An Open Letter

[tinyjo]

Dear politicians all,

Tell me this. Why should I get married? What difference will it make to my relationship? How will society be enriched by me signing a piece of legal paperwork with my boyfriend?

We've been together for nearly 10 years, we're committed to each other and we're in love. We both know these things. What else is there to it?

Of course, to a certain extent my relationship is not related to the discussion you're having because I don't want to have children. Leaving aside the discussion of the fact that all the language I'm hearing on the news assumes that all couples, married or cohabiting, are also parents I would dispute the idea that getting the paperwork would make any difference to any putative children we were going to have either.

Yes, children benefit from stable long-term relationships with adults who can give them love, stability and care. In most cases these are their parents and it's difficult to do on your own because it's such a commitment. I don't believe that our choosing to register our relationship with you would make us any more or less likely to provide that care to any children we had. Now that marriage is a purely voluntary institution, many more of those embarking on it will have the kind of relationship which enables them to provide this but the bedrock of that is the relationship itself, not the status. You won't create more genuine partnerships of people who can love and support each other by offering £20 per week to those who've been in and signed their names.

Marriage is not what makes some families special. Love is.

Yours disappointedly,
Jo

Comments

[white_hart]

Well, I am married, and I was very close to posting a similar rant myself. I chose to get married and wanted the legal security for my relationship. But I don't think that makes me in any way deserving of the extra £20 a week. If there's capacity for a tax break, it should go to the lowest-paid in society (bring back the 10% band!), or to households that include people who can't contribute financially (kids, elderly relatives, disabled people). Not us.

And the thing that strikes me whenever they compare average lengths of marriages and cohabitations is that the cohabitation average is going to be brought down by relationships which barely get off the ground...

Don't get it

[sparkymark.livejournal.com]

Gang members don't get tattoos purely for the police to log in a database, but as long as they keep getting tattoos you can't expect the authorities not to make use of it. Same with marriage: there are inferences the authorities can make from a marriage certificate they can't make from not-a-marriage-certificate, and my willingness to publically declare my P45 to the Job Centre was not the reason why I was allowed Unemployment Benefit.

[iruineverything.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, but I also think that people making commitments to love one another through their whole lives (and I don't just mean marriage, but any commitment, public or private, legal or not) regardless of the whims of their emotions is a good thing...

I guess people think that the act of declaring publicly the intention to commit to another human being can help to consolidate that. I'm not saying it does, but this is the theory behind it, and I can see some logic in that. People stop being in love with each other the whole time -- but that doesn't mean you have to stop loving someone, because I think that to love someone is an act of care and unselfish nurturing that transcends feelings.

I'm not supporting the Tory policy plan; but I do think that relationships that involve children should be based on more than feelings. You can't promise to feel the same way about someone their whole life, but you can promise to love someone their whole life. And maybe encouraging more people to commit, in some form, might make for less disturbed and feral children, such as the ones I taught this morning in East London!!

[kyra.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, did that crap get exported across the pond? I'm sorry....