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sorcyressOne of my partners has just asked me about marriage.
No, not ours --stop your squeeing or fainting or ramping up to say congrats or raised eyebrows or whatever. No, that partner is thinking about marrying a friend for various reasons (get the friend on my partner's superior healthcare is the main one, but also tax breaks) and wanted to know my thoughts1 on the idea.
I think of marriage as a tool.
See, here's the thing. If you've got a good relationship going, if you've spent years upon years entangled with someone, if you've got all the same friends and the same address2...that is meaningful, and significant, and I'm so glad you have found someone(s) you can build3 that sort of partnership with. I truly think that's awesome, because love everlasting takes quite a lot of work, and yes, I am the least romantic prat on the planet.
But to be perfectly honest, I don't give a rat's ass what you call it. You can call it a marriage, or a domestic partnership, or a soulmating, or a True Commitment, or a free-love-aura-bond, or a platypus for all I care. "Spouse" is a really good word to suggest that sort of relationship, but in the long run, I care much more that you have that relationship than what you call it.
And so a "marriage", as defined by the government5, doesn't really have anything to do with that partnership as much as it does with how the rest of the world (but especially the legal parts) react to that partnership. Children are pretty high on this list --being married makes coparenting have a lot less paperwork--, and work benefits, and being able to act for your spouse (executer of will, make decisions when they're in a coma, etc) and seeing your partner while they are in the hospital, and very importantly, having other people view your relationship as significant or legitimate (because while I, as mentioned, don't give a rat's ass what you call it, lots of people will assume a hierarchy where there is spouse/spouse at the top, and then "all other relationships" below it).
There are a lot of benefits to being married, but not one of them is "being better at love". Marrying someone won't make your relationship with them work better, or make communication easier, or make the things you don't like go away, or make all your compromises equal, or make you love them more, or make them love you more. Patience and time and dedication and communication and work and passion will make those things happen. Not marriage.
If you want to be married to someone because they really are your true love everlasting, by all means, I think you should do it. But I also think you should marry someone if you care about them and want to make sure they have proper healthcare. Or if you're indifferent to them but you want to raise a child together6. Or if they're trying to get their green card. Or if you're in Vegas and Elvis is right there come on!
So when my partner asked about marrying someone else, the only thing that affects is whether or not I can marry them7 at some point in the future. Given that I am poly, and will never8 be able to legally express my partnership statuses, this isn't really a big deal --as things stand, I will eventually find someone to coparent with, and marry them. Or I'll wind up destitute and get hitched for the healthcare. Or I'll move to Scandanavia and need their equivalent of a green card.
But when it comes to marriage, I don't think true love everlasting has very much to do with it. You might not think my relationship is valid without making someone my spouse, but I will know it is. Marriage may be more than just a piece of paper, but it's still a whole lot less than any of the myriad things we call love.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Technically, my parter asked "how would you feel if I married foo?". I recently read an excellent (albeit friendslocked) post about needing a guide for the Thinkers/Feelers from the Meyer-Briggs personality test, to go with the many guides about Introverts/Extroverts. Ever since, it's been lurking on the edges of my mind, trying to suss out how I self-identify on that scale --I pride myself on my mind and its ability to think things over and through, but I am also as emotional as they come. I react very strongly when I feel sentiment, anger, fear, joy, depression, emotions in general.
2: Because sometimes I'm an observant daughter.
3: Among the Sorcyress's potentially unpopular opinions4 is the fact that love is not found, it's created. It doesn't matter how compatible you are with someone you just met, the bond you have is nothing compared to the pull between two people who have actively worked to create a life that has room for each other in it. And I say this as someone who is supersusceptible to NewToyEnergy --I adore that rush of newness when you find someone lovely, but man, if it came right down to it, that feeling is nothing compared to the satisfaction of solving a problem with someone who I am committed to keeping in my life.
4: And I really should talk about these more sometime, so that people can poke holes in my thoughts, or I can poke holes in yours.
5: I hear there's also "marriage" as defined by the church, but as I am not a part of any churches, I don't feel able to make a statement on that.
6: I reeeeeeally think that marriage-just-for-coparenting should be a widely accepted thing. I would love to see a widely-accepted contract that boils down to "we will be together for x years (x being 18 plus insemination time, plus other children) and then if we want to make other commitments outside that, we will, but this contract is just for the kids"
7: I mean, plus or minus divorce, but I suspect I'm generally sorta anti-divorce in the same ways that I am anti-abortion --I am one hundred percent okay with them happening, and feel there shouldn't be any stigma attached, but boy, I would love to live in a world where no one needed to get a divorce (because they took enough time and built enough of a commitment beforehand to know that this is a long-term thing, or because they built contracts with a natural end to them instead of this "til death do we part" nonsense, or because TWOO WUV EVERLASTING or whatever) just like I would love to live in a world where no one got pregnant without intent.
8: Okay, fine, will "probably never".
No, not ours --stop your squeeing or fainting or ramping up to say congrats or raised eyebrows or whatever. No, that partner is thinking about marrying a friend for various reasons (get the friend on my partner's superior healthcare is the main one, but also tax breaks) and wanted to know my thoughts1 on the idea.
