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Why did I get married?
Mar. 8th, 2012 10:33 pmOr domestic partnered *eye roll*. Yes this is another question that came out of family mixing from an unmarried (yet partnered) cousin who doesn’t know why I bothered. But it’s come up a lot from various people over the years.
Of course, the sad thing was, as ever, the blinkers of privilege; she could have just looked round and seen the reason for herself. She would have seen how the whole family treated her relationship of 11 months as a long term partnership – but still acted like my decades long marriage was a temporary fling, a passing insanity, something I’d grow out of or all about sex. I have done everything legally possible in the UK to make my relationship “official” and I still have to fight to have it recognised even by my own family. Let alone official institutions, work colleagues or the public at large.
See, this is one of the things that irritates me when straight folk don’t understand the fuss about marriage. They can take the protections, legal rights and status of marriage for granted because they not only have them – but they don’t always need them either. Even for non-married straight folks, our society provides a level of respect and legitimacy for heterosexual pairings.
Or, to be overly simplistic, even when you aren’t married, society will often infer some level of married-ness upon you. Because straight couples are not just the norm but also the ideal, they are granted legitimacy AS couples. As a family lawyer, I have seen straight unmarried couples have more recognition and support for their relationship – or dissolving their relationship – than I have not just for unmarried GBLT couples but also for domestic partnered GBLT couples. Every shred of respect, of officialdom, of any kind of recognition I have seen for my relationship – or any relationship between GBLT people with the same-sex – had to be fought tooth and nail for and even then that’s often not enough.
Our relationships are not given the same recognition, status or protection as straight couples.
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Of course, the sad thing was, as ever, the blinkers of privilege; she could have just looked round and seen the reason for herself. She would have seen how the whole family treated her relationship of 11 months as a long term partnership – but still acted like my decades long marriage was a temporary fling, a passing insanity, something I’d grow out of or all about sex. I have done everything legally possible in the UK to make my relationship “official” and I still have to fight to have it recognised even by my own family. Let alone official institutions, work colleagues or the public at large.
See, this is one of the things that irritates me when straight folk don’t understand the fuss about marriage. They can take the protections, legal rights and status of marriage for granted because they not only have them – but they don’t always need them either. Even for non-married straight folks, our society provides a level of respect and legitimacy for heterosexual pairings.
Or, to be overly simplistic, even when you aren’t married, society will often infer some level of married-ness upon you. Because straight couples are not just the norm but also the ideal, they are granted legitimacy AS couples. As a family lawyer, I have seen straight unmarried couples have more recognition and support for their relationship – or dissolving their relationship – than I have not just for unmarried GBLT couples but also for domestic partnered GBLT couples. Every shred of respect, of officialdom, of any kind of recognition I have seen for my relationship – or any relationship between GBLT people with the same-sex – had to be fought tooth and nail for and even then that’s often not enough.
Our relationships are not given the same recognition, status or protection as straight couples.
Read More