It was Saudi's birthday today (as far as he could work out swapping between calendars). He invited two friends over, both also Muslims from his country. We had a most interesting conversation about arranged marriage. None of this difficult dating lark, oh no! When Long Black decided he wanted a wife, he sent his sisters out looking for him and they found him a very nice lass. :)
After his and her parents had a chat, he was allowed to meet her. She was pretty shy, but luckily he isn't and he was able to talk with her enough to realise that they both felt a connection, so he gave her a present he'd brought ~ a bracelet ~ to indicate his interest. They were both pretty fortunate to have very open-minded parents who agreed that it would be okay for the two of them to talk on the phone (not all families allow this) so they exchanged numbers and while he was away in another city for six months, they got to know each other better. Now they've been married three years and have a young son.
It's so strange that while I can't imagine ever letting someone else choose a husband for me, I still found this story completely sweet. Everyone was charmed by the way he spoke about his wife and how much love and respect he has for her. It's interesting, too, to talk to young men in their 20s who have no shyness at all at the fact that they have never dated any girl, and won't ever do so before they marry (Saudi and his other friend are still single). These things are simply experiences for another time in their life that's still to come.
It's such a diverse world, and people take very different paths, but we all want to be happy. I feel like they are missing something in the loss of those first weeks and months when you know you like someone, but have no agenda except to enjoy finding out more about them and discover if they feel the same connection. And yet, there was such a purity to the way he described this arranged match. It had its own beauty.
Sometimes you need a couple of days to think before you get a little more clarity. This post is actually a comment I added to my post on why I am opposed to Proposition 8, but I decided to post it properly (and I have reworked it a little as new thoughts have occurred to me). I'm not sure that even now I've come to some final decision ~ not on the Proposition (I definitely oppose that) but on the term marriage and how it is and should or shouldn't be represented in the law. Anyway, here it is...
How very interesting. I've just realised that I contradicted myself. In the post I described marriage as a deep and lasting bond that requires the fullness of the law to express but considering MoJo's comment I decided that if a civil union granted recognition as a couple (and all that entails legally) that whatever marriage ceremony the couple chose to have after that could be meaningless in the law.
I'd edit it, but that's kind of cheating, no? :) I guess it's more accurate to say that I believe there should be a way to express that you want to be bonded under the law and that aspect for me is about more than religion. It also about recognition of that bond by your society and of course the wider more boring recognitions that exist such as in tax and inheritance law and the like. I have called that bond marriage before and it still feels right to call it that, even if I am talking about a wholly non-religious legal union.
I know that some people see marriage as being a partnership between a (straight) couple and their God, but we live in too diverse societies for that to be the limit of the definition. I don't believe that it lessens marriage to use the word non-religiously. It has no less meaning in a religious context if someone else defines it differently from their own (different) religious or non-religious perspective. That's interesting to me, to realise that. I wrote the original post quickly because I was angry and I'm now maybe rethinking some of my own points.
I still do think that it is illogical and counter-productive to treat people who value the concept of marriage as if they are destroying it, and I definitely think that such a partnership should be labelled consistently in law - not marriage for some and civil union for others. Maybe it should be called civil union for all and marriage should be preserved for ceremonies with romantic and/or religious (but not legal) significance. Maybe it should be called marriage for all and any other meaning assigned to it is a matter for the individual couple and their religions if applicable.
Proposition 8 is definitely doing one thing I think is wrong - treating marriage as a religious term that can only be defined in one way. I say that not because the proposition mentions religion, but because the source of the desire to define marriage in the law as only being 'between a man and a woman' is a vocal few who see the term as a religious one imbued with only one meaning.
I think that that perspective divides the religious from the non-religious under the law (without any recognition that straight couples are deemed to fit that 'acceptable' profile, with no requirement to actually be at all religious). It also divides mainstream Christian religion from other religions or belief systems where marriage may be defined differently and yet be just as meaningful to those who choose to participate in it. True religious freedom cannot exist where one religious viewpoint is privileged in the law and civil (and sometimes human) rights take a beating in that scenario, too.
And in a related note...to all those California Mormons supporting Proposition 8, remember there is a reason that Alma the Younger resigned his post as chief judge in order to preach to the people. It's a little thing we like to call separation of church and state. His dual roles as chief judge and religious leader were not interconnected. So stop thinking that the church you belong to should define the status of others under the law...yes, even if the prophet said otherwise. Definitions under the law should reflect everyone's rights. There is nothing there that is going to change how Mormons define marriage in religious terms ~ civil marriage ALREADY differs from temple marriage in concept and wording. So marriage is already defined differently in law to the meaning that the LDS church assigns to it. Allowing the legal definition to reflect the broader and diverse society religious and other freedoms create is not going to hurt you or your marriages. Please bear that in mind when you vote on this issue.
