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Who owns marriage?

We must decide who owns marriage!
If we don't assign marriage to the Baptists,
or the Catholics, or the Mormons, or Somebody,
we will never escape the mess we are in.

Maybe it is because I have lived in Arizona,
which shares a State border with Utah, where
a good number of those (now) unofficial sects
that affirm polygamy have settled, that causes
something in me to wonder if having several wives
might not be a good way to keep up with the laundry. 
Or it might be something a bit hornier than that.

It might, in fact, be evidence that stupid is stupid.

On the other hand, maybe we should give marriage
to the Southern Baptists.  Polls show that divorce
is more common among religious groups in the South
than anywhere else in the Country.  There appears
to be some connection between damning divorce and
getting one.  It might have to do with baptism by immersion.

Personally, I rather like the way Catholics do it.
They don't approve of divorce.  When they need
a divorce, which they cannot have, they get an annulment:
you just declare that the marriage never was a marriage,
and that leaves you innocent of divorce, and free
to marry, again, for the first time, taking the kids with you.

Martin Luther married a nun.  I am not so sure
he provides a good model for marriage.  I have nothing
against nuns!  It is just that Martin was a priest. 

I don't know who we should give marriage to!
Some Protestant denominations say there is nothing wrong
with gays marrying gays, and others say that kind of thing
ought to be given exclusively to the Catholics, who have
more experience with . . . well, maybe not exactly that,
but you know what I mean.  (No, I don't really mean that.)

In the Unification Church, Sun Mjung Moon, or Sun Yat Sen,
of somebody like that, arranges marriage for people who
do not know each other:  "Do you take this woman to be
your lawfully wedded wife?"  "Oh, Hi there!  Where are
you from?"  "I do!  I'm from Toledo!"  "Spain or Ohio?"
"No!  Washington State!"  (Or maybe Iowa.)

You understand the problem!  We need a law about marriage,
but everybody cannot be in charge!  Somebody has to take
over!  Maybe it should be the Catholics, and we should all
marry Jesus and become nuns.  Or priests, and take out
a really big personal liability insurance policy.  I am probably
just old fashioned but, personally, I rather like those
religions that say the husband should be the head of the
household, as Jesus was, who never got married.   

I suppose we could do the sensible things, and declare
marriage not to be just between one man and one woman,
or between one man and several women, or between
one man and one woman at a time, with a chance
to reshuffle from time-to-time, or a certificate to breed,
but a contract between people and their intention to
be a couple, in or out of the sight of God, but certainly
in the sight of the law, making them responsible in some
special ways for each other, sharing what they have,
able to get insurance, or visit each other in the hospital
during family visiting hours.  Something like that. 

I am willing to take my chances that allowing other people
to marry, whatever the details of their partnership are,
will not do severe damage to my relationship to Mari.
I would really hate it if allowing two people in Kansas
to get married, whoever they are, whatever their gender,
interfered with what I have going for me now, right here!

I guess it is just a chance I have to take.

It is fairly clear, though, that giving marriage to almost any
religious group will mess everything up for everybody else.
Oh, don't get me wrong!  I have nothing against religious
people marrying, even if it imposes severe grief on them. 
If they want to get married, and let one of them rule over
the other, I say let them be!  Arrest one of them, but
let them define marriage any way they want to.  So long
as it is legal, according to the state, and they are happy.
Kids or no kids.  Sex or no sex.  Even if one of them
is from Toledo.  Toledo, Indiana.  Or Toledo, Brazil.

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