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Next weekend a March for Marriage for lesbian and gay couples will take place in Dublin. Yesterday a friend asked me if I was going on it, I think she was rather surprised by the snorts of derision that escaped from my mouth.
While I support the rights of people to celebrate their relationships and be recognised by the state and others I have always questioned the rush that same sex couples have taken in seeking marriage rights. I’ve also been stunned by the leaders in this rush coming from Ireland’s second wave feminists. Instead of questioning the roles and expectations created by the institution of marriage many see the exclusion of lesbians and gay men from the institution as a human rights issue. Suddenly marriage became the goal and symbol of success.
Marriage has previously barred women from employment, excluded us from claiming social welfare, participation in FAS schemes, a reason for being paid less, and a host of other rights and entitlements. Those who did not marry were castigated as a drain on the state, as not behaving appropriately, they also do not get the same rights to protection in cases of domestic violence. Marriage was considered permission for rape until the early 90′s.
Is it a case of tax individualisation and the end of the marriage bar making it ok now? On the non legalistic issues that surround marriage regarding women losing their identity and being seen as a couple instead of individuals, of women who don’t marry being seen as less valuable? How have these issues disappeared from feminist debate? And what of the stigma that still exists regarding marital breakdown? This issues are not historic or relics. For many women the pressure to marry remains very real, and now we are seeing a pressure to marry (and I include entering into civil partnership) created in the lesbian and gay community.
The impact of civil partnership and cohabitation legislation inferring rights and responsibilities on relationships is untested and far-reaching. The Department of Social Protection will soon be able to infer that people in same sex relationships living together are co-habiting, sharing incomes and responsible financially for each other whether they want to be or not. Many people may not want that to happen (including because they don’t want to be open to financial abuse or control by a partner) but that’s one legacy of ‘equality’.
We’ve already had the debate on women taking their husband’s name on the Anti-Room and I am aware that for many marriage is a romantic and very meaningful occasion . I wish that my intention not to marry and questioning the clamour would garner as much respect.
Some campaigning for marriage rights use the language of other oppressed groups in their fight - and continue to do so, this saddens me greatly. The exclusion from the right to marry can in no way be compared to the way in which black people were excluded in South Africa.
The impact of civil partnership and marriage rights on the ways in which lesbian and gay lives and relationships are lived is now beginning to be explored internationally. Julie Bindel’s column last week on this is a warning of things to come. Academic articles will no doubt follow. It will be interesting to see how Civil Partnership’s change the ways in which lives are lived and viewed in Ireland.
Will lesbians and gay men who choose not to enter into civil partnerships be seen as ‘loose’, a drain on the state, ‘behaving inappropriately’? Will Paddy Power give me odds on this? I bet not because I predict within 3 years there will be articles and debates appearing about lesbians and gay men who are ‘not the marrying kind’, refusing to commit, castigating them as refuseniks. Civil Partnerships will be seen as status symbols and indicators of success. And the campaign for marriage will continue because the quest for ‘normality’ dressed up as equality will persist.
I’m still mystified as to when Marriage became a feminist goal. Maybe you can explain it to me?
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- Something borrowed (guardian.co.uk)
Waoh, there are a lot of sweeping statements in this blog suzy!
“Marriage was considered permission for rape until the early 90′s.” <== I'm sure you'll find that was not the case for the majority of people. Can you back that statement up?
"Marriage has previously barred women from employment, excluded us from claiming social welfare, participation in FAS schemes, a reason for being paid less, and a host of other rights and entitlements." <== Was there a law i missed making women stay at home? And as far as social welfare goes, if the woman was working and the man was at home they would still be reviewed in the same way.
I believe single women were paid just as little as married women back in the day. That was discrimination against women, not just 'married' women.
With respect i think you are blurring the boundary between marriage and catholic Ireland. Marriage is simply a union between two people regardless of religion, creed or colour.
And there are gay people out there who believe being equal in society should not be a privilege but a basic human right. Marriage should be afforded to me and all my gay brothers and sisters without confusing marriage with 'old fashioned catholic marriage ideas'.
I think your comments are also insulting to every gay man that is also fighting for marriage. LgbtNoise as far as i am aware is not full of goal orientated feminists only!
The co-habitation issues will sort themselves out and if you don't want to get married and share your life with someone that's your choice but there are plenty of gay families out there already and people who want to build gay families who want to have marriage for them and their children. And most importantly protection for their children.
I can't help but think your article is purely to stir some controversy.
And if this is the case, well done! I'm sure you'll get a few more readers today!
Glossy, rape within marriage was legal until the early 1990s. Before that, being married was understood under law to mean permanent consent to sex for women. If your husband raped you, you couldn’t take it to court because as far as the law was concerned, he hadn’t committed a crime.
Until the 1960s, married women were forbidden from working as public servants and were forced to give up their jobs when they got married so yes, they were forced to stay at home. By law. A friend of mine’s mother was one of the first married women to stay in the civil service.
This is all fairly common knowledge, I would have thought.
Just to point out on an unrelated point, has there ever been a case taken on this legislation? I’m not sure there has been.
Glossy – The issues I cover above are basic social policy knowledge – no sweeping statements. I’ve alluded to the issues raised in this blog in other fora including my own blog over the past 5 years.
Here is article on rape in marriage and a prosecution in 2002 – http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=8520
I’ve not refereed to religion once in this post – marriage as a civil construct was developed to make men responsible for women and their children. By governments.
The marriage bar ended in 1973, women are still suffering the consequences in terms of their pension entitlements. (The lack of them).
Re pay – Married women are frequently paid less than single women and indeed are blamed for male unemployment in times of recession – the numbers who have entered the workforce are frequently cited (after being encouraged back to do so during the boom) and because they are in lower paid work are more likely to keep their jobs for longer.
Surely a referendum on children’s rights and legislation on guardianship will do much more to protect the rights of children then same sex marriage – or is it only the rights of children in married same sex relationships that lgbt organisations worry about?
I doubt many in LGBT noise know much about the history of marriage and sadly after I don’t expect gay men to know a lot about the impact on women of the institution.
I’m interested in how civil partnership will make people think about their relationships, will people stop and think about the seriousness of it all. And indeed the privilege being created. This points are worth discussing in my opinion.
What a thought proviking debate! It has always been my wish to use my radio programme as a platform to showcase the diverse views which exist on Civil Partnership and Marriage within the LGBT community as after all how could one solution suit us all?
I would like to urge you to continue the discussion this Saturday 21st August on Global Village at 7pm on Newstalk 106-108FM.
Currently we have representatives from LGBT Noise and MarriagEquality confirmed and would like to invite individuals to debate this issue live on Global Village.
The way forward for our community is through discussion and debate… please email me on dil@dew.ie if you would like to take part. Dil
http://www.newstalk.ie/presenters/dil-wickremasinghe/
I’m happy I got married. I would like other people who might feel the same way to have the opportunity.
Being male, you might argue that I’ve every reason to be pleased. Nonetheless, many women would also be distressed if you told them they were barred from marrying.
” Marriage has previously barred women from employment, excluded us from claiming social welfare, participation in FAS schemes, a reason for being paid less, and a host of other rights and entitlements. Those who did not marry were castigated as a drain on the state, as not behaving appropriately, they also do not get the same rights to protection in cases of domestic violence. Marriage was considered permission for rape until the early 90′s.”
have to say I am slightly gobsmacked too at the rush for marriage and only understand the issue in terms of rights,
which I understand as civil/human/property rights.
> maybe Nora Barnacle was Ireland’s only true feminist
and only married Mr Joyce to secure inheritances for her
kids
Good article ThanX C
Anne i have no doubt some men seen it as their right to have their way with their wives because they were married. What i meant was the majority of men did not go into marriage thinking ‘great i’ll be able to rape this woman forever’.
And i think WAS is an important word.
With respect we do not live in 1960 and will never live there again. We are living in a society where the church has less and less power in controlling everyday Ireland.
I think it’s important to seperate the word marriage from catholic because they do not go hand in hand.
The laws have also changed a lot since 1960 and when i think of marriage i do not think of the institution of 1960. You girls are blurring the boundaries!
Marriage is and should always be about two people who are in love and want to commit a life to each other.
Times have changed, attitudes have changed and without forgetting the past we should be focusing on making the future a good one!
Glossy, it’s nothing to do with a few men seeing it “as their right to have their way with their wives because they were married”. It was enshrined in law until I was 18. This is not the dim and distant past.
And I am very happily married, by the way. But we can’t ignore marriage’s negative history.
It was enshrined in law until I was 18. This is not the dim and distant past.
Do you know what changed in Ireland, and how it was enshrined in law? The decision in the UK in 1991 was a House of Lords decision that it had never been part of the law, but I’d be interested to know if it was completely different in Ireland, or whether that decision influenced Ireland?
Not sure of the details, but I know that an actual act was passed criminalising it (the Criminal Law Rape (Amendment) Act), rather than a House deciding that it had never been technically legal at all.
