I've been thinking a lot about marriage lately (OK, tonight). See, here's the deal. My girlfriend and one of her friends decided to get married in a "mock" wedding ceremony, as a way of protesting the fact that the state does not recognize same-sex marriages (sometimes known as "gay people can't get married"). The purpose of a marriage to me is to broadcast the message "This is the only person I want to be with for the rest of my life" to the public. So, when my girlfriend and the other girl said "I do." at the ceremony, to me it was no different than if she "really" had married the girl, aside from of course the lack of recognition from the state. It bothered me a lot.
When I brought this up to her, she said paraphrasically "It's fake. Everyone knows it's fake since it's not recognized by the state. That was the whole point of it. Why can't you just accept that?". But I could not just accept that, because I don't consider the state's recognition to be a factor in the validity of a marriage.
There was then some discussion of a marriage ending, as in "If the ceremony (declaration) is the only thing that determines whether some one is married, how do you decide when it's not?" Are you permanently committed to that person? Is there no way out? But I had no answer that would fit in with my feelings on how a marriage would work. In my ideal world, people would only "get married" (declare their committment) if they really really meant it. If they didn't, or weren't sure, then cohabiting would be sufficient. In an ideal world, yes, you'd be permanently committed, and be happy with it. (Not pretend or be forced to be happy, but be truely happy. But of course this is not a utopia. People do make mistakes, and regret their decisions. So I was stuck.
Then (eventually) I realized what a marriage is, and what the point is. Yes, it is a way to tell the world "This is my mate". But there's more to it than that.
Surprisingly, the answer came to me from the computer. (No, I was not using the computer at the time. But what can I say, I'm a geek.) PGP. The Web of Trust. In PGP, you generate a cryptographic key. Then, other people can "sign" it. But signing is just a way to say "I believe that this long string of characters belongs to this person here". There is at least one problem with this approach, in that there is not really any way to state why you think that, such as "I sat down physically with the person and they told me each character individually, after they verified that they knew the passphrase for that key." or "I got an email with this From address, containing a key corresponding to this From address". Yes, there are "strengths" you can assign to say how "stongly" you believe that the key belongs to the person...but use of strengths is left up to the user's discretion. But I digress (I love saying that).
Back to marriage. All a marriage is, is a ceremony where two people can state that they want to be with each other for the rest of their lives (at least, that's the gist of most wedding vows). Of course, the only people that anyone else can trust to make that decision are those people. So, it's almost as if people are "signing" the fact that these people are married. First, the people getting married sign it by stating in front of others "Yes, we are/will be/want to be married". Then, the official performing the ceremony signs it by stating in front of others "These people are married". Finally, all the people present sign (accept as a fact) that the people in question are married. There is also normally a period of time during which others can "sign" that the people involved are not/should not/can not be married, and can attempt to convince the official that (s)he should not apply his "signature" to the marriage. The official, and the participants are all free to withdraw their "signatures" up until the end of the ceremony. (of course, the official typically has a rulebook of circumstances under which he is allowed to withdraw, since he's not acting as himself.
So, what's my point, you ask? It is this. Anyone can get married to any one by anyone. All you have to do is get someone else to believe that you are. If two (or more, I suppose, though I don't wish to get into this now) believe that they are married to one another, they are. No one can (fully) say differently. Of course, they can say differently, but there is nothing they can really do about it, aside from tell others that these people are not married (They do not think that they are)
The problem, then, is one of getting the state to recognize the marriage because that is the body that most others turn to as an authority on marriage. The only reasons that anyone other than the people involved should care if they are married is if they want to go against the terms of the marriage (monogomy typically), i.e. they want one of the married people to become their S.O., OR if they want to give some sort of benefit exclusively to "married" couples. If Alice and Bob both say "we're married" to an insurance carrier (say, to get coverage through their employee benefits) the insurance carrier needs to turn to some authority to determine if these are people for whom it is obligated to provide this coverage (not to see if they're lying, they can't be lying. They can only be missing a particular "signature"). The carrier is required by a higher authority (state or federal government, or perhaps it is part of the agreement with the employer) to provide coverage to couples to whom the government has "signed", or given its "stamp of approval" as being "married". Conveniently, the government has a directory (department of public records) where it is possible to determine whether a particular pair of people have its "signature".
So, all those people who are so worried about being "allowed" to get married...give it up. You don't need anyone's permission.
Last updated: 2003-11-29