Love Cruikshank, Love Notes

How’s that again? &8220;Marriage is something involving one man and one woman?&8221;

Forgive me if I guffaw a little. I have great respect for the English language. You know it has more words in it than several other of the Western languages put together.

This splendid vocabulary, of course, affords opportunity to be more exact in our definitions. I’m not sure actually that it’s possible to define marriage.

For example those of the Islam faith can even now have four wives (if they can afford four). There was a time when they could have even more.

The religious right is very firm indeed in its stand against same-sex marriage. I can’t help wondering how they feel about a man marrying a couple of sisters and then fathering additional children with the help of the sisters’ maids. Nothing much written in the Bible about how the maids may have felt about the matter.

Among a number of Europeans, marriage was by capture. That’s where the term &8220;best man,&8221; originated. Back then a best man was chosen not for his ability to make the best toasts, but for his ability to dispatch the largest number of the bride’s brothers, cousins and other male relatives before they all sat down at the table to get happily stewed together.

Until recent centuries most marriages were arranged by the parents. I remember, too, reading a book about Eskimos, when I was quite young, in which it explained that the marriage ceremony consisted of the bride taking up her residence in the groom’s igloo and simply announcing to visitors, &8220;Somebody sews for herself in this house.&8221;

Things may have changed for the Eskimos by this time, of course. Young women have probably learned to read and those magazines for brides to be &045; with all the patterns for bridesmaids’ dresses and such &045; are mighty seductive. Heaven knows how many beautiful young women have entered the pens of domesticity because those glossy magazines made weddings look like so much fun.

I suppose said magazines exert the same hypnotic charm on homosexuals as on heterosexuals, so naturally they want all the trimmings. And why not? Homosexuals pay taxes, too, and should be accorded the same civil rights that other citizens have.

Back in my early days at the Albert Lea Tribune fellow employees used to drop over to my house for a bowl of popcorn, a cup of tea or just for conversation.

One of the men in advertising, back from spending Christmas with his family in New England, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The holiday had been made jubilant for the family beyond everything by the announcement of the engagement of the ad man’s sister to the love of her life, a favorite of the family.

Then when the groom to be and my friend stayed up for a friendly chat after the family had gone to bed the GTB broke into terrible tears, confessed that he liked men better than women, and propositioned my friend.

The proposition was rejected, but the big question was, should my friend tell his sister? Back in those days few if any of the fianc’s persuasion &8220;came out.&8221; It sometimes led to great unhappiness even suicide. Because the best way to conceal the difference was to get married.

Personally I think that the way things are going now is much more considerate of everybody. Far from trying to push those who march to a different drum back into a closet where they may be led to break the heart of someone who doesn’t even hear the beat they’re marching to.

Marriage is a civil right. As far as letting the town vote on who can get married and who can’t: If the majority of the people in town were homosexual, would you, a heterosexual, be content to have them vote on whether or not you were allowed your civil rights?

There was a time when marriage was denied on basis of color. Now it’s being denied on basis of sexual preference.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all lived according to our highest sense of right and trusted others to do the same?

To get back to defining marriage, if we must, let’s at least, in respect to the beautiful English language, do it accurately.

&8220;Marriage is a term defining a relationship between one man and one woman at a time.&8221;

(Albert Lea resident Love Cruikshank’s column appears every Thursday.)