Oh yes, I’ve found the statute:
5.—(1) Any rule of law by virtue of which a husband cannot be guilty of the rape of his wife is hereby abolished.
So Ireland formally abolished it some time before it was tested in the House of Lords over here.
“Glossy, it’s nothing to do with a few men seeing it “as their right to have their way with their
wives because they were married”. It was enshrined in law until I was 18. This is not the dim
and distant past.”
Agreed there. Marriage provided a legal basis for the legitimation of children.
It was a model which reflected the natural law idea of the roles of the sexes.
There was brutality and it was not confined alone to marital rape but to
living up to the role of a woman within a marital relationship. This included
denial of medical care if it interefered with pregnancy and child-bearing.
This is a fact that I have witnessed. Now those ideas have changed
largely through the radicalisation of women, historically that radicalisation
included things like fighting for access to birth-control to limit
the expected pregnancies and to allow a women to work and educate
herself.
The recent Irish model of marriage was bad for women, and the issue
is not in the dim and distant past by a long chalk. The carer’s role
and the whole idea (dichotomy of virgin/whore/magdalean homes/
good wife and mother/sexual perception of women) is still there
but lessened somewhat cos we really don’t take that sh*it anymore.
I have to say that I am flabbergasted that there is little recognition of the
role feminism played in highlighting this appalling model of duty and sacrifice.
That men don’t buy it anymore and the relations between the sexes
is more natural for all.
Its great to see young and not so young wish marry and have in their
minds a model of what that is. That model was hard fought and won
by women who just weren’t taking the sexist crap anymore. I’d
really like to see more recognition of that battle in discussions on
how our ideas of marriage have changed for the better-
Fantastic article long overdue!
I don’t know what the Irish situation was, but just to be clear, in the UK it was not that the law was changed in the early 1990s and before that it was legal for men to force their wives to have sex. What happened in 1991 was that the House of Lords declared that there was no marital exemption and never had been, and that spouses had always had the right to refuse sexual intercourse. But it is absolutely the case that the belief that husbands had that right meant that it happened.
Anyway, I am someone in a UK civil partnership, and I’m very happy I am. I resist calling it marriage and I don’t want to be “upgraded” to marriage, thank you very much, but I am glad that the most important relationship in my life is legally recognised. And at least one of my friends is in a civil partnership because it was the only way her American girlfriend could immigate to the EU. There are no means by which the two of them could move to the US. It’s also very important to me that if me and my partner decide to have children, we’ll each have parental responsibility for the child that the other has borne.
Of course you can take the position that states do not have the right to control immigration into their countries or tax their citizens. And you can certainly take issue with the way that states treat co-habiting couples as economic units for the purposes of benefits. But personally I think that as long as we do have states and borders and taxation systems and children, then we’re going to need some sort of legal contract by which people can show their commitment to each other and safeguard their rights, and I’d much rather that was available to me and my partner than not.
As I often read Maman Poulet’s blog and usually find she hits the nail on the head with sharp insight and commentary, as an Organiser from LGBT Noise, I am saddened by the short sightedness of this post. Although she makes many justifiably cutting comments about the institution of marriage and its history of imprisoning women, in this feminist attack I think Maman Poulet is missing the very real point of the possible short-term, and long-term, impact of this campaign for gay marriage.
While I respect and relate to Maman Poulet’s lack of personal desire to marry and totally agree that the institution has long been a prison that any true feminist should fight to break free from… Maman Poulet ignores the fact that institutions can and thankfully DO change. In addition, if she actually looked at the wide variety of people involved in this campaign, she would see clearly that many have no desire for ‘normality’. As much as I agree with her that marriage should not be presented to us as the ‘Holy Grail’ of relationships and should not be the marker by which we judge all other relationship forms…as long as marriage offers such superior rights & benefits in Irish society, the gay community should be demanding access to it. LGBT Noise has never presented marriage as the only relationship form that we should desire, nor are we attempting to push the gay community to conform to heternormative behaviour. Once we achieve marriage equality, the gay community are free to embrace, celebrate, or reject marriage as equally as straight citizens can.
We are demanding the right to gain access to the same rights that marriage currently offers the straight community: nothing more, nothing less. Civil Partnership is a separate and significantly lesser institution that puts us in a two-tiered legal and social state, where LGBT citizens do not have the same access to the rights of heterosexual citizens of this country. Most tellingly the act ignores the families we already have and will continue to have, despite the shocking lack of protective rights for non-biological parents and the children of LGBT parents. This separate, half measure, of equality is a position that is very much comparable with civil rights struggles of the past. It is without doubt an equality, civil rights & human rights. I am at a loss that a blogger of such ability as Maman Poulet fails to see this.
Maman Poulet claims in her comment further down that she doubts ‘many in LGBT noise know much about the history of marriage’. I encourage her to read a recent speech that was written and delivered by me at the last Lesbian Lives Conference at UCD.
Link here: http://lgbtnoise.ie/?p=1484n
It may give you a clearer sense of LGBT Noise, our understanding of the history of marriage, and our short and long-term vision of the Civil Marriage campaign.
We welcome any further comments you have.
* It is without doubt an equality, civil rights & human rights issue
This was a great article…so caught up are we in the wave of ‘marriage as a civil right’, and non-exclusivity, and mostly by those claiming to be feminists, that we forget that marriage has been an institution that for years deprived women of their rights. While obviously more equality exists now within marriage for both men and women, the fact that this didn’t come about until so recently makes one question the rush for civil marriage as a human right.
However, since this is ultimately about ‘rights’, and again the issue of freedom to choose, I thought Noelle made a good point when she said:
“Once we achieve marriage equality, the gay community are free to embrace, celebrate, or reject marriage as equally as straight citizens can”.
So, as a gay man, should I ignore my peers marriages which are equal, where the female continues to work, where the female is not raped but has a loving sexual relationship, who feel that the institution has brought them an increase in happiness, and instead take part in some pointless hand-wringing about the past of marriage?
It seems to me like saying one should prevent one’s 15 year old child from having a responsible, fairly-paid, part time job because of the horrific history of child labour. Surely, you respect people enough to think that they may assess the impact of a decision on the future of their lives before going forth with that decision.
And, given that there seems to be some worry that the liberalisation of marriage is relatively recent, the implication being that marriage could easily revert to oppressing women again, surely the best way to counteract this would be to open marriage up. Allowing gay people to marry would encourage views of marriage as a loving bond between two people rather than some kind of property rights to a woman.
[...] Suzy Byrne drives a tank over the idea that marriage is the ultimate goal for gay couples. [...]
‘I doubt many in LGBT noise know much about the history of marriage …’
Wow. Rather arrogant don’t you thing. A little less finger wagging and a little more listening might help. Noelle nicely pointed out some of the gaping holes.
In a related article, marriage equality has a good document reconciling feminism with marriage equality:
http://www.marriagequality.ie/getinformed/fulllist/feminism-and-the-samesex-marriage-debate/
So “once we acheive marriage equality, the gay community are free to embrace, celebrate, or reject marriage as equally as straight ciitizens can”.
Let’s just deconstruct that – so apart from the inference that until marriage equality is achieved, the rest of us queers who dont agree with the marriage equality script should stay silent or be attacked for being “anti-equality”, the kernel of the problem is that, those of us who will be “free” to reject marriage whether gay or straight will continue to be discriminated against because far from challenging the privilege which the state of marriage bestows on those who enter into it, this campaign strengthens the recognition of marriage as the only form of legitimising a relationship. Thus narrowing choices not expanding them.
I can best sum up not in my own words, but in those of an older lesbian friend who from a ayoung age was a single mother, she told me with real concern that having spent most of her life defined as “an unmarried mother” now she would have to spend the rest fo her life defined as an unmarried lesbian. Some progress!
I think in the process of “deconstruction” you have read a lot more into the comment than is warranted. The comment simply stated an opinion that a rejection (or an embrace) of marriage by someone who is denied marriage is not equal to a rejection by someone who ihas the right to marry. This does not mean the rejection would be less valid. And nowhere did I get the impression that those gay people who oppose gay marriage should “stay silent”.
The concerns of your friend about being termed an “unmatched lesbian” seem a little paranoid. Nowhere (and I really mean nowhere) have I seen marriage portrayed as something that all gay people should aspire to. I’m open to correction but I have only seem it being portrayed as an equality issue.
‘this campaign strengthens the recognition of marriage as the only form of legitimising a relationship’
It’s a fair point. But while you engage in philosophical meandering on this, gay couples will remain on the outside with lesser rights.
Transformation (which is much farther off and I don’t even see a campaign for this despite all the debate!) and reformation (opening up marriage (and indeed Civil Partnership) to all) must go hand in hand.
The argument Maman Poulet puts forward above against the campaign for marriage equality appears to me to be self contradictory.
I share Maman Poulet’s conviction that the injustice and patriarchy of historical matrimony should be kept steadily in view, and that Gay Marriage is not the panacea for all inequalities and injustices, but to use that as an argument against marriage equality is orthogonal to the point.
