Steve and whether they should 1) choose blue or grey tuxes or 2) be burned at the stake while we all sing "Nearer My God to Thee."
I have something Other in my mind.
What is Marriage Anyway?
For most of recorded history, marriage has been a ritual property exchange with political overtones. Fathers arranged marriages for their daughters, brokering the arrangement with an older, established man who could offer the family the best longterm alliance, then throwing in a cow and a couple of sheep or whatever else was necessary to close the deal. It was difficult to say which was more vital: the woman or the number of sheep. That depended on the status of the bride's family, the status of the potential groom, and lots of other intangibles having to do with the politics of daily life and money.
So, for all the hoopla about the sanctity of marriage, historically it has been more akin to selling a used car. You want to unload the thing at the best possible price, but you don't want the buyer showing up on your doorstep at any future time complaining about being sold a lemon. You might need his help some day. It's a man to man transaction, forged in the fire of social commerce and tempered by all the subtleties of testosterone.
But what about the Christian Church? Surely marriage was created by the Church to be symbolic of the union between Christ and his followers?
Well, not exactly. Here is Bertand Russell on the subject:
Christianity, and more particularly St. Paul, introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed not primarily for the procreation of children, but to prevent the sin of fornication.... (I Cor. vii. 1-9.) St. Paul makes no mention whatever of children; the biological purpose of marriage appears to him wholly unimportant. This is quite natural, since he imagined that the Second Coming was imminent and that the world would soon come to an end. At the Second Coming men were to be divided into sheep and goats, and the only thing of real importance was to find oneself among the sheep on that occasion.
St. Paul holds that sexual intercourse, even in marriage, is something of a handicap in the attempt to win salvation (I Cor. vii. 32-4). Nevertheless it is possible for married people to be saved, but fornication is deadly sin, and the unrepentant fornicator is sure to find himself among the goats. I remember once being advised by a doctor to abandon the practice of smoking, and he said that I should find it easier if, whenever the desire came upon me, I proceeded to suck an acid drop.
It is in this spirit that St. Paul recommends marriage. He does not suggest that it is quite as pleasant as fornication, but he thinks it may enable the weaker brethren to withstand temptation; he does not suggest for a moment that there may be any positive good in marriage, or that affection between husband and wife may be a beautiful and desirable thing, nor does he take the slightest interest in the family; fornication holds the center of the stage in his thoughts, and the whole of his sexual ethics is arranged with reference to it. It is just as if one where to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
So, basically, marriage among the early Christians was put forth by St. Paul as a kind of crutch to help followers who couldn't stop fornicating 'get it together' long enough to assure them a place in heaven; As in, "All right, if you MUST keep doing this disgusting sex thing, you can get married. Try to keep your hands off each other until Judgement Day, will you?"
The current Christian sanctimony surrounding the institution of marriage is puzzling given the historical record regarding it, including the thoughts recorded in the BIble. (Yes, I've read the whole Bible, honest I really have, have you? So if you are here to flame or damn me, just know that your efforts are a vulgar redundancy, and then have at if you still must. I am indeed, a minion of the Dark Lord. I confess it openly.)
Speaking of the Dark Lord, who was that guy in my dream anyway?
It may shock you to know that I actually do believe in marriage, bad as I am at it, but not in the way it is conventionally presented. Union, to my mind, is sacred, and no union is more mysterious, terrifying, or beautiful than the marriage of Darkness and Light. Even at a sixteen, it was clear to me on some deeply submerged level that I was already spoken for; betrothed to a beautiful Darkness alive in my own heart.
Devotion Cruel as the Grave
Do any of us in the modern era understand the true cost of devotion? One of my favorite verses is from the Bible, from the Song of Songs, (which curiously is also the oldest part of the Bible and the part most pagan in origin):
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal on your arm.
For Love is strong as Death; Devotion cruel as the Grave.
It blazes up like blazing fire,
Fiercer than any flame.
What can it mean to have a symbol inscribed upon your very heart, to be marked for love in such a way that the intensity of that love is brighter and more painful than brilliant fire? When we speak of marriage today, or the right to marry, we are not speaking about this marriage at all. We are talking instead about something admirable but much more mundane; something akin to the beginning part of my dream, to pleasing our parents, to fitting in.
Today when we talk about the right to legally marry, we are referring (usually) to the right to gain a token of formal social approval and support for a domestic relationship based in mutual love and stability, the kind of relationship in which it is comfortable to raise children. This is an admirable project, and a much nicer approach to the idea of marriage than the traditional woman-as-chattal business deal, or the early Christian prophylactic approach meant to get an itchy couple into heaven.
