Column: Marriages can be good, but many already without sanctity

Published 12:00 am Thursday, July 31, 2003

When I have to begin a column by saying I don’t remember exactly where this happened and I don’t remember exactly when it happened, I feel that my readers have the right to ask why then am I writing about it.

I’m writing about this because I’m an opinionated old so and so and something in me dies if I can’t express an opinion. This time I’m on my soap box about same sex marriages. There was a time when I laughed stupidly when Dorothy Parker, asked if she approved of such marriages, quipped &uot;Yes, for the sake of the children.&uot;

Since then I’ve realized that it’s a question that should be decided by those concerned. There is too much tendency in our society to impose our own concepts of right and wrong on those who don’t agree with us.

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What changed my mind on this question was the incident about which I’m so vague. I believe, though, that there are those reading this who will remember it more distinctly. It didn’t happen so long ago and I have the feeling that it happened right in Minnesota in the Twin Cities.

A young woman in a lesbian relationship became terminally ill and was rushed off to a hospital by her fundamentalist family, always opposed to her way of life. Her &uot;friend&uot; was barred from visiting her despite the fact that the dying one called out for her. The &uot;friend&uot; even sought legal help, and, while the court was sympathetic, legally the family was in control. As I recall, the two women were eternally separated without even being afforded the small comfort of a final farewell.

If the right to marry can prevent such cruelty, I’m all for it.

The main objection to same sex marriages seems to be that the legality of such marriages would weaken and threaten the sanctity of traditional marriage. What sanctity? Read the newspapers. If a woman is murdered, it usually turns out that her husband did it. If a man meets an untimely end, it’s quite often his wife who has sent him to a better world.

I’m not putting marriage down. We have all known wonderful couples who have lived together in joyful companionsip for more than half a century. My own parents were together for almost 67 years and never seemed to run out of amusing things to argue about. It is impossible to imagine either of them married to anyone else.

When I first moved to Albert Lea, I was welcomed by a former high school friend and his wife living here. They were a beautiful couple and so happily married apparently that no normal single person could be in their presence without feeling a certain amount of envy.

Eventually the husband’s work and another of his many promotions took them to a distant city. Over the years, we gradually lost touch with each other. Then one day, I was still working for the Tribune, his obituary was phoned in.

I was the one who answered the phone and was shocked and saddened to hear of my friend’s death. He was only a couple of years older than I was and at that time I was still young. What shocked me even more was the name of the surviving wife.

&uot;There must be a mistake,&uot; I protested. &uot;I know the couple and that isn’t the wife’s name.&uot;

&uot;It’s his second wife’s name,&uot; said my informant. &uot;He and his first wife were divorced.&uot;

So much for the perfect marriage. My feeling was if that couple could wind up divorced, anyone could. To tell you the truth, the fact that they had divorced saddened me almost as much as did the husband’s death.

Among my friends, I have almost as many who have been divorced as I have who are still married. Those who are still married are not all happily married. No matter who gets married or who doesn’t, it seems unlikely to me that the present status of marriage is likely to change.

After all it was the Persians, wasn’t it, whose proverb read, &uot;Marriage is a walled garden, with everybody outside trying to get in and everybody inside trying to get out.&uot;

(Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.)