The Sanctity of Marriage
The American public has just gone through a remarkably swift social upheaval regarding the legal definition of marriage. It is not easy to comprehend why, on a topic so emotional and well-ingrained, there has been such rapid reversal on the issue of whether gays can marry and be a legitimate presence in the social and workplace environment of our society. Many, with genuine seriousness, insisted that the sanctity of marriage was at stake. What, it begs the question, does the sanctity of marriage really mean?
Anything written on this topic is guaranteed to stir up varied emotions and opinions, but that is never a good reason to avoid a topic. Nothing which follows will be accepted in it’s entirety by hardly anyone. The whole issue is rather personal. Even though I have never been married, this hardly leaves me any more objective about the topic than anyone else. When someone claims to be an expert on marriage because they are married, at most this makes them an expert on their own marriage. Since half of marriages fail, it seems there is a dearth of experts. Intimate relations of any sort between two individuals are experiences beyond any precise and rational interpretation. I, like others, have tried to use logic and reason to understand intimate relationships, but in the end I sort of conclude, for lack of any success, that sex and sometimes love just prove God has a sense of humor. After many decades of observation I still have no more idea which two people will have a lasting marriage. And neither do at least 50% of those who marry since at some point they divorce. The figure is really much higher than that since many marriages which last become relationships of convenience as much as anything else. I have seen endless married couples in a restaurant go through an entire meal and not say a word to each other. Why are they even eating out together? Sometimes one or both get on their cell phones and have conversation throughout their dinner, but not with each other.
It need be stated at the onset here that my own personal sense of the matter is that there is nothing better than a good marriage, nothing worse than a bitter divorce, and every other kind of relationship falls in between. Stats indicate married people are happier than non married, but these stats are suspect in that many people, for many reasons (mental, physical, and personality-wise) are not a good fit for marriage or to live the longest or be the happiest under any circumstances. So these stats carry a lot of baggage that is not related to marriage itself. It is probably also true that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. One of the most astute statements about love was made by James Baldwin: “Everybody’s journey is individual. You don’t know with whom you’re going to fall in love…If you fall in love with the wrong color, wrong religion, wrong sex—you fall in love”. And that pretty much sums it up.
Well, maybe it should, but for many it doesn’t. And it doesn’t help to get a tad silly about it either. When a preacher says at a marriage ceremony “Let no man put asunder what God has put together”, this is a strange thing to say since half the marriages don’t last. God probably could do much better were there any truth to the statement. And we need do away with the illusionary concept that each person seeks out the one true love and marries that person. More realistically, most people do not marry the person they would most like to marry simply because they are bit down the ladder of desirability for marriage. We learn quickly in high school that, for most of us, there is little sense asking to the prom, the prom King or Queen. Most of us have to drop our sights quite a bit lower, and end up asking someone who might possibly be able to be attracted to us, at least for the evening. With all the media beautiful bodies beamed at us, and even pornography, most of us are not going to measure up. How many couples do any of us know whose sex life would sell well in the sex video market? And sadly, how many of us ourselves would sell well in the sex video market? And if sex is such a serious and sanctified act why is it probably the favorite topic for humor? Things are only funny if they are a bit absurd. And human sexual behaviors are certainly more funny than they are wrapped in sanctity. Just look at the struggle most couples have trying to adjust their own inclinations regarding sex with their partner. In that process the humor gets lost for the couple involved.
If sexual liaisons come easy to an attractive person the person either tends to become bored with it all, or addicted to it—with the usual trait of an addiction that enough is never enough. Nothing so far in this musing helps at all with understanding the sanctity of marriage. Is the meaning found in what was once the sanctity of slavery——your slave is your property and no one else has any business interfering with your property? I don’t think this is what is meant by sanctity of marriage. We have already dismissed marriage as being sanctified by God.