The battle for women’s rights, both within marriage and without is illustrative of the dynamic that many of us who campaign for marriage equality wish to emulate, and the role of feminist activists is direct inspiration in this regard.
I value the polemical debate that different viewpoints offer for shaping ideas, but to declare comparison of the campaign for civil marriage with other civil rights struggles off-limits is demagoguery. The barbarism of apartheid, it needs no telling, was of a scale and severity that stuns the senses. Placing it in a sanctified category where we may not make comparisons denies us the opportunity to draw such lessons as we might, and stands in contrast to historical understandings that Maman Poulet has outlined about historical marriage, and from which, presumably, intends lessons to be learned.
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/08/05/debunking-anti-gay-arguments-could-anyone-really-support-traditional-marriage/
@ OTher Mark- now who’s being a tad arrogant? You see this isnt ‘philosophical meandering’ for the likes of me and others, its based on knowledge, experience and activism over years, because what you and your pals constantly skate over is the fact that when you equalise up, you also equalise down. It’s no accident that both ME and GLEN and LGBT NOISE are all refusing to discuss the financial impact of CPs and gay marriage on poorer LGBs who rely on social welfare. I also take issue with promoters of gay marriage who in making arguments for the rights of same sex couples to adopt do so at the expense of denigrating single parents… how you gain equality Mark is just as important as the gaining of it.. and this campaign is about privileges, not rights.. because if they were rights shouldnt ALL couples married and unmarried have them?
if they were rights shouldnt ALL couples married and unmarried have them?
That argument never makes sense to me, actually. When I got civil partnered, I signed a document saying that I wanted to give my partner certain rights in relation to me, and to take on certain rights in relation to her. I didn’t want any of my ex-partners to have those rights, which is why I didn’t get married to them.
If the state is going to grant certain rights and responsibilities to people in couples (or in any other kind of relationship), it should be because they’ve signed up for them, not just be automatic. You shouldn’t get access to someone’s income or children or any of the other rights that come with marriage just because you’ve slept with them. You should have to form a specific legal undertaking that both parties consent to.
This is interesting Mary as there are inferred rights given under the co-habitation section of the legislation. http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/bills/2009/4409/b44b09d.pdf
Whilst the rights may be restricted the inference of responsibilities and benefits by the state will be numerous – eg. social welfare.
I’ll come back to a number of other points raised by some other commenters later this evening!
Apologies Marie. I don’t think I was being arrogant.
As I mentioned, transformation of marriage to include gays and lesbians is a different argument to reformation of the way society deals with couples and single people. They are separate issues but you are conflating the two. Hence, I called it ‘philosophical meandering’. The inequalities that single people suffer will continue whether gay people are have equal access to marriage or not. We must accept that, in the absence of reform of the way the State interacts with couples and single people, gay equality/visibility/advancement would be better served by gay people having the same rights as straight people.
(LGBs on social welfare face the same challenges as straights on social welfare. Again, this is a broader social issue requiring reformation of the system. The argument of whether gays and lesbians should have equal access to marriage is a separate one)
And this:
‘I also take issue with promoters of gay marriage who in making arguments for the rights of same sex couples to adopt do so at the expense of denigrating single parents’
That is simply not the case. All interviews/press/press releases from all the groups are available online. Feel free to back up what you are saying. I have never seen anything of the sort.
And I also take issue with, ‘because what you and your pals..’. What we see around this campaign is a mass movement. The first wide-scale mobilisation of gays and lesbians in Ireland (perhaps ever). This can only benefit the community into the future. You give the impression that you think the issue is the plaything of some uppity gays with too much time on their hands. It’s an unfair analysis and I think the 5000 who turned out last August would disagree.
While I can fully understand someone for whom marriage has generally negative connotations, I think you have to understand how it is changing. Part of the change, I think, is that it is seen more and more as an option. I do like the idea of making a public affirmation of an ideally lifelong commitment, but for others it’s not for them. Marriage now is what people make of it. I think we should be able to celebrate the freedom people have within the institution, and hope for a time when more people can freely make that choice.
Christine said above that she’s gobsmacked at the rush to marriage equality. It’s a question that needs to be got out of the way and finally settled before feminists can properly have the discussion and debate about the best options and arrangements for women.
Yes, marriage still had remnants of that older time. But for many, it’s something worth celebrating. It’s a good marker to keep track of time, people like to look back on the years they spent together. Of course, the relationship itself predates the time of marriage, but that is surely remembered as well. In my parents’ case, it was having children more than marriage that kept them together, having got married while I was two.
However people wish to arrange their romantic lives and relationships, we should generally be positive towards it. For those who choose to get married, we should be pleased for them, but ultimately just as pleased for the relationships of those who don’t. A married couple is no longer a sign of two unequal partners, we are far from the arranged marriages, which did exist in this country within living memory.
I have a few diverse points to make on this issue.
It was remarked above that ‘as long as marriage offers such superior rights & benefits in Irish society, the gay community should be demanding access to it.’ Well isn’t that the whole point. Why should marriage offer superior rights and benefits? Privilege should be given to all citizens of the state, including single people, and the wide variety of ‘family forms’ that are now part of our society. It may be pedantic to note, but, it’s not an equality campaign when you’re seeking access to privileges that only some have.
There is a distinct class agenda to the marriage campaign. Inheritance tax issues are oft cited as a concern. Personally, I’m not overly excited by what happens to my holiday home upon my death, as concerned KAL when they spoke in UCC, as I don’t own one. I’m not even going to get into the issue of children, except to point out that all children in the state should be protected equally, and have equal privileges and rights, particular family forms shouldn’t confer particular rights which exclude other ‘types’ of children. As to inheritance rights, both ‘spousal’ and for children, I may be banging an old fashioned socialist drum here but isn’t it through inheritance that inequalities of wealth and privilege are maintained? If one is inheriting large sums, shouldn’t one pay tax?
Campaigners for marriage ‘equality’ make mention of social welfare. They’ve obviously never been reliant on it, as if they had, they would know that we’re better off with the old system.
It is part and parcel of the taxation and welfare state that the inequality of women is built in. Example, the typical social welfare payment to a ‘family’ pays substantially less to the woman -as dependent-, as she has less usually been the prime earner. Now, men are affected too because they mapped this particular inequality onto men in that position when they had to remove the discrimination against women in the 90′s, i.e. women’s stamps entitled them to lower and fewer payments. Their solution to the lower payment to ‘spouses’ was not to treat both partners as equal, it was to change the legislation so that they could pay the lesser payment to men also. However, if your (male) partner is the one who signs on for the ‘family’ payment, and he drinks or gambles or whatever, and the woman goes in to look for separate payments, Welfare will only pay the lesser amount (as she is the dependent) plus the money for the children to the woman. So what is going to be the result is that lesbians on welfare, the dole or lone parent, will now be assessed on their partner’s earnings, and treated as a dependent, bet that’ll be fun. Or if both women are on the dole, one of them loses 50 euro a week as the dependent, won’t it be an enjoyable discussion as to who is now the less-equal. Oh, it’s an equality campaign all right.
Already the forms have changed. It used to say living as ‘husband and wife’ which did not include same-sex couples. Now they refer to co-habiting which does. So now they will map the the notion of ‘dependency’ with all it’s sexist connotations onto same-sex couples, wow, there’s a success!
As far as I’m concerned describing any marriage campaign as feminist is oxymoronic. The origins of marriage resides in the ownership, and trading, of women as property. All the symbolism that surrounds it reinforces that, the white dress, being ‘given’ away, changing your name (losing one’s identity as an individual). It’s an institution beyond redemption.
I too gave a paper at Lesbian Lives, where I posed the question to a hypothetical gay man ‘to whom exactly do you want to be equal, a straight man or a straight woman? This is not a moot point. We still live in a society where women are not de facto equal citizens. The marriage equality campaign is not a lesbian feminist campaign, whatever else it may be. One cannot validly claim to support the marriage equality campaign and claim the identity of feminist. One most certainly cannot validly claim to support the marriage equality campaign and claim the identity of lesbian feminist.
And that excellent comment sums up many of my replies I was planning today.
As a disabled woman with a chronic illness who has been ‘out of work’ more often than ‘in work’, the access to social welfare and medical supports in my own name has been vital to me as I do not wish to be reliant on my partner/lover or have the state judge the nature of my relationship to her. This is not to rule out people helping each other, sharing finances and splitting bills – it’s about the way in which people will become vulnerable to abuse and indeed rejection if they are inferred to be dependent on each other where no dependence exists. The state should have no right to infer this or pressurise people together.
Christine said above that she’s gobsmacked at the rush to marriage equality. It’s a question that needs to be got out of the way and finally settled before feminists can properly have the discussion and debate about the best options and arrangements for women.
I believe that the best options and arrangements for women are based
in increasing our political voice and dealing with current startling
inequalities in our perceived roles as carers . To me, nothing
has changed but that we have top-loaded our constitution with
legislation without going to the root of matters of deep inequality.
