Yesterday some people got married...

... and guess what?

The sky didn’t fall down!

Yesterday March 29th 2014 The Same Sex Marriage Act was enacted in the UK, or, more accurately in England and Wales, and persons of the same gender were married for the first time.

I have only one thing to say to that:

HUZZAH!

About bloody time!

Surely, in the twenty-first century, there can be only one reason to get married, to make vows to another person to love, honour and cherish them. That reason is love.

Boy Meets Boy!

Ever since marriage was instituted there have been reasons for it, mostly to do with the patriarchal societies spawned by religion. Many of those reasons seem, at best, practical and, at worst, cynical to us now. Most of those reasons are to do with family, politics and economics. Let’s call a spade a shovel and admit that, for most of that time marriage has been an institution, those entering into have done so primarily because of money, either because they have it or because they don’t.

Think about divorce. The first world has developed a whole raft of laws over the past half century or so connected with divorce and the division of family finances, initially for the provision of women at the dissolution of a marriage. Prior to these laws women didn’t divorce because it was too easy for them to find themselves destitute if they did. 

Divorce is still about money, and yet we pretend that marriage is about love.

In modern America among the rich and famous, the prenuptial agreement has become standard practice, and yet we still pretend that marriage is about love.

Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself, because the civil partnership has been in law since 2004. People have been able to tie themselves together in a form of marriage for ten years. They’ve been able to make those financial commitments. It’s only the esoteric part of the marriage ceremony that’s been missing... only the love part.

Just what exactly is this tomfoolery? What is this form of words?

I bet it was possible to go into a civil partnership with a pre-nup, and I bet there have been some pretty serious divorce wranglings to dissolve some of those civil partnerships.

It’s all about religion, of course.

If God is love, why is religion always a stick to beat us with?

I can’t help thinking it’s because between God and the rest of us there is a whole institution, made up of a lot of people who think they know best. Two thousand years of interpreting and filtering the word of God seems to have done us no favours, and equal marriage, it seems to me is only the very tip of the iceberg.

Yesterday, I celebrated, because, it seems to me that, yesterday, good sense prevailed. Of course, it hasn’t actually prevailed in a major World religion... only in two small countries’ laws. Nevertheless, yesterday, I celebrated.

Yesterday, I raised a glass to all newly married people in England and Wales, straight and gay. I hope you all enjoy long and happy marriages!

Today, poetically enough, is Mothering Sunday. My thoughts on the subject haven’t changed, but if you haven’t read them before or you’d like to be reminded take a look at this blog.