I believe a traditional marriage has been between a man and a woman, but that times change.
I believe that pigs can fly.
I flew from the UK to Belize with CrabAir. Sitting behind me were two pigs who farted nonstop, to include a stop in Washington. We couldn’t even smoke because the plan was carrying hazards cargo. Yep, pigs can indeed fly!
I couldn’t get your link to work either Zen, but this one might!
I agree – I have no problem with a civil partnership between two people of the same gender – but I’m a little tired of having the meanings of fundamental words changed to mean something they do not. Find another word please.
I’m sure George Dubya was only reflecting his personal discovery that all the married people he knew were of mixed gender. Surley you don’t think he was referring to any other social phenomenon? 🙂
Sorry for any confusion – no link intended!
Wot Boadicea said!
Like Boadicea, I object to the use of the word marriage in a legal context. They of course can call it what they want but the law should differentiate between an institution that has evolved to ensure the propagation of our species and one that exists to indulge the hedonistic fantasies of selfish individuals. What I do not understand is why anybody could make a case for two gays getting married, but deny it to two other people who have committed to live together in the same house, but do not share their bed such as a mother and daughter, a brother and sister, an uncle and nephew, or just two good friends. The only real difference between two gays living together and two siblings, say, is that the gays shag each other.
I am not sure what benefits accrue to married people these days in America, but I assume there are some tax advantages. Why should two gays living together receive any tax advantages over anybody? What benefit does their living together bring to society? The fact that they share a home, automatically means that their living costs are reduced compared to those of a single person. If a case is made for them to receive benefits then it should apply to platonic households as well. But why should single people have to carry the extra tax burden for couples? That is a grossly unjust situation. They already have to pay to run their entire household on one income without any support of any form, financial, practical or emotional. It is not as if single people always live alone by choice.
The only legal advantage that I could endorse would be to certain obligations and rights with regards to domestic arrangements. For example, the transfer of home ownership upon death should take place without death duties. If a couple have made a commitment to live together, then should the relationship end, there must be an equitable financial settlement. But these must apply to sexual and platonic relationships alike.
Marriage should be a sacred union between a man and a woman and it should be their intention to raise and/or support a family. If no children are going to be involved, such as in a union between two people over 50 whose children have left home, then the relationship should be downgraded to a second class civil partnership.
I don’t agree with same sex marriage and truly see it as a sin but ..
Our democracies state that people may do as they wish provided they don’t interfere with the rights of others so … I shut up, put up with it and give them their rights …
They can do as they wish!
BTW – In the Bible … when God presents Eve to Adam .. it is Adam who takes Eve as his “Wife”
“So God cast a deep sleep upon the man and took one of his ribs and fashioned it into a woman and brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:21–22) The man declared her bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and called her woman. (Genesis 2:23) Thus a man leaves his parents and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh. ”
God never married them …Adam only had to “declare” her ….. that particular union (marriage) as expressed by a priest or bishop is a made up construct. 🙂
That’s in my religion, anyway … which as you all know is perfect …. . 🙂
I believe everything G. W. Bush ever said, especially the part about WMD’s.
Slow down Sipu!
If no children are going to be involved, such as in a union between two people over 50 whose children have left home, then the relationship should be downgraded to a second class civil partnership.
So people who cannot have children should only have a ‘second class’ civil partnership? When does the ‘down-grade’ kick in? At 50?
By your reckoning, couples who reach the age of fifty, or those who no longer have children at home should have their long-standing ‘marriage’ downgraded the minute the last child leaves home…
No, Boadicea I am not saying that. I am saying that the purpose of marriage and the reason that society holds it, or used to hold it in high regard is that it is supposed to be the means by which children are born and raised, children who are the future of our society. If one removes the child bearing aspect of it, marriage becomes a purely selfish act between two people that serves no benefit to society. While there is nothing wrong with that, it does not deserve any special privileges or any particular degree of respect. Why should two people who live together deserve any benefits or earn greater respect than a single person or even those in a polygamous relationship? If a couple gets married and raises their children who eventually leave home, that is fine and they deserve the benefits that marriage offers for the contribution they have made. If however, after their children leave home and they get divorced and remarried without any prospect of further children, I do not see that they are making any contribution to society and thus that new marriage does not deserve the same status as their earlier marriages. To my mind they are no different to a homosexual couple who choose to live together. There is nothing wrong with that and it is nice to know that they believe that they will be true to each other until death, but they are just two people who have chosen to live together.
