For the last time: Marriage is NOT an institution.

[elperromagico]

I have heard on CNN tonight both Tom "Bugman" Delay and Gamblin' Bill Bennett refer to marriage as an "institution".

Marriage is not an institution. Marriage is a legally-binding contract between two human beings. You sign a contract which commits you for the length of your life to another human being. Anyone who's been through a divorce knows how hard it is to get out of that particular contract.

Marriage is not a religious ceremony. The only reason a minister can perform a marriage is because the State has given him/her the legal authority to do so. A minister without such authority has no power to marry anyone, and a marriage ceremony performed by an unauthorized minister is not recognized by the State. Marriage only becomes a religious ceremony if the participants choose to make it so.

I felt like saying that. Blah.

[HEyHEY]

1. No, but it's driven many people to them

"Men are not complete until they're married. Then they're finnished." Oscar WIlde

[KG]

2. well, you're basically correct.

but don't let RW hypocrites like delay and bennett get your goat, dude. :)

[polmaven]

3. I have to agree...and disagree ;-)

I really think that marriage should actually be left to the religious "institutions", and the state should get out of the marriage business altogether.

The secular union of ANY 2 people should be just what you said it is...a legally binding contract. But it should NOT, IMHO, be called a marriage. Civil union is an acceptable term, I think, because it is a "known" term.

[LiberalFighter]

7. Civil Ceremony --- Religious Ceremony

That was the designation listed on state marriage records in the 1800's and early 1900's. After that I don't recall.

A date was recorded for event.
A date was recorded when it was filed with the county.

Depending on the individual and other factors like time of year and mode of transportation it might be days or weeks before the minister filed all of the marriages with the county.

[Pithlet]

8. I disagree.

The word marriage has come to mean a recognized lifelong union between two people. Once upon a time it might have been reserved only for religious purposes, but it isn't any longer. For some it still is religious. I have a problem with dividing them into two things, because then I think that "civil unions" will be seen as something less than actual marriage, or "marriage lite". It's as if those of us who are areligious should be separate, somehow.

I married my husband. We are a married couple. Just because we're not religious, and didn't have our ceremony in a church doesn't mean we didn't get married. I don't like these separate terms. I just wish that right to marry could be extended to any two people who want to marry, and not just a man and a woman.

[alcuno]

4. Marriage is a sacrament.

I agree with neither Tom Delay nor with you. The sacrament of marriage existed long before the State and I believe that it exists even without the State sanction. Personally, I'd have no problem if the State stopped calling it marriage and just made it a contractual event. People could then marry in their church AND enter into a contract through the State. Or they could only enter into a contract through the State.

The problem is quite simply the term "marriage." It does not mean the same thing to everyone.

[SOteric]

6. Exactly so.

Well said.

[Ilsa]

11. It is not a sacrament in every denomination, though.

Marriage is not a sacrament in the Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, and some other protestant denominations. Our sacraments include only Baptism and Eucharist. (Just to clarify.)

[alcuno]

13. That's my point. Marriage means different things to different people.

Perhaps obviously, I am a Catholic. To us it is a sacrament, not a contract.

[Cleita]

5. The marriage contract historically only requires that

there be witnesses to the oral promises the couple make to each other, or usually that their parents agree to, so if one or the other wants to claim it never happened they can summon the witnesses to prove otherwise. The wedding banquet was a custom to provide a lot of witnesses making it difficult to off one or two if the marriage goes sour. Of course writing introduced the written, witnessed and sealed contract. I think there were similar ceremonies involved in trading horses in many societies as well.

[Ilsa]

10. In Texas, a common law marriage

requires 1) holding yourselves out to be a married couple; 2)cohabitation (one night does the trick); and 3) intent to be married. At least, this is what I was taught in several business and family law classes in college.

[Ilsa]

9. I'll be telling people over the next few months

that if they believe in the "sanctity" of marriage, they'll need to make divorce illegal as well as make their homophobia legal. That'll get more than 50% of them riled up. Fundies have a higher rate of divorce than non-Fundies. (Statistically, it is because they tend to be southernoers who marry younger, which conveys a higher rate of divorce.

[madrchsod]

12. how long have you been married?

dam it seems like an institution to me ......

[elperromagico]

14. LOL... as someone once said,

"Marriage isn't a word. It's a sentence."