This is evinced in the lowest female representation in the developed
world, in curious tokenism at the politcal table and in constant
refusal by our gender-imbalanced political system to address
even adequate levels of education and health rights! Instead of
listening on crime and rape (eg The Murphy case), we have
incredible blasphemy legislations prioritised, we have a refusal
to look at ‘X’, we had Deirdre de Barra, Ann Lovett and others
reduced by the legislature to ‘hard cases’ which in terms of rights
were ‘ not of concern’ because they were perceived to challenge
the Roman Catholic and constitutional view of woman. That , too
is unchanged. The first Divorce Referendum was defeated by lots
of people cos there was a perception that decent legal infrastructure
and support was not in place. The second was achieved because the
root causes of inequality were addressed honestly and in civil law.
I think that we are an educated society which belives in equality
in both practice and in intimate relationships Men don’t, in
my experience really desire to take on the supremacist role
and relate to women in a way that neither the constitution
nor the Church seems to understand- as it clings to its
sexist Natural Law models . The fact is that basic parity
of esteem, of equal voice in politics and of respect is wholly
absent from the model that we legally and according to
staute and consitution, recognise and adhere to !
A fundamental set of inequalites and the persistent view of women
within those structures would need addressing or we are building
on the very models that generations of wonderful heroines
have openly and dangerously challenged. The foundation of the marriage
model basically is something that we are building the idea of marriage
equality upon and its weaknesses have caused grave tragedy in lives-
despite the fact that I truly believe that mostly people do not adhere
to the model but do come up against it when things go wrong !
In my original post I asked a number of questions about when changes occurred and marriage was seen as equal, many have answered and said things have changed and marriage is now about love. And that this is both conformist and radical.
However marriage is a serious legal contract and will remain so. It’s one that confers dependency and as others have indicated remains an unequal institution.
In response to a contention that people may enter into civil partnership lightly some have commented that they are sure that people will take this seriously – I wonder how we know this? What steps will be taken to ensure that those who enter into civil partnership and those who cohabit fully know the ramifications of the legal contract or inferred rights/responsibilities and potential losses that are granted.
And for those who think that marriage equality campaigns have been equal in their outlook towards other relationships, there are a number of examples where the two parents are better than one mantra has been trotted out in radio and television debates – the most recent being Frontline prior to the passage of the CP Bill. There are many lone parents, straight and gay who have been hugely excluded and offended by the messages which have emitted by those committed to the ‘marriage above all else’ cause. That’s how it has appeared whether the campaigners wanted it to or not. And I think there has been an absence of recognition of other relationship forms in the debate on purpose because some believe it weakens their position.
Many people think that women’s equality has been achieved and so marriage is equal. 13 percent of TD’s being female, lower rates of pay and men in senior positions in female dominated workforces including trade unions, domestic violence and sexual assault statistics can be brushed aside.
I have frequently commented both online and in public fora about the exclusionary nature of the debate and campaign so far – very little today has changed my view of the debate. If you spin something to mean something else and play on romantic heart strings maybe the conformity, the pressure to be coupled, the problems that marriage causes and discrimination at the heart of it will go way, if one looks away for a bit maybe.
Its worth thinking as well I think abt. who we further marginalise in the rush for marriage “equality.” There is a dangerous precedent in pushing further and further into a social reality that affirms a gay/straight binary and makes queer liberation contingent on on an institution, started by straight people, which has not just engendered, perpetuated and institutionalised gender inequality and subjugation, but has done the same to almost any idea of “the family” (or w/e, gawd) that falls outside its narrow remit. It is a normalising social technology that you would hope would be contrary to the goals and and principles that define a queer political movement, but I think it should extend beyond that to anybody who is suspicious of how institutions like this become powerful ordering forces.
Aaah, complicated. I’ve recently said that if my UK civil partnership were force-converted into a marriage, I would divorce my partner. I am already horribly uncomfortable with the way people tell me I’m “married” and ask if they should call my partner my “wife”. But I willingly entered into a legal relationship that is more or less exactly the same as civil marriage, so who am I to get precious about a word?
I wish we, as LGBT people in the UK, had asked for something more radical, had asked for the mainstream to listen to what being unrecognised outcasts had taught us about family and love and support. I wish I didn’t feel torn between being a feminist, fundamentally disgusted by the historical meaning of marriage, and wanting, as a queer, not to be legally separate and inferior.
“There is a distinct class agenda to the marriage campaign. Inheritance tax issues are oft cited as a concern. Personally, I’m not overly excited by what happens to my holiday home upon my death, as concerned KAL when they spoke in UCC, as I don’t own one.”
While this may be once concern in the KAL case, it hardly suggests it is the main concern of most gay couples that wish to marry. If concentrating solely on the legal aspects of marriage, most issues aren’t even vaguely class related. Visitation rights at hospitals being one. And as for inheritance, people of varying “classes” will have a family home they are concerned for. Picking out one couple’s concerns for their holiday home as evidence of a class issue is pretty spurious.
The analysis of social welfare also strikes me as flawed. If a lesbian is classed as “dependent”, this seems to me purely to be based on her lack of a job, while her spouse has a job, and nothing to do with her gender. How can it have “sexist connotations” when the two parties involved are of the same sex? One would presume it would equally apply to gay men.
The analysis of the symbolism of marriage is also suspect. Firstly, the white dress (as far as I’m aware) is a relatively recent American import. My grandmother wore a skirt and jacket. The debate about name-changing linked to in the original post showed that this is a more complex issue than “property rights”. Even if the symbolism of a father giving a daughter away has its origins in property rights (I’m not sure it does, given that the white dress has a more complex origin than we are led to believe), the origin of the symbolism is less important than the fact that women today don’t see it as an exchange of property.
I may be misinterpreting maman poulet’s last comment, but her emphasis on the legal aspects of marriage, and reference to spinning something as something else, seems to indicate that the belief that marriage is primarily a romantic commitment is flawed. Yet how many people get married for legal reasons, and how many get married for the romantic commitment reason. I think this shows the true nature of marriage, which is hardly spin.
@Mark. Think you missed my point re social welfare — it is about the concept of being a ‘dependent’ per se. An issue which has significant gender connotations. A little background feminist reading should familiarize you with the issues.
Your point taken re holiday home issue, didn’t mean to suggest that it was KAL’s primary concern either, nor of significance to many gay and lesbian people. However, I still maintain that there is a class aspect. The public discussion never mentions the negative connotations for many lesbian and gay people, particularly with regard to the effects on social welfare entitlement. Or the exclusion that those who parent alone may experience with the reifying of the married family as the ideal to which we should aspire.
With regard to hospital visitation rights, and indeed consent issues and end of life issues — One should not need to be married in order to be considered the next-of-kin, the right to designate whomsoever we wish as our next of kin should be the right of every individual. What if we are single and want to designate our best friend rather than unsympathetic family-of-origin members? Marriage does not solve any of these issues for many people.
Indeed you may be correct about the wearing of white, but don’t doubt the significance of the ‘giving away’. A wife was legally a chattel, that is a legally owned by her husband, until the 1980′s. In fact I recall that in 1982 my english teacher, a single woman in her forties was asked to get her father’s signature on a loan application as she had no husband to give her ‘permission’ to take it out.
Again, as I said in my first comment the argument against the marriage equality agenda is that such privileges as there are should not be vested in marriage. All the legal concerns with regard to parental rights, next-of-kin rights, tax, inheritance, social welfare rights etc. etc. should be vested in us as individuals. If people want a public commitment, which is legally binding, it should be there for them. But so many privileges, that exclude so many people from them — those who can’t or won’t or don’t want to get married — should not be given to those who can and will and want to get married, and denied to others. Seeking to join a club with privileges that excludes others is not an ‘equality’ campaign.
I think this post misses several points, the main one being that arguing against civil marriage because of its anti-feminist past is all well and good, but that is kinda sorta based on the assertion of power a man had against a woman in a legal contract, and the restrictions that placed on a woman’s life. Correct me if I’m wrong but that changes SLIGHTLY when there are two people of the same gender married.
Una, Feminism examines the role of the state in oppressing women. There are many forms of feminist thought on the position of marriage in terms of patriarchy (as we have seen in this discussion) and this extends to the role of the state. We have seen from other comments that some believe that opening marriage to all makes it a more egalitarian institution however I believe that it’s existence has forced women to marry and will continue to do so.
While I contend that men benefit from marriage more than women do it’s the institution of marriage which privileges participants over those who do not marry, and it is also favoured by the state to control relationships and those within them and remove individuality. No matter what the gender of those within a marriage it leaves one or both parties open to abuse. Marriage is not liberating for those who marry and I don’t agree that opening it to same sex couples makes it a less oppressive institution.
Una – but only slightly, in my experience. I’m a woman with a female partner, and I’m the birth mother and until recently the mostly-stay-at-home main carer for our two young children. The model of marriage I and my partner both grew up with weighs heavily on our division of responsibilities, making it hard to break out and devise a new way of partnering and parenting. It’s caused heartbreak and conflict for us.