As for those who cannot have children, say for medical reasons, but would otherwise have wished to have them, I do not think that they should be denied the privileges. Their failure to have children is a misfortune rather than deliberate. But when there is no intention to have children, marriage has a different meaning. Women who have left it too late to get married, as increasingly the case, and I am sure you will agree that it is the age of the woman that is usually the issue, fall into the role of entering a civil partnership.
Marriage is about raising children. Divorce should be made very difficult while children are still living at home. I am not saying it should be impossible, but there must be very good reasons. Once Children are independent, divorce is much less of an issue.
Practically speaking I do not believe for one second that such a two tier system could, or even should be implemented, but I would say that morally and logically speaking there is no difference between a post menopausal couple who get ‘married’ and two gays who get ‘married’. Marriage is the wrong term for both.
Hmmm Sipu, sounds like the thought police would have to be involved if you were king….not a pleasant idea.
Donald, “That’s in my religion, anyway … which as you all know is perfect ….” It’s odd that so many men of the cloth seem to have opted for alternative kinds of partnership, given that they share your creed? 🙂
Sipu, ” Marriage is the wrong term for both.” If only the world were as easy to define as you believe!
Cuprum, I do not really care what people get up to except when it costs me. I am merely trying to point out the double standards that exist when it comes to marriage, together with its definition and benefits.
Rather than make such comments, why not give your thoughts on the following potential scenarios and let us know what you think of their various merits and how society and the law should treat them, especially with regards to the various tax breaks and benefits they receive as well as the level of respect due to them?
A sexual union between a young man and a young woman who plan on having children.
A platonic union between two people who merely live together for companionship and convenience
A sexual union between a man and woman who are not able or do not want to have children
A sexual union between two people of the same sex who do not plan to have children
A sexual union between two people of the same sex who do plan to have children (adoption or sperm/egg donor)
A single individual who lives alone.
Janus, the term marriage has become less easy to define since divorce became so prevalent and since homosexuality became ‘de rigeur’. Marriage in its original context, is very easily defined.
Maybe you could explain why the institution of marriage should be held in any regard at all, especially as now the term has become so cheapened.
Sipu, erm…. having children is these days more often than not an economic burden for the state rather than a benefit – please see the UK’s benefits bill!
My point is that how can one qualify or quantify peoples’ intentions? Hence the thought police comment.
I won’t comment further as I think we’re getting a little off point here!
Load of bloody nonsense.
Marriage is marriage.
Queers are unnatural and sod all to do with marriage.
Humbug!
Load of bloody nonsense.
Marriage is marriage.
Queers are unnatural and sod all to do with marriage.
Humbug!
Yes, but what is natural? I know you do not believe in the supernatural, but do you believe in the subnatural? (It would appear that Google Chrome thinks that I have just coined a term.)
If it occurs in nature, it is natural. And sodomy, like fellatio, cunnilingus and pederasty, all exist in nature, not to mention masturbation. (Cue the chorus from Hair) and so are all natural. So is bestiality for that matter. It is only when you start thinking about spirituality that you run into conflicts of right and wrong. And we all know that spirituality belongs in the realms of the fairies. Sometimes you chaps really make me scratch my head.
Cuprum, I am not impressed by you or your excuses.
Surely you are not suggesting that Tinkerbell is bestial?
Cuprum, I am not impressed by you or your excuses.
Que? That’s school playground fighting talk from where I come from!
Zen, you raise an interesting question. I will have to think about it.
Sipu
Divorce should be made very difficult while children are still living at home.
It is quite clear from that statement that you have never been a child living in the hell of a home where the parents hated and loathed each other and were unable to divorce because divorce was not as easy as it is now.
No one has the right to insist that parents remain together ‘for the sake of the children’.- it doesn’t do the children any favours whatsoever.
Boadicea, you are cherry picking my comments.
“Divorce should be made very difficult while children are still living at home. I am not saying it should be impossible, but there must be very good reasons. ”
If the children are clearly going to suffer, then that may well qualify as a good reason.(But let’s be clear, we are talking about the children suffering, not the parents who may wish to believe that they are.) But where one of the parents merely decides that he or she would rather be with somebody else, as is so often the case, then it is not. Even if separation is justified, divorce is not necessarily so. Again, the reason to remarry while the children are dependent should be a good one. Children offer suffer when living with a step-parent.
