Drawn to the hateful trash like rubber-neckers to a car crash (one involving kittehs, small children and celebrities not wearing make-up) I read an article in the Daily Mail about Kelly McGillis. I was surprised there were only two comments. One said something like:
This isn't a marriage: to call it a marriage is to devalue real marriages.
To which one of my alter egos couldn't resist replying something like:
Oh yes, two people marrying for love really devalues the centuries old tradition of women being forced to wed men for economic reasons / men forced to wed women to produce an heir.
Still, being gay it won't last. In a real marriage, a man and a woman vow to stay together 'til death us to do part' and all married couples I know wouldn't even contemplate separating before death.
Comments were being moderated in advance, so about 15 minutes later I refreshed to see what was happening. The original comment had been removed.
I refreshed again later and several comments had been published, not my alter ego's. But the original comment also was still 'disappeared'.
I imagine that moderating Daily Mail comments must be one of the most soul-destroying jobs imaginable.
But it has struck me. The first comment being blatantly homophobic was approved in the expectation that it would lead to several more homophobic comments. When that was red arrowed, when several comments came in saying 'Hugs to Kelly, what a brave person, wish you happiness for the future', the comment moderator panicked and remembered that, actually, most people in Britain are pretty relaxed about legal partnerships about gay people.
Also, they don't really like it when people point out the historic reality of marriage.
My feelings about marriage are that: there are clearly good legal reasons why people marry, and even more so if they have children, because the efforts involved to draw up legal arrangements otherwise are tedious and long-drawn out. When two people decide they love each other, want to spend the rest of their lives together and announce this before their families and friends, they really don't care about what 'marriage' meant in previous ages; what matters to them is their feelings, their sense of commitment.*
I just get a little tired of those who portray a theoretical or abstract notion of 'marriage' to be a sine qua non. I personally don't know anyone who actually thinks that other people's social arrangements undermines their own marriage, no one who feels personally threatened by same-sex legal partnerships (whatever they're called), or people who live in a way that resembles marriage but for the legal and ritual process.
But there's a certain Daily Mail-type mentality that characterises marriage through the ages in the way that is now: a lifelong commitment between two equal partners, to enjoy chaste copulation and possibly procreation, in an atmosphere of mutual respect and nurture. Modern-day marriage is no guarantee of that, but until fairly recently it wasn't even the expectation.
* apart from those who think that a wedding is a happy ending involving a white dress, a horse-drawn carriage, flowers and a party, a demonstration to acquaintances of how rich - or in hock - Mummy and Daddy are
* *Don't infer that I belittle or disregard individuals who choose a different model of relationship, but I would imagine if I caught an omnibus to Clapham and enquired of the passengers what they thought of marriage, a good few would come up with ideas pretty similar to that (apart from those who say ' I was well shut of him'!)