On a feminist economics course I took last year, someone told me of a PhD someone had done in division of labour in female/female couple households, and our experience was apparently very typical – until/ unless there are children, the division is much more equal, but thereafter, the main carer becomes the “woman” and it all becomes very familiar. I must look up this PhD so I can properly credit the woman whose work I’m citing, but my point is that having only marriage as a model and an aspiration damages women in all kinds of relationships. Aspiring to break us *all* out of that model will benefit us all.
I Read the original post with interest, I might not agree with the views of the author but I think it’s important to listen to the views of those who have concerns or doubts about the marriage campaign and are not a part of the right wing, conservative movement. I am very much aware that many people who identify as LGBTQGI disagree or have no interest in marriage equality, or in the institution of marriage. I respect their opinions and welcome opposing views as it stimulates debate and discussion on the topic.
What I resent, however, is the inference that it is a class issue. As Other Mark quite rightly noted, calling us ‘you and your pals’ comes across as snide and sneering, and is an insult to me and the 5000 people who marched last year. I have been on social welfare, it was a last resort, and as long as I breathe, I will never do it again. I did not have a silver spoon childhood or free ticket to college, everything I have I have worked cried and bled for. So for someone to suggest that I am some bourgeois daddy’s girl who is playing about with gay rights because I’m bored, or that because I’m married that I am somehow less empowered than single or feminist women or under the thumb of my husband, well that makes me furious.
I put it to you that far from being the salt of the earth ‘feminists’ you claim to be, some of you approach the situation of other women who fall short of your ideals from a lofty position.
I am not a feminist, I am not a gay rights campaigner, and I don’t support the rights of one social or economic group over another. I want equal rights for everyone, regardless of their ‘class’, their age, their economic or geographical background, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, if they are a settled person or a traveller, for people of all religious and ethnic backgrounds.
I would say to the opponents of gay marriage, if you don’t want gay marriage, don’t get one. It does not affect you in any way whatsoever if gay marriage is achieved. Your right to disagree will not be affected and you can continue to campaign against failures in family legislation or social welfare legislation, systems which are in dire need of reform.
People deserve the right to choose for themselves.
‘So for someone to suggest that I am some bourgeois daddy’s girl who is playing about with gay rights because I’m bored, or that because I’m married that I am somehow less empowered than single or feminist women or under the thumb of my husband, well that makes me furious. ‘
….Its a very fair point! Many modern women are empowered within their marriages.
And I have to agree with Mark when he says,
‘where the past of an institution or entitlement, seems to matter more to you than the present.’
I think you might be missing the point Una, its not only about the genders involved in a marriage but how marriage is gendered in the eyes of society, hence when I used the comment from my friend that she is to be defined as an “unmarried lesbian” having been defined for most of her adult life as an ” unmarried mother”- it is an example of how society and its institutions define women according to their marital state, much more so than men.
This is not a situation that will change with gay marriage, on the contrary it will be entrenched even further. I would love to believe that same sex marriage will change the nature and import of marriage in a patriarchial society, but given how the politics of the campaign to date have been conducted and even the arguments put here by its proponents combined with the honesty of some individuals already in civil partnerships who are not comfortable with the “baggage” their choice has brought with it, I have no faith whatsoever that marriage will be irreparably changed by gays access to it. On the contrary, the complete absence of any feminist or class analysis from its proponents leaves me fearing the very worst.
@Kate – interesting to read about your experience. Do you think, however that your experience is more about the pressures and roles assigned in a ‘family unit’ as opposed to a ‘marriage’?
Interesting arguement, would the availability of marraige homogenise all with the one conventional brush, yes its a possibility. As everything is based on choice, but only the with choices pre-ordrained and therefore open to us, how much c…hoice is there actually?. Looking at it from another perspective, should we say governments are ineffective so why bother carrying on “allowing” women to vote, because they are obviously too intelligent and important to indulge in this pseudo democracy? There are many reasons why people get married and many reasons why people don’t, I respect all. Some are legal, some are romantic and some are downright conventional. Yes, some people may feel compromised by having to divulge their earnings to their partners, but if you are sleeping with, buying groceries with and sharing your life, hopes and fears with someone who you don’t want to discuss a mere concept as trvial in the grand scheme of things as money with, is there something wrong? My neighbour lived with her partner for 25 years. The same said partner died a few years ago, apparently having inherited millions, my neighbour is still in limbo with regards to the will because her relationship was not validated or recognised. And yes, the expectation of marriage and happy ever after is unrealistic and sometimes downright unobtainable. I remember having a conversation when I was 23 with my then boyfriend and a friend saying I would definitely live with someone before and if I got married. They were both quite shocked and both said they would not. My friend did but in America (most of my friends did in UK, the Morality “issue” was just not doing it in Ireland!) and my ex boyfirend got married at 22, both are now divorced.
I find it extraordinary that any human being can decide to get married just because they are a certain age or because they feel they have run out of options, 50 or 60 years with someone who you feel luke warm about can be a hell of a long time to allow the thaw to set in. Marraige should be approached with extreme caution whether you are gay or straight. For some people, its really important that they make this statement of their love in this way, for others, they need the legal back-up, for many it is not necessary, but choice should reign supreme, and is in all aspects of life, thought should over-rule tradition. Think about what you are doing and who you are doing it with. Keeping my own name and not observing any religious mindless rituals and living in a vegetarian family were all very important to me. 20 years later, forever doesn’t seem like such a long time.
@Maman Poulet – so then you’re arguing against all marriage then, not just civil marriage for same sex couples? Marriage might have negative connotations for you but some people it’s actually a positive expression of their long term love. Given that it is available to heterosexuals, and that any right minded person’s goal should be to live in a society governed by equality then it should also be available to LGBT people.
If you don’t fancy a civil marriage then don’t consider one, but don’t direct “snorts of derision” to those who are fighting for what they see as their own civil rights and the civil rights of others.
We can either all continue to whinge about the historical oppression of marriage, or we can change it. I think it’s a slightly more positive and progressive move to choose the latter.
una unfortunately those campaigning for gay marriage don’t give much concern to the civil rights of others. The campaigns have largely centred on the introduction of full civil marriage to the exclusion of other forms of relationship recognition or existence.
The blinkered narrow vision of the campaigns about the rights of those who have not or cannot marry have been excluded and the rights of children have also been ignored as marriage is held up as a panacea to mess that is children’s rights which it is not.
This is modernity that I refer to – many think that the questioning of the goal of marriage by the lgbt community is about historic oppression long gone days – Rights of parents and rights of children to their parents will not be solved by same sex marriage. Modernity continues to oppress and those within our community are to the fore in oppressing those outside their community on many basis other than gender as is clear from many contributions to the comments so far.
I think you have a pretty skewed view of the gay rights movement in Ireland if you think “those campaigning for gay marriage don’t give much concern to the civil rights of others.” What does that statement even mean?
“The campaigns have largely centred on the introduction of full civil marriage to the exclusion of other forms of relationship recognition or existence.” – what other forms of relationship recognition? Are you proposing different sets of legal statuses for every kind of relationship?
“the rights of children have also been ignored” – I don’t believe this to be true either. The rights of children are pretty much central to the campaign for civil marriage, which is why you see plenty of same-sex parented family units marching. Do you think that children’s rights would not be more protected if their parents – biological or otherwise – are married? Of course we should have a child-centered constitution, something that was previously promised and never delivered, but that is a separate point entirely.
Una the snorts of derision were about me taking part in the march and not those taking part in it itself – I thought most friends knew my feelings on Marriage. Well I think they do now given the amount of correspondence since.
Hilarious ad Fail by google above:
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LOL
Argh. f-ing WordPress – we can’t stop these ads appearing in certain browsers or devices – none of the editors have ever seen them. They’re certainly not endorsed by us and we’re certainly not making any money out of them!
Oh don’t worry I’m aware of that, just a funny coincidence.
“@Maman Poulet – so then you’re arguing against all marriage then, not just civil marriage for same sex couples? Marriage might have negative connotations for you but some people it’s actually a positive expression of their long term love. Given that it is available to heterosexuals, and that any right minded person’s goal should be to live in a society governed by equality then it should also be available to LGBT people. ”
I read it quite clearly as Maman looking at the issue
from the perspective of feminist engagement with
the issue of marriage and not necessarily from
a personal perspective.
Hence the ensuing discussion and perspectives from
many viewpoints- not just from the OP of the original
article.
its a necessary debate because that view has been quite absent.
Yeah, I totally agree. I don’t think its fair to say that we should support gay marriage just because a lot of our fellow queers do. Many people disagree on many different fronts about what is required for gay liberation, and the gay community is not a homogenous group. The opening post and a lot of the thoughtful responses given underneath underline this fact in a way that has not really been voiced in the media attention that has surrounded this issue over the last year or so.
A lot of the more practical oppositions have focussed on issues of childcare or inheritance, which I would argue would be better served by being addressed *directly* instead of displaced onto another institution, particularly one with such a dodgy history as marriage.