The purpose would be to make people think twice about the person they choose to marry and that they do so for the right reasons. So many people go into it thinking to themselves that if it does not work out they can divorce which, in the case of women,often leaves them set up for life.
Too many children live in broken homes and they grow up to be selfish and dysfunctional.
I am still looking for somebody to respond to my 17.
Sipu, “I am still looking for somebody to respond to my 17”.
Aren’t we all!? 😉
I think the institution of marriage has much to commend it, whether the couple intends to have children or not. Then two people have made a commitment to each other, in front of witnesses, family, friends. They have usually lived together for some time before making this commitment and therefore should have some reason for believing they can continue to live together amicably. I think this is the difference between the marriage of Charles and Diana and the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. If two homosexuals want to get dressed up in posh frocks and have a party to celebrate their union, fine – just don’t call it a marriage.
It has been shown that a woman who lives with a series of partners, producing children by assorted fathers, puts her children at greater risk of abuse from various “stepfathers”. So any system that discourages women from producing children out of wedlock would be beneficial. I’m in favour of marriage, Sipu. Divorce is a separate and difficult matter. We celebrate our 41st wedding anniversary at the end of this month. If any Charioteer is around Bratislava, join us for a barbecue.
I too respect the institution of marriage, Sheona. Your observations of assorted royal weddings is interesting. I wonder what you make of Charles and Camilla’s marriage.
Hmm, Bratislava on the 30th, you never know. I am going to be in the UK for my niece’s wedding on the 23rd. Slovakia is just a puddle jump away. It is more likely that I will go to Scotland instead, though, so you can relax. Congratulations are in order, in any event.
Thank you for your congratulations, Sipu. I think you are wise to go to Scotland instead of Slovakia. This will be our third visit to house and cat-sit for a friend, but I think the last.
It is of course sad that Charles and Camilla did not marry many years ago, when they first met. Diana was not very intelligent and totally unable to cope with royal protocol. This led to her mental problems, throwing herself downstairs and such, which in turn drove Charles back to the comfort of Camilla. Now we have two people who are set in their ways, for whom cohabiting is more of a problem. Since it seems they can appear together in public and be pleasant to each other, unlike the childish Diana, I hope the marriage will last.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I can’t make the link work Zen.
I believe a traditional marriage has been between a man and a woman, but that times change.
I believe that pigs can fly.
I flew from the UK to Belize with CrabAir. Sitting behind me were two pigs who farted nonstop, to include a stop in Washington. We couldn’t even smoke because the plan was carrying hazards cargo. Yep, pigs can indeed fly!
I couldn’t get your link to work either Zen, but this one might!
I agree – I have no problem with a civil partnership between two people of the same gender – but I’m a little tired of having the meanings of fundamental words changed to mean something they do not. Find another word please.
I’m sure George Dubya was only reflecting his personal discovery that all the married people he knew were of mixed gender. Surley you don’t think he was referring to any other social phenomenon? 🙂
Sorry for any confusion – no link intended!
Wot Boadicea said!
Like Boadicea, I object to the use of the word marriage in a legal context. They of course can call it what they want but the law should differentiate between an institution that has evolved to ensure the propagation of our species and one that exists to indulge the hedonistic fantasies of selfish individuals. What I do not understand is why anybody could make a case for two gays getting married, but deny it to two other people who have committed to live together in the same house, but do not share their bed such as a mother and daughter, a brother and sister, an uncle and nephew, or just two good friends. The only real difference between two gays living together and two siblings, say, is that the gays shag each other.
I am not sure what benefits accrue to married people these days in America, but I assume there are some tax advantages. Why should two gays living together receive any tax advantages over anybody? What benefit does their living together bring to society? The fact that they share a home, automatically means that their living costs are reduced compared to those of a single person. If a case is made for them to receive benefits then it should apply to platonic households as well. But why should single people have to carry the extra tax burden for couples? That is a grossly unjust situation. They already have to pay to run their entire household on one income without any support of any form, financial, practical or emotional. It is not as if single people always live alone by choice.
The only legal advantage that I could endorse would be to certain obligations and rights with regards to domestic arrangements. For example, the transfer of home ownership upon death should take place without death duties. If a couple have made a commitment to live together, then should the relationship end, there must be an equitable financial settlement. But these must apply to sexual and platonic relationships alike.
