Marriage

My friend Dawn, who's a similar vintage to my mother, popped in briefly the other day to confirm details for the ballet. (we sawBallet Revolucion - and it did not disappoint! When you have modern ballet to everyone from Prince to Shakira, it's all good!)

While she was here and we were chatting about the big issues, we got onto the subject of gay marriage. I was surprised when Dawn, normally very liberally minded, said she couldn't understand why gays wanted the right to be married. As a campaigner for gay marriage, I was floored. Although Dawn is considerably older than me, I always thought it was our shared values and view of the world that was the basis of our friendship. (And ballet of course!)

I expressed my shock.

Dawn went on to clarify. Not only did she not think gays should marry, she didn't think anyone should be married. She wasn't discriminating, merely expressing her disquiet about the entire institution.

Have the party, she said, just skip the rest. It's all too hard to get out of and the only winners are the lawyers.

Like many families, Dawn's requires a white board, coloured pens and an afternoon of diagrams to even begin to fathom who is and was, related to who. It's very complicated.

And anyway, said Dawn, marriage was only invented to control women and money and gain power.

She has a point.

Geoff and I have been watching Borgia's - the TV series loosely based on the 15th century papal family. And even Game of Thrones has similar themes - marriage is a way of forming political alliances and gaining access to fortunes - romance has nothing to do with it.

De Beers marketed the idea of the diamond engagement ring and perpetuated the 'etiquette' of spending three month's salary on said ring. If there had been advertising effectiveness awards back then, they would have bagged a few!

I was reminded only this weekend, when a friend of Sass's, aged 8, said you couldn't have children unless you were married, of my own unmarried state. And yes, I was compelled to point out that her friend Sass was evidence to the contrary. (I posted about another lecture I had from one of the kid's friends on marriage.)

So gay marriage. I think while heterosexual couples have the choice, homosexual couples should as well, so I'm not standing down from that issue. But I do wonder if in decades to come, marriage will become a quaint and irrelevant status. What do you think?

Of course I usually like to illustrate a post with a relevant photo - but of course, I have none in my personal collection for this topic!