I've heard a lot of rumours about 'the gays'. Haven't you? You know the ones about how promiscuous they are, out at the clubs all the time or in the park committing lewd acts with strangers and the like.* I mean, gosh, it's just all about the sex with these people. Isn't it?
Imagine my surprise then, to find out just how many loving, devoted same-sex couples there are out there wanting to stand before their family, friends and all the world, and marry. They want to make a beautiful and binding commitment that ties them together romantically and legally. What could these crazy folk be thinking? Why it's just like they're really in love or something...**
/sarcasm
I've been reading a lot lately on Proposition 8. Basically Proposition 8 will, if passed, define 'marriage' in California law as being 'between a man and woman'. I've heard various opinions on the whole same-sex marriage subject. Some people claim that civil unions afford gay couples all the same rights under the law. I've certainly heard much to the contrary.
I've also read that marriage is sacred and that any redefinition of the law will besmirch the sanctity of the union. This to me is an ugly claim. Did it hurt marriage when the law was changed so that people of the same race could marry? Did you know that the original suffragettes wanted the vote (and other things that represented independence and equality for women) because they felt it would improve the institution of marriage. They argued that if women were independent ~ able for example to work and own property in their own name ~ they would marry by choice and not because they were dependent on marrying in order to survive. Prior to these developments marriage was like a union between a man and his property (in terms of how it played out in law. Obviously there would have been good marriages, too). Does that sound sacred to you? Do you think we lost something when a husband ceased to 'own' his wife? Both of these legal redefinitions fundamentally changed the perception of what marriage could and couldn't be and caused an uproar among conservatives during their time.
Now you have to understand that this issue is a difficult one for me. I've been a member of the Mormon church for most of my life (my parents joined when I was six years old) and for most of that time I was willing to accept what I was told at face value. Although this fundamentally changed for me about a year ago, I'm still attending church and still feel strongly about many of the values I learned there. But the Church's stance on Proposition 8 makes me angry. And on reflection I'm angry about the history preceding it, too. The history of institutionalised preservation of prejudice and unfair denial of equality where equality should or does already exist.***
I was shocked several years ago to find out that the Church (and some of the women in it) had actively worked against the Equal Rights Amendment. The 'wisdom' there was that giving women equal rights (including equal pay for equal work) would encourage women to work outside the home and 'abandon' their families. The myriad insulting implications of that thinking I do not want to delve into, but the one that I will point out is the idea that a woman's decision in relation to her marriage/work/life should not be determined by her own choice, but rather by a legalised dependence on her husband's good will.
Even after 1978, when the status of black people changed dramatically in the Church, marriage between people of different races was openly discouraged. When I heard about this, sometime in the 80s at an Institute class, it was explained to me in terms of culture, and by a man who was himself married to a woman of a different race. He explained that their bishop had told them it was not advisable for them to marry (though he did in the end support their decision and perform the ceremony) because marriage was hard enough even when you were starting on the same page culturally. Because there really were some huge hurdles for them to overcome in their very different perspectives on marriage and raising kids, this had come to sound like reasonable advice to him. And to me at the time as he explained it. Now I look back and think 'wtf?' That was a crock of shit and the fact that a man in a mixed-race marriage was feeding it to me shouldn't have made it smell any sweeter. Race and the POSSIBLE cultural differences it implies is just one of a LOT of things that can cause chasms of misunderstanding to be overcome in a marriage (different views on how to handle money immediately springs to mind).
And what of marriage itself? In a world where morality seems to be disintegrating and many people (with the obvious exceptions we all know who did all they could) seem to prefer divorce to any kind of work or sacrifice or compromise in order to help a relationship function effectively and lovingly, it is perhaps those who have been denied marriage who show a deeper commitment to it. I'm not referring to the straight people out there who value and work at their marriage. I'm talking about the growing percentage of straight society that don't bother with marriage, who feel that they 'don't need a piece of paper to prove their love' and those who do marry but never really respect that marriage tie ~ whether by failing to do the hard work it takes to maintain a successful marriage or by refusing to stay faithful to their spouse even though they entered marriage with that promise and intent.