Marriage should be a sacred union between a man and a woman and it should be their intention to raise and/or support a family. If no children are going to be involved, such as in a union between two people over 50 whose children have left home, then the relationship should be downgraded to a second class civil partnership.
I have spoken!
Here’s another link
http://articles.cnn.com/2003-07-30/politics/bush.gay.marriage_1_gay-marriages-marriage-rights-limit-marriage?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS
I don’t agree with same sex marriage and truly see it as a sin but ..
Our democracies state that people may do as they wish provided they don’t interfere with the rights of others so … I shut up, put up with it and give them their rights …
They can do as they wish!
BTW – In the Bible … when God presents Eve to Adam .. it is Adam who takes Eve as his “Wife”
“So God cast a deep sleep upon the man and took one of his ribs and fashioned it into a woman and brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:21–22) The man declared her bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and called her woman. (Genesis 2:23) Thus a man leaves his parents and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh. ”
God never married them …Adam only had to “declare” her ….. that particular union (marriage) as expressed by a priest or bishop is a made up construct. 🙂
That’s in my religion, anyway … which as you all know is perfect …. . 🙂
I believe everything G. W. Bush ever said, especially the part about WMD’s.
Slow down Sipu!
So people who cannot have children should only have a ‘second class’ civil partnership? When does the ‘down-grade’ kick in? At 50?
By your reckoning, couples who reach the age of fifty, or those who no longer have children at home should have their long-standing ‘marriage’ downgraded the minute the last child leaves home…
No, Boadicea I am not saying that. I am saying that the purpose of marriage and the reason that society holds it, or used to hold it in high regard is that it is supposed to be the means by which children are born and raised, children who are the future of our society. If one removes the child bearing aspect of it, marriage becomes a purely selfish act between two people that serves no benefit to society. While there is nothing wrong with that, it does not deserve any special privileges or any particular degree of respect. Why should two people who live together deserve any benefits or earn greater respect than a single person or even those in a polygamous relationship? If a couple gets married and raises their children who eventually leave home, that is fine and they deserve the benefits that marriage offers for the contribution they have made. If however, after their children leave home and they get divorced and remarried without any prospect of further children, I do not see that they are making any contribution to society and thus that new marriage does not deserve the same status as their earlier marriages. To my mind they are no different to a homosexual couple who choose to live together. There is nothing wrong with that and it is nice to know that they believe that they will be true to each other until death, but they are just two people who have chosen to live together.
As for those who cannot have children, say for medical reasons, but would otherwise have wished to have them, I do not think that they should be denied the privileges. Their failure to have children is a misfortune rather than deliberate. But when there is no intention to have children, marriage has a different meaning. Women who have left it too late to get married, as increasingly the case, and I am sure you will agree that it is the age of the woman that is usually the issue, fall into the role of entering a civil partnership.
Marriage is about raising children. Divorce should be made very difficult while children are still living at home. I am not saying it should be impossible, but there must be very good reasons. Once Children are independent, divorce is much less of an issue.
Practically speaking I do not believe for one second that such a two tier system could, or even should be implemented, but I would say that morally and logically speaking there is no difference between a post menopausal couple who get ‘married’ and two gays who get ‘married’. Marriage is the wrong term for both.
Hmmm Sipu, sounds like the thought police would have to be involved if you were king….not a pleasant idea.
Donald, “That’s in my religion, anyway … which as you all know is perfect ….” It’s odd that so many men of the cloth seem to have opted for alternative kinds of partnership, given that they share your creed? 🙂
Sipu, ” Marriage is the wrong term for both.” If only the world were as easy to define as you believe!
Cuprum, I do not really care what people get up to except when it costs me. I am merely trying to point out the double standards that exist when it comes to marriage, together with its definition and benefits.
Rather than make such comments, why not give your thoughts on the following potential scenarios and let us know what you think of their various merits and how society and the law should treat them, especially with regards to the various tax breaks and benefits they receive as well as the level of respect due to them?
A sexual union between a young man and a young woman who plan on having children.
A platonic union between two people who merely live together for companionship and convenience
A sexual union between a man and woman who are not able or do not want to have children
A sexual union between two people of the same sex who do not plan to have children
A sexual union between two people of the same sex who do plan to have children (adoption or sperm/egg donor)
A single individual who lives alone.
Janus, the term marriage has become less easy to define since divorce became so prevalent and since homosexuality became ‘de rigeur’. Marriage in its original context, is very easily defined.
