So, I'm certainly trying to examine my thoughts closely here, to see if there is definitional prejudice going on here. But, well, in the end, you do have to define marriage as _something_, and in my mind defining it as binary emphasizes the primary importance of each person to the other.
Yeah, to recap something I know I've said to you before--on the other hand, many folks' definition would include man-and-woman; whereas my definition is, people you're willing to elevate to a distinct and different level of importance in your life, and make a life-time committment to stay with. I don't pretend that that's not hard and complicated to do for more than one person (heck, even if I remain poly I don't *ever* expect to want to marry multiple people), and that's one of the reasons why it boils down to "too difficult to legislate" for me; but that said, humans clearly are capable of making that level of committment to more than one person. Kids, f'rinstance. (Damn it, does committment have one or two t's? Neither looks right, and I don't feel like looking up.)
*shrug* As I said--not my crusade, but that's where I come down on the issue.
If, say, A. and I and all of our immediate families except our hypothetical 3-year-old were killed in a car crash, I'd rather have the kid be raised by very close friends than, say, distant cousins, and that's not cuz I don't like our cousins. It's messy. And to a certain extent, I'm not sure how much officialness and legality helps.
Well, I think legalization would be specifically aimed at the situation you described there. That kind of thing.
But I absolutely agree with you on the idea that it shouldn't just be "sign your name on the dotted line and you've got new family forever." I envision something more like, you pre-register, and then a year or two later you confirm and it goes into effect, and then you have to meet up and re-register every five years or so. It could be really meaningful: like a marriage ceremony, and re-affirming your vows every five years, except not marriage, because a family committment, rather than a romantic one. I think that would be cool.
And I think it would speak to another thing that I *dis*like about our society, which is the increasing importance placed on long-term sexual relationships above all others, to the point that I think part of the reason there's so much slash out there is that people want to explore deeply emotional, committed relationships between men who are friends and comrades, and sex becomes the expected playing out of that. Bring back comrades and blood-siblings and what-not!
Eh, it's not a new rant, but it's one of my favorites.
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Re: Prejudice and so forth.
Yeah, to recap something I know I've said to you before--on the other hand, many folks' definition would include man-and-woman; whereas my definition is, people you're willing to elevate to a distinct and different level of importance in your life, and make a life-time committment to stay with. I don't pretend that that's not hard and complicated to do for more than one person (heck, even if I remain poly I don't *ever* expect to want to marry multiple people), and that's one of the reasons why it boils down to "too difficult to legislate" for me; but that said, humans clearly are capable of making that level of committment to more than one person. Kids, f'rinstance. (Damn it, does committment have one or two t's? Neither looks right, and I don't feel like looking up.)
*shrug* As I said--not my crusade, but that's where I come down on the issue.
If, say, A. and I and all of our immediate families except our hypothetical 3-year-old were killed in a car crash, I'd rather have the kid be raised by very close friends than, say, distant cousins, and that's not cuz I don't like our cousins. It's messy. And to a certain extent, I'm not sure how much officialness and legality helps.
Well, I think legalization would be specifically aimed at the situation you described there. That kind of thing.
But I absolutely agree with you on the idea that it shouldn't just be "sign your name on the dotted line and you've got new family forever." I envision something more like, you pre-register, and then a year or two later you confirm and it goes into effect, and then you have to meet up and re-register every five years or so. It could be really meaningful: like a marriage ceremony, and re-affirming your vows every five years, except not marriage, because a family committment, rather than a romantic one. I think that would be cool.
And I think it would speak to another thing that I *dis*like about our society, which is the increasing importance placed on long-term sexual relationships above all others, to the point that I think part of the reason there's so much slash out there is that people want to explore deeply emotional, committed relationships between men who are friends and comrades, and sex becomes the expected playing out of that. Bring back comrades and blood-siblings and what-not!
Eh, it's not a new rant, but it's one of my favorites.