My point is not that 'everyone must marry' or even that everyone should value it the same way. But think it's true to say that marriage as an institution does not have the same value in our society any more. For those of us who still think it is a beautiful and valuable thing, this seems like a shame, this diminishing of marriage. Yet here are the lawmakers in California and other places, trying to discourage and hinder those to whom it means a great deal ~ people who want to both bear and enjoy that commitment and who prefer for their children to grow up in families where there is a clear and unequivocable symbol of their parents devotion to each other and to the family as a whole.
These are not the people, in my opinion, who are threatening the institution of marriage. They look a lot to me like part of a small group ~ gay, straight or otherwise ~ who want to preserve the ideal of marriage as being more than just a common law arrangement or civil union, and being rather a symbol of a deep and lasting bond that requires the fullness of the law to express. And the fact that Latter-day Saints have contributed, at the request of the First Presidency, a significant amount of their time and money to supporting Proposition 8, is something I find both saddening and disturbing.
A couple of times I've been struck by the similarity of the sound of 'Proposition 8' and 'Preparation H'. And I'm okay with connecting the two. Because I can tell you right now that if I lived in California and attended church only to have a bishop read me a letter telling me that I've been instructed by the prophet, despite whatever might be my own feelings on this legal and not religious matter, to vote against the court-established civil rights of others, I would certainly be telling him to stick it up his ass.
*Re lewd behaviour in parks, ironically many of the men doing this are married men who don't want anyone to know they are not quite as straight as they pretend to be. Dishonest men like that also help spread HIV because carrying and using a condom makes it look like you planned to be there, and then you can't pretend you 'just got drunk and didn't know what you were doing' when someone finds out.
**The couple pictured here are Phyllis Lyon (then 79) and Del Martin (then 83), the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage licence in San Francisco. At that time (2004) they had been together 51 years.
***Yes, the LDS church is not the only church with a jaded, bigoted or mysogynistic past ~ in some cases, the LDS church pales in comparison with churches whose history stretches back into more barbaric times. But this is my church, and it is its history that I feel I have the right to comment on the most.
If your wife sets you on fire, the honeymoon is over. And wash your feet.
"Wang and his wife, Luo, were married on February 2. The couple, however, frequently fought over trivial things while still on their honeymoon," the official XinhuaM news agency quoted a local newspaper as saying.
The couple, from the central province of Hubei, had another fight on the night of March 4, "and in frustration they together drank a bottle of liquor to ease their anger".
"At about 10 pm, Luo watched her husband get into bed without cleaning or washing his feet. In a fit of anger and intoxication, she set fire to the sheet he was sleeping in." "When he awoke, the two began fighting before a very drunk Wang collapsed. As fire engulfed the bedroom. Luo escaped to the living room, leaving her other half to burn."
Seriously, how dirty were his feet? She s.e.t. .h.i.m. .o.n. .f.i.r.e.. Good grief!
I'm feeling rather smiley tonight, just because I heard some happy news that is so very old I can't believe I didn't already know it. I was trawling through my blogroll and reached the known universe and suddenly I am seeing the word honeymoon being bandied about. Lo and behold, Jamie has gone and gotten himself engaged. It happened while I was overseas and oblivious to all things bloggy.
Deborah is a lovely, lovely woman who (and I hope it doesn't annoy her for me to say it, but then she probably never reads this blog, so whatever) often reminds me of Sandra Bullock - not exactly the same but similar and just as beautiful. But actually I don't think Jamie's lucky to have her because she's beautiful. I think he's lucky to have her because she understands him and really cares about him and just takes life as it comes. I think she's lucky to have him because he appreciates her and is honest with her but always loyal. I also think they both have enough life experience to know that things won't be perfect, and to not need that to be truly happy, because they know what they want and have a few dreams and like supporting each other in all those various endeavours. And they both know that the best of life is found in the people that you meet.
Daniel Johns and Natalie Imbruglia ~ my favourite entertainment couple ~ have announced that their four-year marriage is over. I can't say I'm all that surprised: when you live most the time on the other side of the world to your spouse, you're kind of asking to grow apart, no? But I still remember Johns telling Juice magazine:
"I can't believe how scary it was to have found your soulmate at 21."
And I loved them together, and I wanted them to last forever. I guess so did they.
"This mutual decision has not been taken lightly or quickly," the pair said in a joint statement. "However, our career demands and our lives in different parts of the world have brought us to the point where unfortunately this difficult decision was necessary for both of us. "We have simply grown apart through not being able to spend enough time together."
Here's a little video I found on Youtube. The song is Natalie's "Only You".
If anyone hears any bad news about Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick, just keep it to yourself. I'm already in mourning.
