The main thrust of those opposed to
gays and lesbians’ being allowed to marry has been, at least overtly, the
definition of marriage. As a result,
some have proposed that we provide ‘civil unions’ for gays and lesbians in
order to allow them the same legal rights as other ‘married’ heterosexual
couples. This prompts one to ask what
the point of making this legal distinction between ‘civil unions’ and
‘marriage’ is? If we allow the same
civil rights to heterosexual ‘marriage’ and homosexual ‘civil union,’ then why
the separate (but ‘equal’) terms? It
seems to be due to a prejudice by many people that marriage is somehow defined
as the pledge of a life-long union of a
man and a woman. It is precisely
this definition that the State of
But what is the basis for such a definition? Aside from a traditional perspective due to a religious bias, why would the current administration feel a need to define ‘marriage’ in this way? It seems to be due to the fact that many people feel that the definition of marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman, and that liberals are now attempting to redefine it for their socio-political agendas. This argument is based upon a fundamental oversight of the organic nature of language evolution and its relation to culture. Marriage, like all social and cultural concepts and institutions, is a concept defined by the practices of a culture, and not necessarily only its traditions and history.
Despite traditional practices, ‘marriage’ does not necessarily mean the union of a man and a woman. But in order to see what the word means today, in might be helpful to take a quick look at the history of the term. Etymologically, the word “marry” is not completely clear. What we do know is that it comes to us from Latin (maritare) through Old French (marier), and probably ultimately from words derived from Proto Indo-European (PIE). More specifically, the Latin verb maritare derives from maritus meaning “married man” or “husband,” which seems to derive from an older PIE word that means “to be given a young women” (meri-), or something similar.
This seems to point to the definition of marriage referred to above; the union of a man and a woman. However we must keep in mind that these words developed in very different historical contexts than the one we live in today; a time where social and civil liberties had not yet progressed as they have thus far. Homosexuality has not, for the most part, been socially acceptable as a way of life. Culture has changed over the millennia, and homosexual relationships of all kinds are commonly accepted and socially transparent—hence the attention being paid to this issue these days.
Not only has the meaning of the word changed over time, the institution it describes has also changed. The root words for the Latin and Old French existed at a time when marriage more of an unequal power relationship between men and women—where the man had the authority—than the equal partnerships that marriages today often are. It would be disingenuous to attribute authority to very old uses and meanings of the word ‘marriage’ unless we would be willing to also give authority to the institutions that these older uses referred to.
The linguistic confusion of this issue today is, therefore, understandable but nonetheless still confused. While socio-cultural trends, attitudes, practices, etc have changed greatly over the time, we tend to use much the same words as we used to. The PIE meri, Latin maritare, and English marriage are all etymologically linked and therefore similar in spelling and enunciation, but they have come to mean very different things. That is to say that while culture, concepts, and meanings have evolved over time, the words we use to talk about them still resemble one-another greatly.
Despite the history of the word “marriage,” we should not conclude that it simply means that it is when a man takes a (young) woman as her wife, or vice-versa. We have to understand that words mean what we use them to mean, and that as socio-cultural practices change, our use of language necessarily changes with it—even though the words themselves change very little.
This brings an obvious question; how do speakers of the English language today use the word “marriage” in our culture? The dictionary is a good place to start, although perhaps not the final word, as language is constantly evolving. Current dictionaries do not generally specify that when one marries, one takes the opposite sex in this union, but merely that one takes a husband or a wife in matrimony. And while some dictionaries seem to imply the traditional view, the definition concerning this issue is at most ambiguous.
There are many people that use the word “marriage” to mean the union of two people of the opposite sex, and there are others that use it to mean the union of two people, despite their sexes. But the definition of the word, as it is being used by many Americans today, seems to imply the pledge of two people to choose one other person as their life-partner, legal, financial, social, and possible spiritual implications. It means that a person chooses to make someone else his or her wife or a husband, which is clear enough. It does not say that a man chooses a wife or a woman chooses a husband, but that a person of either sex chooses one.
It seems that our culture has evolved to the point where we are ready to think of marriage as a civil institution appropriate for heterosexual as well as homosexual couples. Therefore, it is time for the conservative opponents to capitulate to a progressing world, and to discontinue trying to legislate parochial perspectives on the rest of the culture.