Are heterosexuals capable of this modern version of marriage? Statistically speaking, yes, about half of the time we are. Are homosexuals capable of it? I don't see why not. It's hard to imagine homesexuals could be very much worse at it. It's proven to be quite the crap shoot after all, and why should everyone not have a chance to play? That's my position on that issue, for what it's worth (which isn't much).
But the sanctity of marriage is not witnessed by a signature at on a courthouse document. It may or may not even involve another person. True marriage occurs in a transcendent moment in which the full passion and beauty of the created world, the full love of the Creator for the created, is inscribed forever on a single human heart. It happens spontaneously, with a power that can take the breath away as swiftly as the great dark wing of Death. We don't choose this moment, and we cannot reject it. It is a great and ancient mystery, and because we no longer understand mystery or the vastness of time, we continue to look for ways to trivialize and bastardize marriage, to boil it down into something palatable, even marketable.
It's sad, really.
The word 'glamour' comes from the French 'glas' for glass, and 'amour' for love. A Glamour, a glass of love, a magic mirror created when Darkness and Light join to create a refelctive surface in which we glimpse the vastness of time. Should heterosexuals be allowed to marry?
Did you say something?
|
Medieval Marriage: Symbolism and Society
Price: $34.49
List Price: $45.00 |
|
Symbolism Of The Mystical Marriage
Price: $9.28
List Price: $15.95 |
|
Scenes from the Marriage of Louis XIV: Nuptial Fictions and the Making of Absolutist Power
Price: $49.97
List Price: $50.00 |
|
Hindu Wedding Rituals - Symbolism and Significance
Price: $18.80
List Price: $28.50 |
PrintShare it! — Rate it: up down flag this hub
Comments
Thought provoking hub and funny comment.
Contrary to your assertion, your position, or opinion as it were, is far from worthless. Your writing is insightful, intelligent and sometimes verges on the poetic.
Marriage has become something like Christmas. We continue to do it because we always have and our real motives are lost in the depths of time. I, for one, could understand the political, materialistic motive for marriage more easily than the self-deception most accept for entering into such an incredibly significant relationship. I have been as guilty as most in this area so I claim no quarter. The verse you site brings to mind for me two words which, when combined, tell the story quite well, unconditional love. Easy to say, not so easy to find.
Not only should heterosexuals not be allowed to marry, we have no cause to even debate the matter. What the U.S. government joins together, let no man put asunder.
What a great take on the topic.
I love reading your ideas. This was a fascinating read. How do you do it? Such quality content and so little time!
A comment about the Song of Songs quote. What if you took your interpretation of marriage in this quote and applied it to one's relationship with Diety? It makes a lot of sense to me to do so, since God is commonly portrayed as the Bridegroom in the New Testatment.
I am not trying to force my religious opinions here, but what makes the idea all the more intriguing is the ancient origins of the text. And then...there's the Greek Eros/Psyche myth which explores the idea of humans married to diety...
What do you think?
Thank you Shadesbreath for that alimony observation! I agree totally!
Thanks also Ralph, ColdWarBaby and Satori--It was so nice to wake up and find positive comments here--I wrote this last night after listening to the gay marriage flap all day on TV and radio. I mean, here we are with our economy falling down around our ears, and what is the world whipped up about? Gay marriage. AAAAARRRGHHHH? (And you can quote me on that.)
Wannbewestern, I do think that the quote from the Song of Songs was lifted by the Christian Church from the pagan world and applied to one's relationship with the Deity. I'm not sure it if it works as well that way though--that is, I think some meaning is lost, some important bits that would take volumes to define. It works that way for Christians though and that's fine with me-- I mean, far be it from someone like me to start a quarrel with something that works. I just don't think (as you concede) that that view should be forced on others.
I got to thinking about this hub also because of a hub I read by CJStone on his trip to Romania and Transylvania. He talks about this moment in nature he experience there where the inner and outer landscapes merged in the way the Song of Songs quote refers to, so when I was listening to Adam and Steve all day that was on my mind too, that bit from his hub.
I think really this whole hoopla about gay marriage is unwarranted--When the issue first became a big deal when the Republicans were using it to whip up their base, my first thought was, "Should gays marry? Christ, no one should marry! Thery're going the wrong direction with this thing!" LOL!
Of course, not everyone finds that funny.
What I like about your writing is your candor and complete transparency. You are not afraid to express your views in an intelligent and frank manner. In the open forum of ideas and worldviews available today, I feel it's vital for all voices to be heard. Even though my take on this topic differs, you have presented your voice with poise and truthfulness. Your hubs are always thought-provoking and well written. I often find myself thinking in different ways after reading your words. This was nicely done.
