So What *Do* We Call It?
Posted by: tony on 05/28/2008 03:42 PM
Updated by: tony on 05/28/2008 03:43 PM
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Expires: 06/28/2008 12:00 AM
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What Word Do We Use?
Matthew Archbold asks the musical question in the wake of the legalization of gay "marriage" in California:
So no matter how you slice it, the joining together of a man and a woman is different than two people of the same sex joining together.
If homosexuals have co-opted the word "marriage" which had been used for thousands of years to denote one thing, I ask what will be the new word we heterosexuals get to describe our very different union?
Problem is, for most of us heterosexuals, what we have is not much different that what the gays have with their "marriages". With a gay marriage, you have a sterile coming together of two people for their mutual pleasure. In most heterosexual marriages, contraception is used to render the procreative act sterile. So what you have is a sterile coming together of two people for their mutual pleasure.
I would propose a different word, and one that is used legally in some states.
Covenant.
Marriage is currently a contract. And as a matter of fact, with the wake of widespread no-fault divorce, a weak contract at that. It provides rights, but it doesn't enforce any of the responsibilities that those rights demand. Today, it's harder to get out of a car lease than a marriage.
A contract is an exchange of promises.
A covenant is an exchange of persons.
You give yourself completely to me, and I give myself completely to you. Without reservation, without holding anything back, including my fertility. You accept everything that is myself that I give to you.
This is something that is uniquely possible only in heterosexual marriages, and in most cases is not taken advantage of.
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