Most people would agree that a strong loving relationship between two people is a good thing, and if we don’t have such a relationship we are envious because all of us want a good thing. It seems the difference of opinion here is whether it is only a good thing IF this loving relationship is between a male and female. What about a loving relationship with a pet? That doesn’t seem to come with the same qualification. It seems we have the same problem here as we have with pornography, where one Supreme Court Justice remarked: “I can’t define pornography but I know it when I see it”. Unfortunately, we all see things through different eyes. Therein lies the crux of the matter. We also need be reminded of the famous saying, “I don’t really care what they do for sex as long as they don’t do it in the streets and scare the horses”. Perhaps those who feel same sex marriages are sinful mean it this way “I don’t care what they do for sex as long as they don’t do it under the umbrella of marriage.” But this just leads to another conundrum. What sex acts are appropriate to protect the sanctity of marriage? If it is the sex acts that confer sanctity, then that must mean the only sex acts permissible are those which lead to pregnancy. That works I guess except what about those heterosexual couples who engage in all sorts of sexual acts that have nothing to do with getting pregnant? And if pregnancy is the whole purpose of marriage why don’t heterosexual couples who are non fertile have their marriage annulled by the state? What the hell are they doing in bed that fulfills such a definition or purpose of marriage? They certainly aren’t procreating.
We could go on endlessly here and others have, but we have gone far enough here to see the wisdom of “live and let live” regarding sex and marriage. If a couple, heterosexual or same-sex, have a foot fetish, what harm is that to anyone else? In forced sex there is a victim. With consensual sex between adults there is no victim. When groups chant “Make love not war” the assumption here is that love is a good thing. They don’t chant “Make heterosexual love, not war”.
What about the statement “I don’t care what gay people do in private as long as they keep this behavior out of sight.” I was under the impression most sexual acts are to be kept out of sight for the valid reason that almost every sexual act is offensive to some. And past a certain age, most couples having sex are not a sight to feast anyone’s eyes on. By 50 it has been said, “everyone has the face (and body) they deserve”.
When it comes to love and sex perhaps the word sanctity has no application. And when it comes to relationships, whether they be one of friendship, love, or workplace interaction, the relationships are all different simply because each of the participants in a relationship is unique. We all have genetic factors, environmental factors and something called good fortune which molds our personality. Each relationship is unique, which is amazing in itself, and it hardly behooves any of us to even think there are any rules set in stone upon which a relationship is to be based. No victims, no crime. Each relationship is about the two involved in the relationship, and has little, if any bearing, to anybody’s else’s perception of what their relationship is, or should be. In addition to all this, just to make this whole topic more convoluted, all of us change over time and this impacts greatly on any relationships we have. This makes it difficult, at any point in time, to predict how long a relationship will survive or the nature of any survival. When it comes to relationships, including any marriage, Baldwin is right that “Everybody’s journey is individual”.
Because of all this, the nature of marriage is changing, much to the chagrin of the ‘purists’ who would label the last paragraph a ‘bunch of crap’. They operate in a faith based mode, where what works for them becomes the ‘holy grail’ for what must be the way it works for others. These kind of faith based modes make life difficult for them all their life, what with being surrounded by so much diversity and heathens. People who fall in love, if I can use the term loosely, sometimes don’t even engage marriage as the basis of their love for various reasons. It used to be fiancé and spouse sufficed to address one member of a couple. Not any more. I recently asked a gal something about her fiancé and was told, “he’s not my fiancé, he’s my boyfriend.” Okay, it is really getting complicated. Maybe they are the honest ones, who realize that change, one of the constants in life, may alter the relationship down the road and they don’t want to get entangled in a bitter legal battle over who get’s what. This is not to say this ensures any smooth breakup. After all, there may be kids involved, pets, common property, etc. Given all the complexities and uncertainties of any relationship the term sanctity seems hardly applicable at all, and when used, seems to have little real meaning. The absence of any ‘sanctity hardly removes any genuine-ness or altered feelings for those in love. When asked how a marriage of two gay people impacts on their own heterosexual marriage, the ‘purists’ inevitably stumble through a lot of mumbo jumbo which is incomprehensible, albeit sincere. Their reasoning is clearly based on emotions and faith based beliefs, both of which really do make the whole topic painful, frustrating, and unnerving to them, much like a child finding out there really is no Santa Claus.
