At times I stumble upon a subject that gets me fired up...seemingly obscure comments can turn into hot buttons zinging away at my emotions. To deal with my often fiery temper, I've made it a habit to write out what I'm feeling and, it usually helps me to understand myself better. At the very least, I calm down enough to form coherent sentences. Always a much better way to argue a point, don't you think?
Tonight, just such a subject jabbed at me...it turned out to be a molten hot button. There was a thread on a message board I belong to discussing the proposed reforms in Wisconsin to the state's constitutional definition of marriage. As I'm not American, I read along for interest's sake only. That is, until this comment regarding common-law marriage appeared:
"The only way to be married in Wisconsin is to be married; no sham arrangements are recognized as what they are not."
WHOA!! HUH?? I'm not even going to touch the grammatical disaster of the last sentence, which I think is pretty darn nice of me. ;-) Nope, I was too busy thinking, WTF?? Oh no you d'int!!! Now, it's personal. The gloves came off...below is the post I sent to the board. You may notice I am in high-snot mode, which I tend to do when I'm really snarked.
Please correct me if I'm interpreting your statement in a manner other than what you had intended. My interpretation is that you are stating any relationship in which two individuals who have chosen to co-habit, without a legal or religious ceremony is a sham. While I respect that you are entitled to your opinion, perhaps you can consider your comment may be offensive to others. Actually, more than half the households in America. Please consider the following.
In October 2006 the US Census Bureau released the American Community Survey statistics for 2005. For the first time in U.S. history, less than half of the nation’s 111.1 million households were made up of married couples: 49.7% (Margin of error +/- 0.2%) compared to 52% in 2000. Of the 2,219,571 households in Wisconsin, 50.8% were married. (Margin of error +/- 0.5%)http://www.census.gov/acs/www/
On a personal note, this is a hot button topic for me. I was married in a church ceremony, with benefit of a priest and a government issued marriage license. Thus began 12 years of my being abused by the man I vowed before God to be with "until parted by death." Which I almost did. When I chose to leave him, in order to live long enough to raise the children borne of our marraige, he chose to abandon all financial and emotional responsibility to the three products of our legally and religiously sanctioned union.
Lack of commitment, morals or values are not the reason I will never marry again, despite having co-habiting for the last 9 years with a wonderful man who is my "common-law partner." He CHOSE to assume the role of father in every sense of the word. He's been been supportive and loving to all of us, and we are more of a family than what ever occured in the real sham that was my marriage.I am deeply offended to have my family referred to as a sham.
I'm willing to accept that I can not participate in Catholic church because I am divorced - our United Church has made our family more than welcome and the children's spiritual needs are met. However, I am NOT willing to accept that my decision to not particpate in another legal or religious ceremony called "marriage" should result in my partner, myself and our children being somehow less than entitled to the rights and benefits bestowed upon people in "real relationships." Fortunately, my government doesn't believe so either.
I am only one story. Times are changing. One can only hope as the structure of society evolves, people in the future will be more tolerant of the minority who choose to live in "traditonal" arrangements than the close-minded nonsense we are seeing now.
Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against marriage. It's just that my life experience has taught me a few things. There are other ways, outside of the traditional definition of a married couple, to be moral and productive heads of a family. And it really pisses me off when ignorant people de-value that.
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