Maybe you could explain why the institution of marriage should be held in any regard at all, especially as now the term has become so cheapened.
Sipu, erm…. having children is these days more often than not an economic burden for the state rather than a benefit – please see the UK’s benefits bill!
My point is that how can one qualify or quantify peoples’ intentions? Hence the thought police comment.
I won’t comment further as I think we’re getting a little off point here!
Load of bloody nonsense.
Marriage is marriage.
Queers are unnatural and sod all to do with marriage.
Humbug!
Yes, but what is natural? I know you do not believe in the supernatural, but do you believe in the subnatural? (It would appear that Google Chrome thinks that I have just coined a term.)
If it occurs in nature, it is natural. And sodomy, like fellatio, cunnilingus and pederasty, all exist in nature, not to mention masturbation. (Cue the chorus from Hair) and so are all natural. So is bestiality for that matter. It is only when you start thinking about spirituality that you run into conflicts of right and wrong. And we all know that spirituality belongs in the realms of the fairies. Sometimes you chaps really make me scratch my head.
Cuprum, I am not impressed by you or your excuses.
Surely you are not suggesting that Tinkerbell is bestial?
Que? That’s school playground fighting talk from where I come from!
Zen, you raise an interesting question. I will have to think about it.
Sipu
It is quite clear from that statement that you have never been a child living in the hell of a home where the parents hated and loathed each other and were unable to divorce because divorce was not as easy as it is now.
No one has the right to insist that parents remain together ‘for the sake of the children’.- it doesn’t do the children any favours whatsoever.
Boadicea, you are cherry picking my comments.
“Divorce should be made very difficult while children are still living at home. I am not saying it should be impossible, but there must be very good reasons. ”
If the children are clearly going to suffer, then that may well qualify as a good reason.(But let’s be clear, we are talking about the children suffering, not the parents who may wish to believe that they are.) But where one of the parents merely decides that he or she would rather be with somebody else, as is so often the case, then it is not. Even if separation is justified, divorce is not necessarily so. Again, the reason to remarry while the children are dependent should be a good one. Children offer suffer when living with a step-parent.
The purpose would be to make people think twice about the person they choose to marry and that they do so for the right reasons. So many people go into it thinking to themselves that if it does not work out they can divorce which, in the case of women,often leaves them set up for life.
Too many children live in broken homes and they grow up to be selfish and dysfunctional.
I am still looking for somebody to respond to my 17.
Sipu, “I am still looking for somebody to respond to my 17”.
Aren’t we all!? 😉
I think the institution of marriage has much to commend it, whether the couple intends to have children or not. Then two people have made a commitment to each other, in front of witnesses, family, friends. They have usually lived together for some time before making this commitment and therefore should have some reason for believing they can continue to live together amicably. I think this is the difference between the marriage of Charles and Diana and the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. If two homosexuals want to get dressed up in posh frocks and have a party to celebrate their union, fine – just don’t call it a marriage.
It has been shown that a woman who lives with a series of partners, producing children by assorted fathers, puts her children at greater risk of abuse from various “stepfathers”. So any system that discourages women from producing children out of wedlock would be beneficial. I’m in favour of marriage, Sipu. Divorce is a separate and difficult matter. We celebrate our 41st wedding anniversary at the end of this month. If any Charioteer is around Bratislava, join us for a barbecue.
I too respect the institution of marriage, Sheona. Your observations of assorted royal weddings is interesting. I wonder what you make of Charles and Camilla’s marriage.
Hmm, Bratislava on the 30th, you never know. I am going to be in the UK for my niece’s wedding on the 23rd. Slovakia is just a puddle jump away. It is more likely that I will go to Scotland instead, though, so you can relax. Congratulations are in order, in any event.
Thank you for your congratulations, Sipu. I think you are wise to go to Scotland instead of Slovakia. This will be our third visit to house and cat-sit for a friend, but I think the last.
It is of course sad that Charles and Camilla did not marry many years ago, when they first met. Diana was not very intelligent and totally unable to cope with royal protocol. This led to her mental problems, throwing herself downstairs and such, which in turn drove Charles back to the comfort of Camilla. Now we have two people who are set in their ways, for whom cohabiting is more of a problem. Since it seems they can appear together in public and be pleasant to each other, unlike the childish Diana, I hope the marriage will last.