I'll sing you are my sunshine on this rolling bandwagon. You're thoughts are engaging and presented with logic and humor. I thoroughly enjoy reading every article you write. I've only recently married (October 2007) but I'll tell ya...we've been together since May of 1998....so the need for expensive jewelry and a notorized stamp on frilly paper was really the least notion in our minds. We both have fairly conservative mothers (although they do their best not to seem so) and although they knew we'd been fornicating since damn near day one they wanted that marriage-not to save our souls-but to get a grandkid....because somewhere in their backwards twisted logic that's how its done. Now I was conceived out of wedlock and my mother was seven months enormous in her wedding photos...her marriage to my father (now over-surprise!) makes me no less a bastard. Ask any of my friends. I am a right royal bastard. My now enslaved lover and I had no intentions of committing that act of futility which, since the inception and concurrent social acceptance of divorce, truly has no more meaning than best friend bracelets in primary school. So why did we...?
I needed health insurance and we'd already been together longer than some people stay married.
Should the disappointing day come that we decide anything more than a decade is simply too much devotion...I would wager our divorce will be as amiable and logical as our engagement and marriage has been. I think the trick-which is no more magic than the rabbit in the hat gag- is that the commitment, in whatever form, is between you and your partner. Define it as you like. When someone else's approval and legitamacy becomes what is important to you....you are already f*cked. That said--no one should be denied the right to confirm/define their commitment as they please.
Thank you Rob, that was so gracious of you the way you put that, and I appreciate your compliments greatly. It is so unusual to have a difference of opinion and still be able to discuss some topics civilly anymore. At work I am regularly accosted by other employees who are proselytizing for their religions. I know they mean well, but at this age, I think just respecting differences is in order. Thank you so much.
Carissa--I was born when my Mom was 7 months pregnant too! (All those premature births back in those days!) She insisted to the end I was 'premature.' My poor Mom. I don't imagine I'll marry again. At 55 there is no point really, and my boyfriend's company has stopped spousal benefits--soon no one will have insurance at all, so many companies are dropping it. It's so insane. But if you can get it that way, all the more power to you! Pretty soon we'll be setting up fake marriages with Canadians just for the health insurance---hey, there's a website idea! Thank you for your comments!
Another brilliant hub pgrundy. Great title. When I first saw it I misread it as - you know - "Should homosexuals be allowed to marry?" and I thought "uh-oh, where's she going with this?" It only took a line or two to realise my mistake, and then the title made me laugh out loud. You've got a great sense of humour, and yet you touch some very deep ideas with it. I love your hubs.
Hey Cj! I love yer hubs too! Thanks fer the thumbs up!
Great hub! Refreshing...
Great hub...provocative content, beautifully stated. All I would comment on, is that the "transcendent moment" which is "inscribed forever" on a human heart...is a moment that requires daily remembering, daily committment, for that glorious moment does not shimmer in the heart every moment...and survives only when the brain consciously reminds the heart of its committment. That conscious decision to love, begets the 'spontaneous' emotion of love. An endearing cycle of our conscious-mental/unconscious-emotional elements.
I couldn't agree more desert blondie, thank you for your comments and for reading my hub.
pgrundy: Another thought provoking subject- I like the way you share your thoughts and add a touch of humor.
Its odd, but I have had a few long term relationships, but never got married; had a marriage proposal back in the 80's but he was not the man I wanted to spend my life with, however, are you ready for this? I wouldn't mind being married to Phil, but he is not a believer in the marriage institution, reason why he never married and prefers our living together. We have a deep commitment and friendship on a day to day basis though, so in essence it is a marriage or merging of our lives, but... it would be nice to experience a legal marriage, maybe because I never took this step. :)
Hi Violetsun! That is ironic! I'm just more than a little gun shy at this point in my life after 3 failed attempts. Divorce is costly and th cost piles up, financially and emotionally, but staying in a bad marriage costs a lot more.
I really enjoyed this logical and poetic discourse on marriage. Thank you for such a provocative and interesting piece.
The entire issue surrounding homosexual marriage has confused and irritated me for some time, given that it is, at it's heart, a legal arrangement. Even today, it's essentially a legal arrangement. Society has created the legal terms and definitions, formalized by federal and state laws. The long and short of it is, you could get married in a church -- but it's invalid and moot without the legal document from your local courthouse, witnessed and signed.
I keep thinking I'm missing some key point here, but it seems to me it should be all or nothing. Dispose of the legal arrangement altogether and let everyone have "committed partnerships" or not, whatever the case may be. Or make marriage equal-opportunity and available to all.
I like your insights here. I have to go along with the adage marriage has ruined some perfectly good relationships as a true observation. The ceremony ring and paper are not what is important.
