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A morally abhorrent hypothetical is presented to which people have no connection.
Apart from Deva and Grant, so far, in terms very specifically of situations in which... oh, never mind.
Sax: Fair enough. It felt like emotive journalism, is all. Glad it wasn't so intended.
Lurid: Yes. I said that I talked to Anna de L about how practicality might be applied. Possibly you missed that bit. She helped to clean off some of the patina, is all. I did not say "too specific", I said "pretty specific". Now, stop trying to score points off *people*, stop indulging in misreadings in pursuit thereof, and deal with the issue. I realise the bar is set lower in the Conversation, but don't make me be sorry I missed you.
Nightclub: I think... I... may.... have... become... confused. What I was saying (badly) was that "this bus only lets white people on, but I really need to get to work" seems to me to be a rather more complex statement than assumed - there is an alternative to getting on the bus. There are bikes, and trains, and healthy walks and carpooling, and getting a new job. Which is not to say that the bus is a dead loss, only that it seems a bit weird to prioritise the needs of the bus to the excluson of all other methods of transport. Mind you, I'm not sure anybody *was* saying that marriage should be abolished. Did anyone say that? I didn't hear anyone say that... possibly I missed it.
Point being, I don't think anyone needs to do good works to offset being married, or indeed necessarily live on value beans - that might be self-flageoletion.
Sorry.
It's more with the thinking, and the consideration, and the thinking again. One comparison may be the church. For a long time, the Anglican church did not have female priests. Other churches still do not have female priests. At present, the Anglican church has some problems with gay bishops. Are these reasons to abjure it? For some people, maybe. For others, it may be a cause to ask what they can do, as members of that church, to change it for what they perceive as the better, just as, for example, Anglicans opposed to the ordination of women had the choice of departing, staying despite the fact that they had to have some idea that they were not going to get to change things back, or they could readjust. Personally, I have this tingly feeling that the institution of marriage needs to readjust, and everything else has to adjust around it.
Which is why, touching though Sax, Sekhmet and no doubt everybody else's tales of marriage are, because hearing people talk about loving relationships with people they adore is a surefire way to create the warm fuzzies, I don't see them as in themselves complete explanation. What I don't have is why the piece of paper from the government is a key element; that is, to modify:
Without that, would you be unable to tell the difference between the hug from your spouse and a hug and a statement of "you and me against the world" from a lover or long-term partner? Would it make the experience less satisfying? Why is that particular form of zeugma more zeugy than any other?
I still don't see the zeugmatism here. Sekhmet talked about two animals in separate harnesses as the alternative to being a married couple, but what about zeugma based in love, care, mutual respect, affection, trust... all things which, as far as I can tell, you can have without having your relationship recognised by the state, and again things which I have seen in relationships the members of whom either have not been or have not been allowed to be married.
I can understand the urge to do something huge and obvious to show the world you love your partner - although such is not really my style - but it feels like there's a cognitive gap that I'm experiencing and either others are not or they are finding another concern - perhaps not actually something about their relationship with their partner per se (Persephone's noise, Sekhmet's sociology) - that overcomes or bridges it.
That's the gap ... is it simply that it's something which you can look at and say "my partner has never married before (or has only married before n times), and there is a record that proves that, whereas any amount of bungee jumping or skydiving, or for that matter kissing and liking and protestations of love may have gone on before I turned up"? Is it a gold standard for commitment? |
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