Wolfson - Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay Peoples Right to Marry

D epending on which linguistic expert you ask, there are anywhere from two thousand to seven thousand different languages spoken in the world today. Thats a huge number to put your mind aroundeven for someone who lives in Manhattan, where seemingly hundreds of those languages can be heard on the subway on any given day. Still, Im willing to bet that each of these languages has something in common with the others: a word that means marriage.

No matter what language people speakfrom Arabic to Yiddish, from Chinook to Chinesemarriage is what we use to describe a specific relationship of love and dedication to another person. It is how we explain the families that are united because of that love. And it universally signifies a level of self-sacrifice and responsibility and a stage of life unlike any other.

Now of course, different cultures and times have had many different conceptions of marriage, different rules and different ways of regarding those who are marriednot to mention different treatment for married men and married women. We will explore some of those differences in this book: differences in who can marry whom and when, in how to end a failed marriage (or if you even may), in how many people you can marry, in the involvement or noninvolvement of the state and religion, and in the consequences that come with being married. But with all this variety and all the changes that have occurred in marriage over time and in different places, including our country and within our lifetime, it is clear that marriage has been a defining institution in virtually every society throughout history. Given its variety and omnipresence, it is not surprising that when people talk about marriage, they often mean different things.

Consider all the different dimensions of marriage in the United States alone. First, marriage is a personal commitment and an important choice that belongs to couples in love. In fact, many people consider their choice of partner the most significant choice they will ever make. It is a relationship between people who are, hopefully, in love and an undertaking that most couples hope will endure.

Marriage is also a social statement, preeminently describing and defining a persons relationships and place in society. Marital status, along with what we do for a living, is often one of the first pieces of information we give to others about ourselves. Its so important, in fact, that most married people wear a symbol of their marriage on their hand.

Marriage is also a relationship between a couple and the government. Couples need the governments participation to get into and out of a marriage. Because it is a legal or civil institution, marriage is the legal gateway to a vast array of protections, responsibilities, and benefitsmost of which cannot be replicated in any other way, no matter how much forethought you show or how much you are able to spend on attorneys fees and assembling proxies and papers.

The tangible legal and economic protections and responsibilities that come with marriage include access to health care and medical decision making for your partner and your children; parenting and immigration rights; inheritance, taxation, Social Security, and other government benefits; rules for ending a relationship while protecting both parties; and the simple ability to pool resources to buy or transfer property without adverse tax treatment. In 1996, the federal government cataloged more than 1,049 ways in which married people are accorded special status under federal law; in a 2004 report, the General Accounting Office bumped up those federal effects of marriage to at least 1,138. Add in the state-level protections and the intangible as well as tangible privileges marriage brings in private life, and its clear that the legal institution of marriage is one of the major safety nets in life, both in times of crisis and in day-to-day living.

Marriage uniquely permits couples to travel and deal with others in business or across borders without playing a game of now youre legally next of kin; now youre legally not. It is a known commodity; no matter how people in fact conduct their marriages, there is a clarity, security, and automatic level of respect and legal status when someone gets to say, Thats my husband or I love my wife.

Marriage has spiritual significance for many of us and familial significance for nearly all of us. Family members inquire when one is going to get married, often to the point of nagging. Many religions perform marriage ceremonies, many consider marriage holy or a sacrament within their faith, and the majority of American couples get married in a religious settingalthough the percentage of those having a purely civil ceremony is at nearly 40 percent and growing. As far as the law is concerned, however, what counts is not what you do at the altar or whether you march down the aisle, but that you get a civil marriage license from the government and sign a legal document in the vestibule of the church, synagogue, temple, or mosqueor at city hall, a court, or a clerks office. As a legal matter, what the priest, minister, rabbi, or other clergy member does is