Marriage: Part Deux

Maine just legalized same-sex marriage. Even as their legislators were debating this briefly before they voted, the question of what impact this has on religious institutions was raised. On Wednesday NPR reported, "Republican Sen. Debra Plowman of Hampden argued that the bill was being passed 'at the expense of the people of faith. You are making a decision that is not well-founded,' warned Plowman."

This gets me thinking. What is it exactly that makes a marriage a marriage? There are so many possible answers to this question.

When I separated from my first husband and divorce proceedings were well under way, I told my dad I wanted to go on a date. He, being someone who believes strictly that marriage is an avowed relationship, the vows of which cannot be violated within that covenant, quickly replied that of course I wouldn't do that because I was still married. Huh? Under what definition of marriage? For him, the legal documentation of marriage was the bottom line as to whether one was married or not. For me, when the marriage vows of my first marriage were broken and both my ex-husband and I took action to sever that avowed relationship, it was done. I wasn't married anymore. I mean, for legal reasons, like whether I had health insurance I was married. But for purposes of fidelity? For issues that GOD cares about? No, I wasn't married.

This leads me to an interesting question: if you are a religious person and you think marriage has something to do with vows and God and sacredness and all the rest, what role does the state have in this? Does it even matter whether a marriage is legal with the state if the vows were true? And if there were no vows taken before God, then does that mean the marriage is real?

Some sects of religion are very clear on this. Take the Roman Catholic Church for instance. Either you are married in the church or you aren't. If you aren't, then you are not married in the eyes of God. It matters not what the state recognizes, no matter what state that is.

When my parents came to some important milestone in their marriage (25 years or something like that), they got talking about how they didn't have a copy of their wedding license. And then it occurred to my dad -- he couldn't remember actually getting it signed by the clergy who performed the ceremony or taking it to the courthouse. The consequence? They might not be legally married. He joked about it. They thought it was pretty funny. My mom decided to find out where it was and get to the bottom of the issue. She got a copy, framed it, and gave it to him for their anniversary. But my reaction at the time was, who cares? So, you might need to do some paperwork to make legal and documented what has existed for decades?

For the purposes of the relationship, I just don't think the paper trail is that important on these things. My husband and I were married in an episcopal church in the United States and filed it legally with a county in Maryland. Then almost a year later, we got married again in the Brazilian embassy in Washington, DC. See, we needed to have our marriage recognized in the country of my husband's citizenship, and a court document from a county in Maryland didn't cut it. In the end, it was less work to get married again at the embassy than it would have been to have the Brazilian Feds recognize the paperwork that existed from the United States. And then, as if that wasn't enough, my mother-in-law brought a copy of our wedding liturgy and our wedding invitation, all in Portuguese, to her priest and asked whether our marriage was recognized by the Catholic Church. Her priest is a good man, I tell you. He told her not to be overly concerned with the matter, that God sees true love. He also told her that if the two of us came to him, he would bless the union. We haven't done that yet, but we may very well do so in order to let all the friends and family in Brazil get to celebrate our wedding, as well as make it possible for our children to be baptized in the Catholic church. (More on that issue much later!) But you get the idea...being "lawfully and spiritually bound in matrimony" is taking years at this point. So when did we get married? Are we married? When will the marrying end?

For me it was when we took our vows in the episcopal church, the first time we did it. The second time we did it at the embassy, there were no vows, just a lot of paperwork and admonishment of what this meant legally for us both. If we get married again in the Catholic church and in Portuguese, that might be yet another meaningful event in our relationship. A way to say I still feel the very same way I did the day I married you.

So...what is your definition of marriage? Can you define it neatly and discretely? Or is it mushy and gray for you? I know that for people who do it once and it stays forever, and they only have one church and one court to deal with, it can seem like a very simple deal. But for me, when you get into the nitty-gritty of the whole thing, it isn't so clear anymore.