Define "married"

Post #333,436 by drook 9/30/10 10:02:54 AM Reply	Define "married" Then define "gender". Or "race". Or "religion". Lots of people define those things as what they're not. Usually in the form, "I am, you're not." It's hard (probably impossible) to define them as what they are. (I'm sure there are more, these were just the first ones I came up with.) Point is, there are things the state should have a say in, and things they shouldn't. Who owes what in taxes? State issue. Who is allowed to have sex with which other consenting adults? Not a state issue. What is the legal age for voting? State issue. How many times a day do you bow toward Mecca? Not a state issue. Who gets to self-identify as male, female, trans-gendered, married, single, black, white, Asian, Catholic, Baptist ... What difference do any of those things make to the state? You shouldn't tax someone more or less because they're Catholic. You shouldn't grant or deny the right to be an insurance beneficiary because someone is male, female or "other". "Marriage" is a recognized ceremony in most major religions. If there's one where it isn't I'm not aware of it. That pre-dates any currently-extant law by quite a few centuries. WHICH religion should then get to define marriage? "Oh no, I want all three of my wives to be able to visit me in hospital. Oh, and to get the tax benefits of marriage, of course!" You seem to be missing a pretty key point here. By reserving the word "marriage" to strictly religious use, the state isn't allowed to base visitation or tax laws on who is or isn't married. That would make as much sense as basing visitation or tax laws on who self-identifies as Baptist. -- Drew
Post #333,511 by CRConrad 10/1/10 6:10:50 AM Reply	Married=Living in a civil union(religious blessing optional) You seem to be missing a pretty key point here. By reserving the word "marriage" to strictly religious use, the state isn't allowed to base visitation or tax laws on who is or isn't married. That would make as much sense as basing visitation or tax laws on who self-identifies as Baptist. Nope, I didn't actually miss that -- I just disagreed with it, though I expressed that badly. So let me try again: "Marriage" is a word. Societies run on words; laws are written with words. Language belongs to everybody; letting special interest groups usurp parts of it for their own private use and declaring these parts of language out of bounds for the law is absurd. (Heck, a state couldn't even put a portal paragraph of the form you're advocating, say, "No state or county shall regulate marriage blah blah blah" in its constitution, if it couldn't use the word "marriage"!) "Marriage" is a recognized ceremony in most major religions. If there's one where it isn't I'm not aware of it. That pre-dates any currently-extant law by quite a few centuries. Bullpucky. Any currently-extant law that touches on such basic things as kinship, family, ownership, and inheritance (not to even mention taxation and other more recent concepts) is more recent than organised religion only in terms of the specific statutes; any such law now in force has only replaced an earlier version, going back to, oh, I'd guess Hammurabi's clay tablets, at least. (Those tablets are only the oldest preserved laws.) See my reply to the BOx; "common-law marriage" predates at least Christianity among the English-speaking peoples. And from all I've read of ancient Norse, Celts, and Anglo-Saxons, marriage was very much a "civil union" to begin with: You took a wife, had a party to celebrate if you could afford it, and didn't necessarily involve any shamans, priests, or druids at all. So if anyone should have to rewrite their texts and make up a new word for anything, it should be the religious nutcases, not civil society. Basically, even if history weren't on my side (though it is), this comes down to something else: Who gets to decide what. Your idea, that civil society should have to abandon parts of language and let it be usurped by the religious nutcases in order to appease them, in effect amounts to putting religion above the law. That's bass-ackwards. -- Christian R. Conrad Same old username (as above), same old GMail.
Post #333,520 by drook 10/1/10 9:20:19 AM Reply	Dammit, you're making a good point And I don't have a snappy comeback. Lemme think about this some. -- Drew
Post #334,191 by Another Scott 10/13/10 1:33:24 PM Reply	Well said. Here's an interesting summary. History of Marriage in Western Civilization: http://www2.hu-berli...e_in_western.html The marriage laws and customs of ancient Rome are not easily summarized, because they were rather varied and underwent significant changes in the course of time. Still, without simplifying the issue too much, one may say that marriage and divorce were always personal, civil agreements between the participants and did not need the stamp of governmental or religious approval. Early in Roman history, a husband had considerable power over his wife and children, whom he could punish, sell, or even kill as he saw fit. However, eventually women came to enjoy a better legal position and gained more and more control over their lives and property. Thus, in imperial times husband and wife approached marriage as equals. Yet it seems that there was also a decline in marriage and birth rates, since the emperor Augustus found it necessary to pass drastic laws compelling people to marry and penalizing those who remained single. There were several forms of marriage, the first of which (by usus) involved no ceremony at all. It was established simply by the couple's living together for one year. Divorce was just as informal. A more formal kind of marriage (by coemptio) began with a ceremony in front of witnesses and was also dissolved with a ceremony. Members of the upper classes usually preferred an elaborate ceremony and thus married by confarreatio in front of ten witnesses and a priest. In the case of a divorce, another great ceremony was required. However, all three forms of marriage and divorce were equally valid. All marriages were monogamous. Both men and women usually entered their first marriage in their late teens. So, as you say, history is on your side. However, fighting against changes in language is very, very difficult. :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #334,216 by Ashton 10/13/10 7:41:02 PM Reply	Stuart Chase ceased revolving-in-grave upon this utterance ..but only for a trice (if his ephemeral 'state' is also attuned to the most modrin sources of idiot-bafflegab {--about bafflegab, even, at times. Is that recursion or just a macro-lens?} (BTW and anent the ineffable-Squishiness of all [referents] at the roots of any 'language', by-definition: it has also seemed to me to be the case that, those who digitally-dismiss any concept of the ineffable, as perhaps seeming too perilously close to trivial icons for sky-pixies -- may also have become inured to that Other aspect of human psych [dunno who said it first; assuredly it predates Snopes's grandfather]) ~Language was invented that men may disguise their thoughts from other men. So while your analyses in this thread are admirable / aka I agree with your conclusions ;^> they are indeterminant at core issues, say ~~ "what relationship does 'truthiness', in a verbal explication on a topic, bear to -- that perpetual (if foolish) search for Truth?" About any. thing. ? We may have met both the Uncertainty and the Pauli Exclusion Principles of staid old physics: and they are Us. (And if there is some soupçon of Chase's DNA within some spectre.. still.. out there assimilating the mouth-noises of various homo-saps, after all these years? I do wonder what a now-even-Smarter Chase-wraith would make of the puerile disintegration of any general Respect for Language in 2010, here in his old stomping grounds.) Oh well -- we couldn't 'ask It', in any event. Carrion, O Snip of State

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