Shouldn't we just do away with marriage?

[levington]

Two issues have made me think about feminism in the last week. They may seem unrelated, but I actually think they are part of the same problem.

First up, gay marriage.
The second item being the case of the husband accused of raping his wife on their wedding night.

At first they seem unconnected, however, I think they are linked. Please allow me to explain:

Gay marriage sounds fair on first examination, but is it really? Are we not just extending the notion of conjugal rights -after all, marriage can be voided through non-consummation and adultery a reason for divorce to another group of people?

The man was cleared; make of that what you will. But comments underneath the story ranged from: 'men have right to sex on wedding night'.

By continuing with marriage and its intrinsic conjugal element, aren't we just encouraging this sort of crap?
I know that rape in marriage is illegal, but the general consensus seems to be that men are entitled to sex on wedding night. Is this a good thing?

My solution would be to turn the gay marriage thing on its head and gain true equality by offering civil partnerships to all.

What do you all think?

My marriage is a sexless one (husbands choice not mine) I dont believe a husband has an automatic right to sex within a marriage but i also dont believe he has the right to enforce celibacy on his wife either.

"the general consensus seems to be that men are entitled to sex on wedding night." Where? Who? If that is from comments under an article, depending on the newspaper, you could end up with tons and tons of weird views.

It is correct that rape or attempted rape in marriage is illegal (from 1992 - well done English legislators )

I agree though, that sex is largely inextricably tied to marriage. Back in the recesses of my brain i'm pretty certain that when I did Medieval History I was taught that there was a time when consumation was a valid and legal form of bringing about a marriage. Certainly in Judaism for a woman, one of the grounds for divorce is that her husband does not satisfy her sexually (there is no equivalent for men) and as you said, a marriage can be annulled if the marriage has not been consumated.

France also has the thing where religious marriages are not recognised, only civil so you have to do the trip to the mairie, and then if you're religious to the church/synagogue/mosque, or whatever.

However, I disagree with you that because there are some men who are morons, marriage as a whole should be done away with. It can be a very quick and convenient way to offer a number of legal protections to both parties.

I remember in the press a few years ago a priest refusing to marry a heterosexual couple because they were disabled (one or both can't remember), and they couldn't therefore consumate their marriage. Thus the priest said they couldn't be married. I know this is a minority view, but this priest was quite clear that sex was part of the deal

Minority nut-job view from a man that probably also believed their disability was divine retribution for past wrongs.... Don't think that really clinches the equally ridiculous idea that men think raping their wife is fine because marriage somehow implies it's acceptable.

Cogito sorry I wasn't arguing it does. TBH I wasn't arguing one way or the other, just posting what I said was a very atypical but relevant situation to the thread.

Sadly I have met people in rl who believe disability is divine retribution, particularly with disabled children. I was shocked the first time I heard this disgusting view, but have since heard it a few times. Maybe I just know more than your average number of "minority nut-jobs".

There's a lot wrong with 'marriage' as a traditional institution, it was after all designed as a way of transferring the ownership of a woman from one man (her father or nearest male relative) to another (her husband). However, a lot of the wrongnesses of traditional marriage have now been legally removed: a woman's money and property do not automatically belong entirely to her husband upon marriage, and a marriage ceremony does not guarantee either partner the right to have sex on the unwilling body of the other. Nor are men entitled to vote on their wives' behalf without permission in writing.
And there is something right and desirable about people wanting to formalise the 'specialness' of relationships that are not a matter of biology eg declaring that someone is significant to you even though that person is not a blood relative (and having a party to celebrate this).

But I'm really unsure about 'consummation' from an ethical viewpoint in a diverse, non-patriarchal, non-heteromonogamist normative ideal world: it's terribly PIV-centric. Lesbians don't always penetrate each other with anything during the course of sex; at what point would a lesbian marriage be considered officially consummated? Or a gay men's one, for that matter (given that not all gay men consider anal penetration part of sex)? Let alone the example given above of a couple where one partner was physically disabled to the extent that PIV wasn't possible...

At the same time, it isn't a good thing to 'marry' someone who is expecting to have some sort of sexual connection as part of the relationship when you have no intention of doing anything like that with the person, ever - unless it's after a lot of prior discussion and agreement. So someone who goes through a traditional heteronormative marriage ceremony having concealed from the other person that in fact s/he has no intention of ever having sex with that person but wants to be married for some other reason (nationality-change, some bizarre probably-only-happens-in-fiction requirements of a family bequest, wishing to conceal non-heterosexuality from family or employer... etc) kind of deserves to have the marriage ended on the grounds of dishonesty.

I find the gay lobbying for church weddings strange because really they need to think about what they are buying into. The church has monopolised marriage over the years and it seems to me that if you fundamentally change marriage and it's meanings then it has less integrity.

It reminds me of the story of King Soloman and the two women arguing over the baby. Kind soloman said a compromise would be to halve the baby. The mother said no, give the baby to the other woman. Obviously a halved baby has less (life!) integrity. Like two women fighting over a red dress in selfridges, one pulls harder and wins the contest only to find out that the other woman still has hold of one sleeve, the dress has lost it's integrity and therefore isn't worth having.

I'm fine with other peoples choices but I do think marriage as an institution is harmful (to women) and has outlived it's purpose. If the church conceded defeat and undermines it's own doctrine over gay marriage, lets celebrate it.

Thing is MMM that various cultures have had some form of 'marriage' other than heteromonogamous for a variety of reasons. I think it's good to dump the shit aspects and hold on to the good ones, all instituations change, however slowly.