Interesting.

Words change their meaning as we know and as it
happens dictionary entries are updated to reflect
the changes. The word "gay" has changed its meaning
in the course of the last 100 years. The meaning of
marriage also appears to be shifting. Dictionary
entries of course only tell you how a word is
currently used - not how it should be used. In
other words dictionaries are apolitical entities.
The people who compile them do not (cannot) allow
their feelings to influence the entries. And that is
as it should be.

Each society views its own patterns of marriage, as
self-evidently right and proper, and usually as
God-given as well. Much of the current concern
about the fate of modern marriage stems from this
kind of ethnocentrism. If we assume that there is
only one "right" marriage form, then naturally any
change will be interpreted as heralding the doom
of the whole institution.

It is important to recognise, therefore, that there is
an immense range in marriage patterns, that each of
these patterns may be, at least in its own context,
perfectly viable; and above all, that marriage, like
any other social institution, must inevitably change
through time, in our own society as in all others.

Perhaps at some point it will be no longer necessary
to clarify what kind of union is under discussion
and the various forms of mariage will simply be referred
to as "marriage." Only time will tell.

Now you're talking nutter, I had a great relationship with my boat, & she was more reliable & faithful than most women.

19 years we were together, longer than most relationships, homo or heterosexual. & you're right, I should have married her.

Dear Hasbeen,

What happened to her after 19 years?
Perhaps that's a clue as to whether she would
have stayed with you for a longer term.

lexi,
Disagree, words normally do not change their meaning, in fact the only two common usage words I can think of are 'gay' which was introduced by the homosexuals and the Americanism of 'guys', which apparently can now mean both sexes which is beyond me how that can be. I refuse to use both words.

But rain is still rain and oranges are still oranges. Someone is trying to get us to call lemons, 'oranges' and it will never be.

The word marriage has a definate meaning of a union between a male and a female. If same sex unions are to be defined then new words are required. Wordsmiths would be pleased to introduce new words, after all the computer era has seen the introduction of new words.

There is no need to hyjack a word with a definate meaning.

'Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation'.
Mark Twain

Written over 120 years ago. The interpretation of marriage as 'a combination of two or more things' (Cambridge Dictionaries Online) has been around a while.

The Oxford Dictionary also has 'a combination or mixture of elements', while dictionary.com uses 'any close or intimate association or union'.

Lexi, you're right, I was unfaithful. And worse than that, the other woman in my life kept cluttering up the countryside with kids. If only I had been able to discover the reason for that, I may have been able to stop it. Eventually we did not all fit, & moved to the land.

Be that as it may, my lovely lady hated sitting tied in a muddy creek. I let her go to a man who took her out again, to where the water is clean & blue.

My son who was 7, & had only a couple of thousand miles sailing, has never quite forgiven me, but sometimes our hand is forced.