Marriage is WHAT?

[nosebeepbear]

Am I the only one who doesn't like the phrase "marriage is love"? I'm all for giving a marriage license to any group of adult people that wants one (and perhaps someday people will even stop saying "couple" as if that's the only way it could be), but marriage != love. Perhaps love is involved in there somewhere, but that's not always the case, and

Comments

well, damn.

[flyingwolf]

Now I have to go edit my post (that I just copied from elsewhere)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/flyingwolf/116834.html

Leagle contract.

[wolfdancer]

Oh and I LIKE your comments smile. Good points. it is about property rights and giving your name to children, and protecions. sigh.. Marriage were about (in olden days and even so to a point in some places today), about moving family ties, trading properties, succoring safety and feaildity, It was a contract that bound people. It has been every thing from a commitment to a trap, a way to give a promise of fielded, loyalty and protection, a covenant, to share with someone your life, resources, and support.

A promise. If your lucky, love may play some part in it.

[selki]

You are not the only one.

And I thrilled a guy at work yesterday ... um, Wednesday ... when I taught him a new word.

me: "I think we've conflated CVS workspaces and browser sandboxes - "
he: "conflated?"
me: "Um, it's when there's some overlap between ideas, but the result is confusion rather than ... synergy, yeah."
he: "conflate ... cool!"

Hmm. Whenever I've heard it it's had a bad connotation, but various online dictionaries don't seem to have that, just cheery write-ups of mixing, blending etc. Thoughts?

Re:

[nosebeepbear]

It's nice when people are excited about new words :)

Yeah, I usually hear/use it with a bad connotation too, to refer to things that are mixed in a very wrong way. Sort of like that movie game :)

[mneme]

I absolutely agree.

I've actually been really tempted to post "Marriage is a contract" (with black and white bannering) or "(Civil) Marriage is a dead horse [which should be cut parts so its useful bits can be salvaged]" (with...not sure; maybe brown and red). [this post may be salvaged to unlame on this topic, of course]

IMO, "Marriage" should not be a matter for government at all -- it's just too much a religious issue. What should be a government matter is allowing people to declare one another as (closest, or not) kin, and to combine resources to make a firm financial partnership, get collective medical insurance, etc -- anything else is just not the government's buisness.

No, the government of Massachusets, and certainly not the court, should not be telling us what marriage is. Nor should any government; it's just not their job.