I feel though, that a large issue at stake for many people, and for this I can only give the evidence of my own personal experience talking to others, is that a certain type of legitimacy is what we are really looking for. You hear it in the quibbles over whether marriage or civil partnerships are the same thing (ie, whether they grant the same legitimacy). With this in mind I think its crucial for those who feel as I do that marriage is not the way forward for the Gay movement, as it consolidates the institutional structures that have marginalised gays as well as straight women AND men and anybody whose families fall outside of its narrow ideal.
I understand that not everybody will agree with me, and overall I am disappointed by the conservatism of the gay marriage movement and how this seems to have monopolised the attention of gay rights and become the telos of our movement at this point in history.
I don’t think there was anything to monopolise. Gay rights in Ireland had been stagnant in Ireland since decriminalisation (except for the great work of a few voluntary bodies and GLEN behind the scenes).
This hard won mobilization of the community can he harnessed to tackle additional inequalities. It should be a time of excitement rather than disappointment.
As for what other LGB rights issues there have been in the 17 years since decriminalisation: the campaign to have and implement equality legislation itself, HIV & AIDS awareness, the campaign against homophobic bullying in schools, fighting for recognition of lesbian health issues, LGB teachers struggle to have the employment equality legislation extended to catholic schools and the ongoing work to have disabled gays recognised and included within the LGB movement are some that spring to mind.
@Christine,
I still do not agree re social welfare. I see it as in the same spirit of the original post where the past of an institution or entitlement, seems to matter more to you than the present.
In modern social welfare assessments, “dependent” seems to apply to a person currently not in work, who has a partner currently in work. This makes complete sense for a number of reasons. Firstly, aren’t children regarded as dependents, both male and female? Surely this is not due to gender connotations but their status as non-earners who are DEPENDENT on a single wage (even semantically the term makes full sense). Secondly, you yourself pointed out that the term is applied to men equally these days. I imagine this is a common situation after the recession, where a man may be dependent on his wife’s salary. I don’t see any gender connotation here, just a realistic assessment of a current situation. Lastly, I don’t think there was ever any real gender connotation ot the term. The fact of the matter is that women were more dependent on the salaries of men in the past. While of course that fact itself needed to be addressed, the use of the term “dependent” to describe someone as being reliant on another’s salary is a seperate issue to that.
On a related note, the issue of giving lower payments to a married couple rather than two individual full payments also makes sense. There are many expenses in a joint household that do not increase proportionally with the number of people living there. For example, a single person buying a two bedroom house will have the same mortgage repayments and heating bill that a newly married couple would.
So as far as I can see, the only example you have of it being a class issue is a wealthy couple concerned about their holiday home. This is obviously an uncommon extreme, which leads me to completely disagree with you on the supposed class issues of this campaign.
And while I do understand the symbolic aspects of a marriage ceremony, I think what the people who point this out fail to understand is that these ancient traditions do not symbolise this to modern women. I have (jokingly) pointed out to engaged couples the old symbolism, and they are usually completely unaware. They thought the father giving them away was a nice way to share the day with their father. My belief is that if a symbolism isn’t recognized then it has no impact. Others seem to disagree and posit a subconscious level where all these things make an impact. I don’t think I’ll ever agree on this, but it does tie into my comment that the original post and some comments give far too much weight to the past origins of something.
And while I agree that similar rights should be opened to everyone (I’d have to go through those rights and give it more though though), things like next-of-kin can be problematic. What of a case where a person is in a coma and hasn’t nominated next-of-kin but wished their current housemate to be that next-of-kin. This would be a legalistic nightmare if their was no record of this. I suppose marriage provides an AUTOMATIC next-of-kin nomination, which would be important in a case where someone hasn’t expressly indicated their choice of next-of-kin and is no longer in a position to do so.
The early few introduced without massive community engagement thanks to the hard work of the ‘few voluntary bodies and GLEN’ that I mentioned.
Others like ‘fighting for recognition of lesbian health issues, LGB teachers struggle to have the employment equality legislation extended to catholic schools and the ongoing work to have disabled gays recognised and included within the LGB movement’ are far from being achieved.
They will all depend on the mass mobilisation and engagement of the gay community. The marriage campaign is the first to do so and has the potential to politicise a whole generation. That was my point! And it is worth rejoicing.
Mark- you seem overly excited about “a mass movement” that still hasnt acheived ITS objective yet.
The campaigns that were won were won by a few hard working, determined and out people working at grassroots level, making alliances with other discriminated groups and organisations, building support across a range of interests. The model that the gay marriage mvmt itself has utilised. And yes, the struggle say, to have disabled gays treated with respect and included in the LGB movement will only happen when LGB people become less self-interested and willing to recognise that they also are responsible for perpetuating inequality and discrimination, but dont expect that to happen ‘en masse’ anytime soon. Given the resistance to hearing and respecting any other viewpoint on Gay marriage coming from other LGBs, I’d say it’ll be a cold day in hell before there’s anything like the depth of understanding of what constitutes true equality coming from that direction.
Yes Mark, I agree about thinking about traditions. A lot of women are shocked when I tell them that their father giving them away actually symbolises that his daughter was owned by him and is now owned by her husband!!. My father certainly didn’t give me away, I got married in a Registry Office, my sister was our best woman, kept my own name, our children are double-barrelled and we did not participate in any religious rituals like communion etc. because I dont believe in being a nominal catholic. I have seen so many people compromise over the years by starting with a church wedding and carrying on with communion etc. saying they “had” to do it to get their children into the Catholic School. Our kids went to a multi-denominational school for primary. I think its very important that all these issues are discussed prior to marriage and that people do not get swept away by pre-ordained expectations and find themselves totally compromised to “keep the peace”.
Irish men still somewhat “own” their wives. I had a stillbirth in 1992, and while pregnant in 1993, I asked the Doctor to tie my tubes while I was on the table having a c-section. He handed me a piece of paper. I required my husband’s signature to have sterilisation surgery on my own body. I asked the Doctor if my husband required my signature for a vasectomy and the resounding answer was no!
I don’t know if this law has been changed, BUT, that was only 17 yrs ago! I was shocked.
Yes Orflaith, that was completely nuts, it still angers me when I hear stories like that, there is still a lot of work to be done.
I’ve enjoyed the debate so far and appreciated Maman Poulet’s post in raising issues about the views on marriage and asking about what had changed things for people to feel comfortable about it or for it to be viewed differently. And I think it is safe to say that there are a lot of differences of opinion.
As someone who is straight and lived with her partner for 10 years before getting married I’m surprised to think that some people feel there are no financial or legal consequences or reasons for marriage and that now it is all about love.
I did not need the country I live in to tell me who I love or how I should love him. I got enough of that from my family and the squinting windows in the town I came from and even from workmates. There is still a pressure to marry, it is not historic. I still resent the fact that I had to marry in order to insure my future and that two adults could not consent to enter into agreements and be respected in another way. A civil partnership would have suited me fine if it was available.
I got married because I was not working at the time and retraining and because it made sense for my partner to claim my tax free allowance at the time. We both had pensions, one of which would not have been transferable to me if he had died. I didn’t need to marry for love, it was as a result of a discussion regarding the purchase of property, planning for future study and career moves and undertakings we were both making financially together. It made sense but it was not needed by me or my partner to show the world we were committed. I know I’m now privileged in being married and want to see everyone have the rights they want but a civil partnership would have suited me fine if it was available.
I know these are some of the reasons that lesbian and gay people are looking for official recognition of their relationships but the way in which society changed the way they looked on me that when I got married was alarming
Because we got married quietly with a few friends present the resentment from family and others was really telling, their big day out was denied. The constant refrains of being finally legitimate as if we were doing something akin to terrorism before. But I’m no longer seen as a threat by some women because I’m married, safe ground it seems. Tied down. I don’t love my partner any more or less and nobody else seems to care if we love each other or not. It seems that marriage makes us proper.
I know I’m now privileged in being married and that makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m also uncomfortable being referred to as Mrs X which some people automatically do and suddenly I become my partner’s wife, his property and he mine. A gay friend refers to her her girlfriend as her wife, at first I thought it was a term of endearment but she explained she did it for people to take her relationship seriously! For me the problem with marriage is the institution and it’s legitimacy, the gender differences have lessened definitely but the way in which it makes people responsible and more respected and excludes those who are not married is definitely something that must be talked about and challenged.
[...] Byrne (of Maman Poulet and Anti-Room) is one of [...]
‘….Given the resistance to hearing and respecting any other viewpoint on Gay marriage ….’
I disagree with your Marie. There is ample opportunity, that has been used many times by maman poulet etc to express an alternative view. However, it is, in my view, an extremely minority view and has failed to take hold in the community for all of the logical reasons outlined above by other people who posted comments. This is different to resistance to your viewpoint as I know groups like Noise have happily gone to the Lesbian lives conference the last few years and indeed all over the country and debated the issue.
Disagreement is very different to resistance. Everybody has equal access to the community.