Very catchy title there, Pam! :-) Here I am, learning something new every day. I didn't know Russell's take on St Paul's proposition about marriage, very interesting indeed. Aside from the learning trip, this was a great read --I don't know how you manage to sound so profound and so down to earth all in the same sentence, in all your sentences and in all your articles! Thank you!
Elena, you say such flattering things to me. Never stop! LOL!
Very nice work! I saw the title and just had to check it out because, dang! Yes! I even learned some things on the topic. Awesome.
Thank you Earl! I wrote this awhile ago, so it's nice to know someone noticed it. :o)
The more I read from you-- The more blown of the porch ,I am. (Married for 47+ years, BTW.) I'm expecting great things from you -- no pressure :)
OK I'll quit stalking you now. Congrats on your H of the W week.
LOL! Thanks Rochelle! Stalk away! It is so great to hear nice things from HP friends. Never stop. :o)
What about married homosexuals being allowed to divorce? Until a fairly recent decisions in a New York court, American gays who married in Canada were married for good. There is no residency requirement to be married in Canada but there's a 12 month residency requirement to get divorced. Unless you live in New York or California, gays who marry in Canada need to take "until death do you part" quite literally.
Hi divorceincanada--Wow, that's an interesting wrinkle. Personally, I think marriage is in trouble regardless of sexual orientation. Divorce destroys people financially (at least here in the US it does) because of the legal costs and (often) the prolonged fightiing. What I'd like to see is 5 year renewable contracts instead, for both sexes, with longer contracts available when children are involved. Kind of like a combination temporary/marriage pre-nup. Everything spelled out so both people know what they are getting into, and at the end of five years if it isn't working they can just not renew and move on.
Not very romantic I know, but we are wasting so much money on this now, at least in the U.S. People are not talking out the practical end in advance, and then the dashed expectations get dumped on the court systems which are already overloaded. Thanks for commenting, good point you made there.
I fully agree with Shadesbreath, why are homos getting a benefit out of the deal. Why should we marry and suffer and they donot get married and be all happy and gay as they are in T.V. No really I am serious, they should be allowed to marry, so that they can experience life bound with a person next to them every morning and every night in every day of their waking life! Ha!
P.S. Loved your hub ... especially the dream part in the beginining!
Thanks nazishnasim--I agree. My first reaction to the homosexual marriage questions was, geez, NO ONE should be allowed to marry, but on a more serious note, you are right of course! Why should it only be heterosexuals who suffer!
I loved this. Your black wing made me think of Hades and Persephone, and of Cupid and Psyche. This in turn made me think that in some way we're soul sisters.
I'm a great proponent of gay marriage, but I'm starting to wonder whether heterosexuals should be allowed to marry. Gays, particularly male gays, have a kind of equality and respect built right into their relationships, that heterosexuals do not, IMO.
Hi Michellcat--I'm not sure how good marriage is for heterosexual women. I think you could make a compelling case that it's not good for them at all, but I think people should be allowed to make their own decisions. Thanks for your comments! :)
Oh my god. I was hooked from the title to the very last comment. Oh, wow, pgrundy. Never stop writing such beautiful hubs. I am a bit conflicted on marriage - not on who should marry (all or nothing here, I agree!), but on what marriage means to me specifically.
So thought-provoking, this is going to be in my head for a long while. I've bookmarked it in case that fades so I can re-read it again! Your dream and your interpretation of it... wow...
Okay I'll stop now. On a lighter note, seriously, fantastic hub!
Sunny, thank you for leaving such a positive comment! Usually these kinds of hub provoke much scarier notes! lol! Thanks again, I appreciate your kindness. :)
If we just live together can we still get the cows and chickens?
Cows and chickens? Oh hell yes! Cows and chickens for everyone! And best of all, YOU GET THE MILK FOR FREE! lol!
NO People should still know their place
Shadesbreath says:
17 months ago
Provocative and deep as I am growing to expect from you. Marriage is definately a social arrangement more than it has to do with love, although bonds of love grow well within a marriage if all the other stuff lines up. It's just the whole lining up thing that seems to be a problem.
As for gay marriage, I can't imagine how I or any other person have the right to dictate how other people live their lives. Frankly, I think homesexuals should have to get married to make it fair. I mean, look how happy the stereotypical homosexual man is on TV. Now, we all know stereotypes are bad, but often there is a grain of truth in them. My thought is that they are happy all the time because they don't have to get married like the rest of us. So, yeah, totally they should have to get married to be accepted just like the rest of us. They can wake up to that same old person ever day and, if they don't want to wake up to that same old person every day they can fork out some alimony like everybody else. :P
(Ok, I'm having a bit of fun, but still.) Life is short. Live and let live.