Marriage: with lots of digressions

Now that New York State is recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other parts of the United States (need to fact-check, but too lazy to), I'm seeing same-sex couples in the "Weddings and Celebration" section of the Times. For example, this week features two Williams and two Jonathans getting married. The story of the two Williams is replete with cutesy spousal bickering just like any other married couple's.

Married couples bicker because it's cute, though I don't think it's so cute. But then again, I'm a curmudgeon when it comes to the institution of marriage. I find nothing about it to be cute. Disclaimer: I am married, and I really like the living arrangement and I'm glad we chose this route, but that still doesn't mean I think marriage is necessary. I don't find it necessary to modern life, full stop. Except... except maybe in cases where a woman and man (or man and man, or woman and woman) want to raise a child jointly as their own.

Of course, just as I write that, I start thinking to myself that I'm not so sure a couple must be married to raise a child together: suppose a man and woman are divorced with a daughter; the man and his ex-wife are, in effect, raising their daughter together without being married. Hah! And suppose further that the man meets another woman, who really rocks his socks, but they don't get married because they both decide that marriage is overrated. But they really love each other, in a soulmate kind of way, and over time the man introduces her to his daughter. With luck, the woman and the daughter like each other, and occasionally the woman will pick her up from school and babysit when the man is too busy. Sometimes she goes to the daughter's piano recitals to cheer her on, and takes her out to ice cream afterwards. Hah! again.

So I'm back to the drawing board, because it seems there's nothing a person cannot do with the help of those they love, without having to marry them.

In the United States at least, the argument against same-sex marriage is that it will destroy the concept of a family unit. But from my point of view, "family" is starting to be defined less through genetic bonds but in terms of a tacit agreement between people (in most cases buttressed by legal documents) that "we are a family." Think of the Big Mama with lots of adopted children, plus her own genetically produced children. I'm thinking of my own grandmother, who was adopted by another lady after her own mother died; that adoption made me and Hattan family, because the adopted mother is Hattan's forebear (admittedly I'm a bit hazy about the family linkage; again, need to fact-check).

In Malaysia, same-sex marriage is not even an option, for Islamic reasons. But I'm puzzled as to why gays want to marry in other parts of the world. What do they gain? You and your boyfriend are STILL THE SAME. In my opinion, marriage changes nothing about how two people feel about each other. Having sex might change your feelings towards a person -- though not always; I said it might change your feelings. But that's a different story.