So, this viewpoint is a “minority” viewpoint – so therefore it can be ignored- just like LGBs are a minority and were ignored. LGBT Noise have not debated the issue- they have spoken to the converted. In fact I spoke on this issue at Lesbian Lives Conference too, to a packed room and apart from a couple of LGB NOise reps, the rest of the room expressed their own concerns about the rush to marriage. I also obtained a copy of Noelle’s speech at LL as I had not been able to attend her workshop and she invited my comments- I read her material thoroughly several times and emailed her my comments and suggested that further discussion would be good- I never heard another thing about it.
And the “ample opportunity” that Maman Poulet may or may not have to air her views is presumably through her blog- opportunities she makes for herself, certainly not ones provided by those in favour of gay marriage to engage with a dissenting viewpoint from within their own community.
And Mark, if gay marriage is so widely subscribed to within the community, how come there are are only 5000 outside an empty Dail on a sunday in August and not 50,000?
You have made a truly sweeping claim of a “minority viewpoint” and in doing so have wittingly or unwittingly attempted to diminsh that viewpoint so that it does not have to be engaged with, in exactly the same way that other “minorities” have been dealt with for too long. However, I would refute the assertion that it is a minority viewpoint, given the number of people who have also come on here and expressed reservations about marriage as the only form of relationship recognition, about the finiancial implications for poorer gays, the gendered nature of marital status, the discrimination which will continue for those who do not choose/want marriage etc. I also know from my own contacts, networks and discussions that there are many who feel seem similarly.
What is clear from this debate, is that those of us who do have concerns, have actually examined alternatives, analysed the impact of marriage and explored other, more radical and more inclusive options ( you might even draw from that, that possibly this is an issue which we have been engaging with long before two white m/class highly privileged individuals who had remained in the closet and who’s choice to marry was dictated by their religious beliefs , ever appeared centre stage to tell us how terribly they had suffered under “apartheid”). For detailed information on those other options (and Una might want to avail of this too) take a look at the ICCL’s 2006 research report on “Equality For All Families”.
What comes across from the gay marriage proponents is a naive embrace of all things marriage, an absence of any feminist understanding, an ignorance of the history of the issue and sadly of what equality for all means, a refusal to look at the flaws and implications of this campaign and a too quick impulse to deride, disparage and diminish any opposing viewpoint.
I know why I have to some extent not been more vocal about my concerns on gay marriage :
1. I dont want to give any comfort to the homophobic right that there is internal conflict within the LGB movement
2. That to dissent on this issue will clearly be met with what Prof Kathleen Lynch in Equality Studies refers to as ” demonisation of dissenters”.
So those of us with a different view are caught between the rock of the religious right and the vicious, hard place of a campaign that refuses to acknowledge difference even within its own community.
-As Mark said, I never advocated ignoring the minority viewpoint. I simply said that the anti views have not taken hold in the community after, I believe, people have weighted up the arguments. That does not ‘diminish’ your view
-We both know 5000 outside the Justice department (not Dail) is unprecedented. Outside of Pride it has never happened for a single issue inequality. You cannot argue that this is not an overwhelming endorsement of the interests of a large section of the LGBT community in getting married (even if that is not convenient to your argument)
-I nearly didn’t respond as your attacks on KAL grow more and more disgusting. A simple formula, ‘middle class + education = interest in maintaining status quo’ is a little too simple. I have read their book and seen them speak and their arguments are a lot more sophisticated and cogent than that. You might be interested to know that they personally know Archbishop Desmond Tutu (in their book) so maybe they are in a better position than most to reflect on the principles of ‘apartheid’. You attacks are rather ironic given your constant argument that opponents of gay marriage are derided (However, despite seeing constant attacks on pro-marriage groups in really vitriolic terms, I have never seen the opposite. Perhaps a link might help me?)
- While your unwillingness to give the right wingers any material by stifling criticism is laudable (although online is quite public), I have addressed how you could have vocalised it in a post below to Christine.
@Mark. Read your own contribution. Equating children being dependents with adults being classed as dependents is offensive, and it has to do with more than money. But you don’t seem to be able to understand the issues around it. Just to try to explain it again in a different way. In household surveys, there is a space for ‘head of the household’, normally of course presumed to be the man with a hetero couple. And all sort of boxes get ticked on the basis of his job and level of education. This still happens. So a woman with a PhD is classed as manual semi skilled if that is the employment her husband, as head of the house has. This is because of sexist assumptions about men and women, assumptions which still prevail in our society no matter what you or your spectacularly unaware young women friends may know. So even when it comes to same sex couples, because of the sexist paradigm, one person still has to be ‘head of the household’. The issue of ‘dependent’ is feminism 101. It’s a pity that the backlash that has been going on for the last couple of decades seems to have wiped out the capacity for critical thinking about social concepts of gender and political institutions.
As to the symbolism of marriage which you dismiss as being of yesteryear. Symbolism influences all aspects of human existence. After all language itself is symbolic, if you don’t recognize the sexism and homophobic and racist elements that are built into language, and therefore into every element of society itself then it’s hardly surprising that you aren’t understanding the issue of dependency and other rights issues.
The depiction of the value of woman as less than man, her denigration, her enslavement to her reproductive capacity, her objectification and being treated as an object has been around for thousands of years, anyone who believes that that has all changed in the last few decades is delusional. Marriage was the legal ownership of women, why do you think women had to change their name, the fact that they still do displays the fact that in reality not much has really changed, social structures thousands of years in the making do not radically change in a few decades, it will take generations. (Please no spurious tales from anyone about women who didn’t change their names in the past, in this case the exception proves the rule.)
@Other Mark, you say that ‘Everybody has equal access to the community.’ The marriage equality campaign is extremely well funded, and has access to media which is not available to those of us who disagree with the campaign. Many are silenced, the squeaky clean “wanna-be just like the heterosexuals, really are just like the heterosexuals” is the only voice out there in the social sphere. I appreciate the uses of ‘strategic essentialism’ in the public discourse, but it doesn’t represent all of us, and those of us who are excluded feel marginalized in an already marginalized community. We need rights and respect as individuals, not by fitting into the heterosexual norm, which as I and others have pointed out exhaustively is deeply flawed.
Let me make this clear I couldn’t give a damn if people want to get married, I don’t think that any rights should be denied to any individual on the basis of their sex, gender, sexuality, class, religion, ethnicity, able-bodiedness, or any other ‘othering’ that is perpetuated in this society. But the whole focus of our ‘rights’ campaigning on marriage excludes a dialogue on the bigger, and fundamentally more important big picture. In Canada the LGBTQ community rejected same-sex marriage on the very points that we have been discussing, because it mapped heterosexist notions of dependency etc. onto same-sex couples. What happened? They reformed the sexist discriminatory elements of their tax and welfare and social systems, and treated everyone as equals under the law. To be clear, the LGBTQ community changed the whole society for the better for everyone in it. Then they brought in same-sex marriage. We shouldn’t be focussing on looking for access to privileges denied to others, those privileges should be available to all. I’ll repeat myself again, as the pro same-sex marriage contributers don’t engage with this point, looking to join a club with privileges that excludes others is by definition not an equality campaign. We need a right’s based system where rights don’t depend on being a married couple. I’d have thought that this blindingly obvious point wouldn’t be too hard to grasp, but apparently not.
@Marie
I think you’ve put words in othermark’s mouth. Saying that something is a minority viewpoint is not an attempt to dismiss it without debate. Othermark qualifies it by saying it is a minority viewpoint that in his opinion has not caught on in the wider gay community. Do you not believe something can be described as a minority viewpoint, if it is a viewpoint that the minority subscribe to?
Also, there seems to be a big contradiction in your comment. You say that Noise has not engaged with your point of view, then say reps from Noise came to the talk on it. Also, see the document addressing some feminist concerns from marriage equality. You seem to think that a body that assesses your view and doesn’t agree with it, is somehow discriminatory, which is plainly ridiculous. As far as I’m aware, the groups campaigning for marriage equality don’t claim to represent every opinion in the gay community. The furore with GLEN last year should open everyone’s eyes to the fact that a campaigning body does not represent everyone. However, Noise and ME seem to have acknowledged your viewpoint, but you can’t expect them to change the nature of their campaign if they disagree with you.
This is not meant to be dismissive (and btw I’m not associated with any fo the campaigns) but Noise have their agenda, and peole of a different viewpoint do have the option of setting up their own campaign group. If Noise changed their campaign to encompass your viewpoint, then one could argue that it is no longer representing the viewpoint of the people who currently support it.
@Christine
Telling me I don’t understand the issues is not the best of rebuttals. I explained in detail why I did not agree with your assessment of social welfare. I understand the issues surrounding social welfare, and I believe that for assessments of “dependence”, it is solely referring to monetary dependence, not the other kinds of dependence, whcih you allude to, but don’t explicitly cover. I do not find it offensive for a man or woman to be classified as financially dependent on someone else. It seems to me to be a statement of fact. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that but please don’t tell me I do not understand the issues.
