The Meaning of Marriage, Part 2

In ways large and small, and ways that I don't even know yet, marriage will change a lot about our relationship because of the meaning it holds both for us and for other people.  I have been a staunch advocate of marriage equality for as long as I can remember, but being on the verge of marriage myself really illuminates all the ways that marriage is different from a civil union.  Those changes I referenced in my last post, well, I'm not sure if or when they would've happened if Mr. FW and I weren't getting married. 

It seems to me that people have been viewing us differently since we got engaged, and I think it's because they know what a marriage is, they know what it means, and they know how to relate to it.  It's not like we didn't have a serious relationship before, because we did.  But our relationship looks somehow more significant to people now, and thus they react to it differently.  Like everyone else, we had the option of entering into a civil union or domestic partnership earlier in our relationship, but we wanted to get married.  And marriage is not the same as a civil union or a domestic partnership.  The proof of this is that even heterosexual couples avail themselves of these options in order to, say, take advantage of their partner's health insurance benefits, and they can do so prior to the point where they feel "ready" to get married.  For me personally it sometimes feels like civil unions and domestic partnerships are talked about as if they are "wedding light."  I don't necessarily see it that way, and I'm sure queer couples (who enter into those arrangements because they're the closest they can currently get to marriage) don't see it that way, but to me it's pretty clear that marriage is more than just the act of two people legally entangling themselves with one another.

For instance, we bought a house together (a legal and financial entanglement) long before we were ever engaged, and we could tell at the time that some people thought that was probably an irresponsible decisions for us to make. Because as a society we tend to understand things like joint home ownership through the lens of marriage.  And we understand raising children through the lens of marriage.  We understand so much through the lens of marriage.  Yes, these are culturally constructed understandings of marriage, but Mr. FW and I live in this culture and we can't separate ourselves from that.

We have grappled very seriously with the potential hypocrisy of taking advantage of the institution of marriage when it would have been denied to us as recently as a year ago.  I don't think there are any easy answers to this issue, either.  In the end, we came to some important conclusions that feel okay to us but might not be a good fit for other people.  So I offer the caveat that these thoughts are ours and ours alone.

image via Stinkerpants.com (aka Mrs. Cream Puff!)

First, we have been supportive of any couple who wants to avail themselves of marriage at any time they can.  This has included brief periods of time where gay marriage was allowed in San Francisco and/or legal in California, even if those decisions were later reversed.  In fact, we considered getting married as a queer couple back when it would have been legal in California, but we decided we didn't want to rush something that was so important to us.  Second, we can't see a way that not accessing the privilege of legal marriage for ourselves would support the fight for marriage equality.  We actually think that accessing marriage will give us a platform to better speak to people about just what marriage gives us that we wouldn't have had access to otherwise.  We both strongly believe that individuals with privilege can - and should - find ways to utilize that privilege to advocate for those without privilege.  And third, we recognize that, for us, knowingly engaging in such privilege necessitates taking on the responsibility of acknowledging that privilege whenever we can and not allowing ourselves to become blind to it.

We have come to these conclusions based on what marriage means to us right now, as an unmarried but engaged couple.  I'm interested to see how getting married, being married, and staying married will change how we perceive its meaning in the future.

What experiences have you had that illustrate the meaning of marriage in your life?