Mawwiage

"Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam."

Fans of "The Princess Bride" undoubtedly will recognize this quote from what was credited as the "very impressive" clergyman. Funny as it was to hear the line being mangled in the movie by Peter Cook, the sentiment is valid - overstated, but still true. Marriage is what brings us together.

Right now it's also what is driving us apart.

Public opinion polls consistently indicate that married people are happier and healthier than single folks. They're almost certainly more prosperous too.

So why would anyone want to deny other Americans the chance to pursue happiness by being married? It's a complicated matter that revolves around the word "marriage," it seems to me.

"Marriage must be for one man and one woman," some people say. Others say, no less passionately, that gay people are also entitled to marry each other. The rhetoric becomes heated on both sides, and the basic point often is obscured by dire worries about extraneous issues.

I keep thinking there must be something simple in the middle of it.

Paraphrasing the lovely language in the Book of Common Prayer, marriage was instituted by God in the time of man's innocence, and therefore is not to be entered into unadvisedly, but reverently. I guess we all would agree about that. Yet, often marriages are undertaken without any reflection or awareness of  the solemnity of the occasion. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee  were married on the beach at Cancun after knowing each other for a week. She wore a bikini and he dressed in cutoff jeans. Brittney Spears married in Las Vegas while intoxicated and immediately filed for annulment. I recall a wedding ceremnony some time ago in which a dog participated. I'm sure they loved the dog, and personally I'm all for individualizing the ceremony, but to an outsider it appears they were mocking the event.

Let me not be too strident. When I was a boy in parochial school half a century ago, I was told that only a Catholic wedding was really valid. People who married in any other church were not truly wedded. It took a while for me and the church to outgrow such a mentality, but nowadays I think we all would accept the idea that other Christian weddings are true, as are Jewish weddings, Muslim weddings, Hindu weddings and so forth. Even Pamela on the beach and Brittney in Vegas were actually married. Well, possibly not Brittney, considering she wanted out of the marriage almost immediately.

My point is, we have become much less sectarian in our thinking, but not  to the point where many of us would accept gay marriage. Or mawwiage.

So here's what seems simple to me in the middle of it all. Marriage is a religious ceremony, not a civil one. If a minister, even one from some diploma mill, says two people are married, I agree that they are married. If people are joined in a civil ceremony, the license from the state should not mention the word "marriage." Call it a license to cohabit, to share community property, or whatever the state wants. 

So, to sum up: if a minister says two people are married, then I say they are married. If the state accords two people the right to share the material benefits associated with marriage, then I'm for that too. The business of the state, after all, is to assist people in their pursuit of happiness, not to thwart that pursuit.