Even in your “head of household” example, you seem more concerned with what would “traditionally” have been the case, rather than what is the case. Firstly, I presume this would refer to unmarried couples just as much as it would married couples, so its kind of irrelevant to a debate on the effects of marriage. Secondly, there seems to be nothing in the form preventing a couple from naming the woman as head of the house. Now maybe its rare that couples actually take this option, but that seems to me to be a social thing, or the choice of the couple involved. But I do agree that the concept of head of household is outdated.
I don’t need a lecture on language and symbolism, I’m a linguist doing research into metaphor and the understanding of metaphor, so I’m well up to speed on symbolism in language.
One thing I can tell you is that symbolism changes. Many words, phrases and metaphors used to have a clear symbolic origin and connotations. For many of these words and phrases, the symbolic connotation has now been completely wiped out (Red Herring is a good example). So your analogy between linguistic symbolism isn’t really a good one. It actually would prove my point more than yours, that symbols can lose their connotation and no longer produce the original image.
You also have stated that symbolism influences all aspects of human existence. I disagree with such a sweeping statement. The correct statement would be that symbolism CAN influence aspects of human existence. And each example needs to be carefully looked at and debated rather than brushing it under a sweeping statement that stifles debate and wouldn’t stand up to empirical scrutiny.
The fact that you raise a woman changing her name, linking it to ownership rights of women and then claim “nothing much has changed” is bizarre in the extreme. You really believe that nothing much has changed in this regard? I think divorce, among many other changes, would say otherwise.
Lastly, I will say that the tone of your reply was extremely condescending. References to feminism 101 are silly, I’ve taken classes in feminism, I just disagreed with some of the things they had to say (and agreed with other things). Its really patronising to be told I don’t understand the issue, or feminism, or that my friends are spectacularly unaware. Do you think everyone who disagrees with you is automatically uneducated?
One thing I can tell you is that symbolism changes. Many words, phrases and metaphors used to have a clear symbolic origin and connotations. For many of these words and phrases, the symbolic connotation has now been completely wiped out (Red Herring is a good example). So your analogy between linguistic symbolism isn’t really a good one. It actually would prove my point more than yours, that symbols can lose their connotation and no longer produce the original image.
Fact is that the Constitution, statute and law has not
changed, indeed, I believe that the equality issues
raised here have not been addressed.
Symbolism and metaphor may change but the law
as it stands is unchanged and sexist at base level….
and where there are children , there will be dependency.
To me the definition of marriage is unchanged, until
those issues are confronted (and kudos to Maman
for raising them) – I almost did not note their absence
from the debate . mostly the feminist element at Oireachtas
level has also been absent but that is mostly unsurprising
given the dearth of female representation.
@ Mark, you said “I don’t need a lecture on language and symbolism, I’m a linguist doing research into metaphor and the understanding of metaphor, so I’m well up to speed on symbolism in language.”
Well as a linguist I’m surprised that you missed my point that language itself is symbolic. I don’t deny that symbolism changes, it patently does. Indeed, language itself also changes. However both syntax and semantics are very slow to change. The syntax and semantics of English are sexist, have been for as long as the language itself has existed, and will be long into the future I suspect. Yes, metaphors can change relatively quickly, often in only a generation or two, or in little over a century as with your red herring example, when a literal reference over time became metaphorical. But there’s a lot more to symbolism than metaphor, as I’m sure you know.
Language, which, as I said, is in itself symbolic, not only CAN but DOES influence all aspects of human existence. This is not an opinion, it is a matter of fact. As a linguist engaged in education I’m surprised that that hasn’t come up in any of your lectures.
As to your ‘spectacularly unaware’ friends, I most certainly do not think that everyone who disagrees with me is uneducated, and I most certainly did not imply that your friends were uneducated. Some of the most spectacularly unaware people that I’ve ever met are both highly educated and, because it is not the same thing, highly intelligent. Awareness of a multiplicity of issues does not rely on either quality.
I for one am very grateful to Maman Poulet for opening up this debate on the marriage equality issue. The institution of marriage, as the lynchpin of heterosexist society, has long been an issue for feminists, as indeed has social exclusion. These remain issues for feminism. I feel that through all the commentary it is a pity that the pro marriage people haven’t engaged with the issue of social inclusion and exclusion which drives the debate from the ‘anti’ side of the room. I too -as is obvious! – have gotten drawn into pedantic argument. My central point is, once again, that looking to be part of a privileged group that excludes others from privileges is not an equality campaign. Now if anyone from the pro side would like to actually engage with this aspect of the debate, I for one would appreciate it.
It is an interesting point Christine.
My thoughts are that it’s an equality campaign in the sense of wanting equal rights (i.e. Marriage rights). This is, and continues to be a separate debate to whether these rights that society doles out exclusively to couples represent inequality to citizens who do not marry.
It goes back to a point that I believe has been made in previous comments (and mine when I talked about the difference between reformation and transformation). The arguments against gay marriage are all broader arguments (some I believe justified) against the wider ‘institution’ of marriage. Thus, I don’t think the context of gays seeking equality is necessarily the right forum (with one exception below) for these arguments.
The exception: the gay marriage campaign have sparked an examination of marriage in the minds of the wider public (for example civil versus religious aspects), and the anti marriage points could have been delicately raised by calls for a public debate (without giving right-wingers ammunition as Marie mentioned) on why we have marriage rights and whether they exclude citizens who do not marry (and the other points raised above). Of course, this is the harder option with a lot more work involved than (and I am trying not to be mean) sniping from the sidelines about middle-class women who have obviously got too big for their boots according to some commentators here. Contrary to something Marie mentioned earlier, the media are very open to press releases from anyone.I don’t believe Marriage Equality has a special hotline. Headlines are hard fought for by all groups in society!. Plus, a group calling for this could have also sought private funding (as Marriage equality did to their credit) and could have made some impact. Instead, the questions and points raised here have not been clearly articulated by immersing oneself in the ‘anti-gay-marriage brigade’ rather than in an anti-marriage group (with legitimate concerns).
While some good points have been raised, I still believe marriage has evolved beyond its historical shackles and continues to do so (and will do so even more when gay people can marry). As regards whether the privileges of marriage are unfairly bestowed upon couples at the expense of single people, I will point out that there is social science research demonstrating that couples – as mutually dependent units that care for each other – contribute to social cohesion and are beneficial to the State. In the long term, these privileges get paid back (caring for eachother in old age etc). I don’t think this means that couples are better (and I’m single!), but support for these units can be justified on a simple cost-benefit analysis (and I don’t want to sound like David Quinn here).
Plus, I think society will not abandon marriage any time soon. I think it is up to gays to embrace it (and change it from the inside for the better). I think the benefit to gay visibility in society will be immersible and will lead to trickle down effects on outstanding inequalities (I think we have even seen some evidence of increased visibility breaking down barriers in the way the CP bill passed through the Dail. We had the amazing site of ‘traditional’ TDs and Senators talking about equality).
I’m not sure how i missed your point that language is symbolic. I addressed it with my disussion of metaphor. If you mean the broader symbolic aspect of language, namely that a phonetic word stands for a semantic concept, then this is wholly irrelevant to he type of symbolism we are discussing. This relation between word and sound is arbitrary. Is there a third type of symbolism you’re referring to? If so you’ll have to be more specific.
And I’m not sure how you can say the idea that symbolism affects all aspects of human life is fact. It is nothing of the sort.
Peter Thatchell’s piece in response to this Pink News questionnaire would be of interest to those who agree with Maman Poulet, that he wouldn’t like to get married, but still sees it as a very important issue because of the perpetuation of inequality. In this much, they’re two separate issues.
A few in response to the questionnaire propose continuing the option of civil partnerships for gay and straight couples, as well as extending an equal right to marriage. I think in the long run, social conservatives will regret not offering marriage equality in the first place, instead of setting up this example of not-quite-marriage.
[...] Posted by Maman Poulet on 21 Aug 2010 at 01:12 am | Tagged as: Blogging, Irish Media, Irish Politics, Live Blogging, Marriage Equality, Religious Right Dressed up as research institutes, Same Sex Partnerships I’ve taken a little blogging break here for the last ten days or so, but it’s not been completely quiet. You may have noted the post exploring the campaign for marriage and the change in how marriage is interpreted which I wrote earlier this week on The (Fabulous) AntiRoom. [...]
Just to add some more to the debate
http://www.humanrights.ie/index.php/2010/08/23/guest-post-barker-on-raining-on-the-civil-partnership-parade/
[...] here!), the post on that bizarre and outdated Irish phenomenon The Rose of Tralee, and of course the post on not being “the marrying kind”, a position I can certainly relate to never having had dreams of my own “big [...]
[...] Image via Wikipedia Next weekend a March for Marriage for lesbian and gay couples will take place in Dublin. Yesterday a friend asked me if I was going on it, I think she was rather surprised by the snorts of derision that escaped from my mouth. While I support the rights of people to celebrate their relationships and be recognised by the state and others I have always questioned the rush that same sex couples have taken in seeking marriage righ … Read More [...]