danieldwilliam | On Marriage - Specifically and Generally

My sister has revised her wedding plans and I have been made redundant as Master of Ceremonies.

On the grounds that the wedding is quite small (circa 40 people) she’s decided that she doesn’t need a set of ushers and an MC to keep everyone sticking to a time table.

I am less convinced. I suspect that informally people are going to have to be sent to find people so that they can either be in a photograph or eat dinner. Badged as ushering or not this job still exists. Someone still needs to keep a handle on who should be where and organise the ushers.

Perhaps the events staff at the venue will run this element of the celebration. I fear it may un-devolve on to the bride and groom. I guess we’ll find out.

I’m not disappointed. I confess to not looking forward to the job particularly. Rather, the job was fine but I had other hopes for the day. I’d hoped to spend the day supporting my daughter who is being a bridesmaid and wrangling the Captain who is being an insane two year old. Also, catching a few good whiskies with one of my brothers. So a day spent telling Bluebird her hair looks lovely whilst feeding the Captain crisps sounds more fun for me than helping to herd 40 people, half I don’t know and half I’m related to.

I’ve been asked to do a reading and that satisfies any desire on my part to be marked out as paterfamilias in waiting.

For there is also something about the symbolism of roles at weddings that speaks to status and relationships in families.

Firstly, most obviously, who you have taking on the set pieces in your wedding says something public about the closeness of those relationships. Your best man is likely to be the male friend of the groom whom he most trusts; the man he would look for on the battlefield if things went awry, either to offer or to accept a rescue. If all it was only about having a humorous / ribald / embarrassing / really dreadful speech there are people you can hire for that. Get Stephen Fry or Frankie Boyle to do you a podcast.

Secondly, I consider marriage to have some symbolic role in joining together two families into one. Your mileage may vary on this and that’s okay. It’s not my job to tell people what marriage means to them (probably) but for me, and I suspect for other people too, marriage isn’t just about marking and making official a long-term relationship between two people. It’s about blurring the lines between two existing families so that they become one.

So my wedding party consisted of two best men, my oldest brother as senior morale support and my oldest and dearest friend for likewise and for the speech. My ushers included both of MLW’s nephews, now my nephews and were lead by my middle brother. When I’ve been involved in weddings in an official capacity it’s been for old school friends or my flatmate at Uni.

MLW included in her bridal party my daughter, now her step-daughter. The father of the bride role left vacant by the death of MLW’s father was filled by her older brother.

So the process of marking out important relationships and familial roles is made public and explicit by roles in such celebrations as weddings and funerals.

It may well be that the symbolism my sister wants to lay out is – hey, I’m much more relaxed about these things than average; I don’t want or need to mark out an in-group and an inner group.

So be it.

On a political note; perhaps there is a conversation to be had about marriage in our society. There may be useful questions to ask ourselves about what marriage means. Is there a role for a formally recognised family or are we just a collection of individuals contracting with the state? Is there something particular about the institution of marriage that supports our society, our polity, our civilisation that means we need to agree about what it is? Is marriage a contractual short-hand for changing property rights between people in limited ways in limited circumstances or does entering the institution change us and our relationships with each other, the commonweal and the state. Is marriage even the business of the state?

For me those are more interesting questions than whether we should extend the right (or the obligation) to be married to some people based on their sexuality. Particularly when we don’t appear to be able to agree on what marriage is for those people who are already eligible.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Considering the multiple Polygamous people I know, I strongly suspect you're right.

I find it difficult (at first glance) to see how extending marriage to polygamous groups doesn’t change the nature of marriage beyond what I think most people understand it to be. This may or may not be a good thing. It may or may not matter at all. There seems to me to be significant difference between “2 people” and “more than 2 people”.

I wonder if the extension of marriage to polygamous people is the first change to marriage that affects how I experience my own marriage. Currently one of the uses of marriage is a signal of monogamy. It’s an imperfect signal to be sure. Don’t try and form a sexual relationship with me, I am married and not ever available for a sexual relationship with you.

That holds true for marriage whether it is restricted to persons of the same colour or of different genders (or sexes).

If polygamy were introduced it changes the nature of my marriage from a public binding declaration of a monogamy to not that. It changes the scope of acceptable behaviours involving married people and therefore changes the way people can legitimately interact with me.

Which again, may or may not be important and may or may not be more important than the benefits to those who wish to practise polygamy but it’s a change that affects me in a way that removing a colour bar or a sexuality bar doesn’t.

Considering the amount of open infidelity around the place, I don't have the same feelings :->

When we have the proper discussion of what marriage is there for, we can thrash this one out properly - about whether saying "I'm married" is about making sure that you can inherit and get power of attorney, or whether it's about protecting the kids, or something else.

Society is having to deal with this kind of thing anyway, due to the number of people who just don't get married, so having a proper conversation about it seems like a good idea.

The prevalence of infidelity and consensual polyamory within marriage might render my point moot but I certainly remember the last time someone made a pass at me thinking “What the fuck, lady? I’m married!”

I’m looking forward to the conversation on marriage in the 21st Century. I think it is (the concept and the conversation) is an important pivot around which our society turns.

It may well, of course, just fade away. I found some stats:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/feb/11/marriage-rates-uk-data

and it looks like the rates of marriage have more than halved in the last 25 years.

With children born out of wedlock up to nearly half, I suspect we're going to hit some kind of tipping point in the next generation:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9090627/BBC-asks-children-to-organise-their-parents-weddings.html

The question is, what replaces it, if anything? Are people not getting married because they can't see the advantages? And if so, is there something legal that should be made easily available with clear plus points?

On Marriage - Specifically and Generally

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