Marriage

I am single. I would love to be married, have kids with some wonderful woman I love, and enjoy family life. I have not had the chance to do that yet. I won't marry frivalously and I will marry for life someday.

As I look at the national debates about what kinds of unions are allowable. I settled on these thoughts. Corporations can marry technologies and business plans. The word "Marriage" has many uses. The word ought to be applicable to social unions of any kind.

As a mental exercize, imagine two elderly sisters whose husbands have died. They share living expenses and want legal access to one another in hospital situations and even want the right to leave inheritance to one another. Maybe they are affectionate, hugs and consoling words, shared tears. Though this last part of the situation has no bearing on the legal needs they have. They ought to be allowed to marry finances, marry their legal access rights to one another, marry their wills if they so desire. I use this example to take the specific manner and issue of shared affection out of the equation for a minute and just look at human rights and choice.

I suppose, despite the efforts of my upbringing to repress my thinking on this, I do not believe it is socially destructive for women to marry women and men to marry men. The social concerns at hand seem to be the effect on overall happiness, in society, of the happiness of individuals. I think people are far happier when they can do what they like, so to speak.

In a wider view, there are other issues involving the needs of the society concerning the propogation of taxpayers. Certainly sexuality and the ability to reproduce are not mutually exclusive at all. Homosexuals often have children. Maybe there are children from an earlier relationship, maybe by nonsexual means such as cell donors and in-vitro fertilization etc. The reproduction aspects are not a threat to society. Overpopulation may be the real threat.

So why not say that anyone can marry? I suppose the age of marriage is tied to economics, education, higher living standards and maturity and readiness of human beings to marry. A reasonable age is selected by our culture. This really distinguishes us from, for example, bacteria who reproduce as fast as physically possible. We are human beings. Marriage and reproduction age is an expression of our power over our own destiny.

This debate sometimes leads to "group" marriage or polygamy. While adults can do what they choose and life is not perfect, polygamy does pose a "numbers" problem. Nature likes to generally balance male to female population in reproductive years. There are 106 male babies born per 100 female babies in the world. This ratio seems to correct for some of the loss of males due to higher risk activities, such as war, living with testosterone and not having the protective estrogen defenses against disease to the degree women of child bearing years have. Nature wants everyone to find a mate. Polygamy is socially damaging, skewing the numbers leaving some alone.

I am not sure there is a debate about choice vs. biology among sexual preferences. We all have the in-born ability to choose, that IS our nature. Though, no amount of mocking, laughter, ridicule, or suspicion of my being a single man in his 30's will ever change my heterosexual blood. No amount of therapy, indoctrination, guilt, religion or fear will ever make me not want what I want. Sure, I don't find every woman equally attractive, but I know what I desire. My experience of sexuality is that it is part of my nature. Not even the pain, humiliation, loneliness and rejection I have experienced pursuing women throughout my few years will have a hope of changing my desire to love and marry some special woman.

I would never try to tell someone else that they are choosing who they are or don't feel what they feel. I would reject that out of hand if it were imposed on me in that way. Even though I may personally not understand someone else's desires, I strongly believe that every human being has the right to pursue happiness and have the benefits of social union as they please. If the tables were turned and my heterosexuality were socially banned, I could never stand for being denied my right to woo, date, marry and love a woman. Not on pain of death. Though, I still can't get a damn date.
=sw