Dear rehctub,

The word "marriage," is not taken. Contrary to what you
and others may believe. It is important to recognise that
there is an immense range in marriage, family, and kinship
patterns, and that each of these patterns may be, at least
in their own context, perfectly viable and above all, that
the marriage and family, like any other social institution,
must inevitably change through time,
in our own society, as in all
others.

You probably view the traditional - pattern of marriage
as self-evidently right and proper
and God-given as well. Much of the
current concern about the fate of modern marriage stems
from this kind of ethnocentrism. If one assumes that there is
only one "right" marriage form, then naturally any change will
be interpreted as heralding the doom of the whole institution.

REHCTUB, sorry mate but marriage = "Close union or relationship" or "State of being married"
Meaning marriage belongs to all, and not just one sector of society.

When people recognize me as the mother of my children....

Why not change the meaning of mother? It would hurt nobody to have more mothers in the world. The symbolism would make all the difference to me. Why do those women think they own the word mother?

Not all women can give birth to children, so it makes no difference if men be called mothers.

But maybe the day people accept men as mothers is the day after men are recognized equally with women as the nurturers of children.

It probably doesn't really matter. I can be a parent, and have nearly the same parental rights as women, but be labelled a lowly father in the mean time.

I am aware that you believe this to be the case, rehctub, but that does not make it true.

>>Pericles, the bottom line is, the marriage word is taken, find another<<

As I suggested earlier, claiming words to be fixed and immovable is both unnecessary and aggressive. I offered the word "god" as absolute and definitive proof of this, given the massive amount of grief, pain and mayhem that has been caused by people who insist on their own "one, true" version.

Envisage the following, and you'll see what I mean. Paddy the Proddy says to Mick the Mick in a Belfast pub, "Mick, the god word is taken, find another."

Any scene that you might imagine that follows this interchange, that does not include physical violence up to and including the separation of a kneecap or two, would be pure fiction.

Try to recognize that words are always going to adapt to changing circumstances. If you haven't yet worked out that today's society has a different view on homosexual marriage than previous generations, then you clearly don't get out much. And the fact that you just happen to disapprove does not give you the right to be the final arbiter on the subject.

Alan Austin,

(1) I’ve been busy of late and this has delayed my return to this thread.

I confess you have got me thinking, but you have not converted me.

I think the simple answer to your question is that marriage is what it is when entered into. So, the first example meets the definition, and some of the others did at the point the man and the woman married. They were marriages when made. That one partner broke the contract can mean that the marriage ends or they may decide to continue. In that respect, it is like other contracts. When broken, the parties to them may end the contract or may find away to recover from the breach. They may even go on to make new contracts.

The second example does not meet the definition because a man cannot marry another man and a woman cannot marry another woman.

(2) If the word “marriage” is changed to mean the union of any two people, it can be changed to mean the union of any three or a one-night stand or a teapot. It’s not that words cannot change their meanings. It’s that I see no justification for removing a meaning from the language. I have seen no reasoning given to deprive the language of a word that means the exclusive and lifelong union of a man and a woman (which, by the way, is a contract and an institution and many other things as well even if not mentioned in my definition). The argument for gay marriage is put as some dreadful discrimination under which some people are supposedly forbidden to do what they are in fact permitted to do and would hate to do – marry – when all they really want is to take the word that describes what they can have but don’t want to describe the other thing that they can also have and do want.

I readily concede that we will end up with gay marriage, but that does not prevent my spending a little bit of time pointing out how illogical the whole argument for it is.

Your brother is your brother, not your sister. He is not any less because he is your brother not your sister. Your sister is your sister, not your brother. She is not any less because she is your sister not your brother.

There are all sorts of relationships in our society. One of them is described by the word marriage. Others are not.