I think of marriage as a tool.
See, here's the thing. If you've got a good relationship going, if you've spent years upon years entangled with someone, if you've got all the same friends and the same address2...that is meaningful, and significant, and I'm so glad you have found someone(s) you can build3 that sort of partnership with. I truly think that's awesome, because love everlasting takes quite a lot of work, and yes, I am the least romantic prat on the planet.
But to be perfectly honest, I don't give a rat's ass what you call it. You can call it a marriage, or a domestic partnership, or a soulmating, or a True Commitment, or a free-love-aura-bond, or a platypus for all I care. "Spouse" is a really good word to suggest that sort of relationship, but in the long run, I care much more that you have that relationship than what you call it.
And so a "marriage", as defined by the government5, doesn't really have anything to do with that partnership as much as it does with how the rest of the world (but especially the legal parts) react to that partnership. Children are pretty high on this list --being married makes coparenting have a lot less paperwork--, and work benefits, and being able to act for your spouse (executer of will, make decisions when they're in a coma, etc) and seeing your partner while they are in the hospital, and very importantly, having other people view your relationship as significant or legitimate (because while I, as mentioned, don't give a rat's ass what you call it, lots of people will assume a hierarchy where there is spouse/spouse at the top, and then "all other relationships" below it).
There are a lot of benefits to being married, but not one of them is "being better at love". Marrying someone won't make your relationship with them work better, or make communication easier, or make the things you don't like go away, or make all your compromises equal, or make you love them more, or make them love you more. Patience and time and dedication and communication and work and passion will make those things happen. Not marriage.
If you want to be married to someone because they really are your true love everlasting, by all means, I think you should do it. But I also think you should marry someone if you care about them and want to make sure they have proper healthcare. Or if you're indifferent to them but you want to raise a child together6. Or if they're trying to get their green card. Or if you're in Vegas and Elvis is right there come on!
So when my partner asked about marrying someone else, the only thing that affects is whether or not I can marry them7 at some point in the future. Given that I am poly, and will never8 be able to legally express my partnership statuses, this isn't really a big deal --as things stand, I will eventually find someone to coparent with, and marry them. Or I'll wind up destitute and get hitched for the healthcare. Or I'll move to Scandanavia and need their equivalent of a green card.
But when it comes to marriage, I don't think true love everlasting has very much to do with it. You might not think my relationship is valid without making someone my spouse, but I will know it is. Marriage may be more than just a piece of paper, but it's still a whole lot less than any of the myriad things we call love.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Technically, my parter asked "how would you feel if I married foo?". I recently read an excellent (albeit friendslocked) post about needing a guide for the Thinkers/Feelers from the Meyer-Briggs personality test, to go with the many guides about Introverts/Extroverts. Ever since, it's been lurking on the edges of my mind, trying to suss out how I self-identify on that scale --I pride myself on my mind and its ability to think things over and through, but I am also as emotional as they come. I react very strongly when I feel sentiment, anger, fear, joy, depression, emotions in general.
2: Because sometimes I'm an observant daughter.
3: Among the Sorcyress's potentially unpopular opinions4 is the fact that love is not found, it's created. It doesn't matter how compatible you are with someone you just met, the bond you have is nothing compared to the pull between two people who have actively worked to create a life that has room for each other in it. And I say this as someone who is supersusceptible to NewToyEnergy --I adore that rush of newness when you find someone lovely, but man, if it came right down to it, that feeling is nothing compared to the satisfaction of solving a problem with someone who I am committed to keeping in my life.
4: And I really should talk about these more sometime, so that people can poke holes in my thoughts, or I can poke holes in yours.
5: I hear there's also "marriage" as defined by the church, but as I am not a part of any churches, I don't feel able to make a statement on that.
6: I reeeeeeally think that marriage-just-for-coparenting should be a widely accepted thing. I would love to see a widely-accepted contract that boils down to "we will be together for x years (x being 18 plus insemination time, plus other children) and then if we want to make other commitments outside that, we will, but this contract is just for the kids"
7: I mean, plus or minus divorce, but I suspect I'm generally sorta anti-divorce in the same ways that I am anti-abortion --I am one hundred percent okay with them happening, and feel there shouldn't be any stigma attached, but boy, I would love to live in a world where no one needed to get a divorce (because they took enough time and built enough of a commitment beforehand to know that this is a long-term thing, or because they built contracts with a natural end to them instead of this "til death do we part" nonsense, or because TWOO WUV EVERLASTING or whatever) just like I would love to live in a world where no one got pregnant without intent.
8: Okay, fine, will "probably never".
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no subject
on 2013-02-28 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
on 2013-02-28 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
on 2013-02-28 08:15 pm (UTC)~Sor
no subject
on 2013-02-28 09:04 pm (UTC)Maybe you don't think of me that way, but sometimes I think it would be fun to get dialectic with you.
no subject
on 2013-03-01 06:32 am (UTC)