No. Marriage is about the children. It is about descent, which is why the ceremony always involves the extended families of both partners. Love may or may not be a part of it, but family relationships always are. Even when you are dealing with people who, for reasons of age or health, cannot have children, a marriage is still an alliance between families. It means that you acquire - the English term is profoundly significant - relatives-in-law, who, from thenceforth, are never again really alien to you.
Looked at it from a certain viewpoint, marriage removes two persons from the sexual arena. This is actually the place my thoughts started from. Marriage cannot be a licence to fuck, because no man or woman ever needed that licence. And I am not speaking only of fact, but of law too. In most history, in most cultures, the law did not limit sex to married couples: to the contrary, it established a few groups with which it was illegal to have sex - minors, relatives, members of the same sex and married persons. (In actual fact, it was the woman who was more strictly forbidden and more frequently blamed, but I think you will find that it was also possible for women to charge their husbands for the same reason.) Concubinage, casual relationships, and courtesanship, were all practised without any great difficulty, In other words, when it came to adults without existing bonds, most sort of things were tolerated. Our age did not invent the "consenting adults" formula; to the contrary, the fact that we have to formulate and repeat it suggests that it is not as natural to us as it was to our ancestors.
What "gay marriage" does in this respect is to reverse all the presumptions. Because there is no question of children - I am tempted to say,no issue about issue - the whole business of families coming together becomes unreal. Do you imagine for a minute that Elton John considers David Whatsisname's mother as his mother-in-law? The point then becomes to consecrate and eternize a sexual relationship. Sex becomes the thing that "marriage", so described, values and celebrates.
no subject
Looked at it from a certain viewpoint, marriage removes two persons from the sexual arena. This is actually the place my thoughts started from. Marriage cannot be a licence to fuck, because no man or woman ever needed that licence. And I am not speaking only of fact, but of law too. In most history, in most cultures, the law did not limit sex to married couples: to the contrary, it established a few groups with which it was illegal to have sex - minors, relatives, members of the same sex and married persons. (In actual fact, it was the woman who was more strictly forbidden and more frequently blamed, but I think you will find that it was also possible for women to charge their husbands for the same reason.) Concubinage, casual relationships, and courtesanship, were all practised without any great difficulty, In other words, when it came to adults without existing bonds, most sort of things were tolerated. Our age did not invent the "consenting adults" formula; to the contrary, the fact that we have to formulate and repeat it suggests that it is not as natural to us as it was to our ancestors.
What "gay marriage" does in this respect is to reverse all the presumptions. Because there is no question of children - I am tempted to say,no issue about issue - the whole business of families coming together becomes unreal. Do you imagine for a minute that Elton John considers David Whatsisname's mother as his mother-in-law? The point then becomes to consecrate and eternize a sexual relationship. Sex becomes the thing that "marriage", so described, values and celebrates.