July 2001

A few years ago, I sat across from a lawyer and a paralegal, trying to explain that my partner and I wanted to secure the same legal rights as those of a married couple. After my lengthy description of our situation, the lawyer quickly assured me that my partner could get health benefits through my university. "But that's for same-sex couples only, right?" I asked. Giving me a look that I've seen all too often in the past–a look of disorientation about my orientation that I usually find at least a little amusing–they asked in a halting voice if I were in a heterosexual relationship. When I nodded impatiently (that much, I thought, had been clear), they looked even more confused.

"So why don't you just get married?"

It's a question I've asked myself a time or two: when I found that my health insurance didn't cover a wisdom tooth extraction but my partner's would; when I realized that the word "husband" would make my complaint about an erroneous charge on our joint credit card all the more authoritative; when I heard that married couples get more social security income than do single individuals. Or when I see friends who are "legal" and have a relationship that is as equal as my own. Faced with my ten-year high school reunion, teenage insecurities come bounding back and I long for the simplicity and legitimization of a "husband." To many the word "partner" sounds diminutive, just a notch above a boyfriend. Others assume I'm a lesbian.  While I'd like to be able to say that I simply shrug off either interpretation of the term, there are times–like the high-school reunion–when I find myself reaching for the security of the male pronoun.

As I tell friends who seem amazed by my determination–or less gently, my stubbornness–not to walk down the aisle, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't entertain the idea of making it legit. Since I take prescription medication on a regular basis and have long-term health issues, I'm not able to go without health insurance for any period of time. I can imagine the day we'll be forced to marry so that I can get a refill. Of course, every argument that I can think of to get legally married is an argument not to: for one, the existence of couples who are just as committed to one another as we are and yet are denied such benefits simply because they're of the same sex. It's not all about discrimination against same-sex couples, though. I'm not sure that if large numbers of Americans suddenly saw the light and legalized same-sex marriage I would leap head first for the nearest courthouse. There is the women-as-property argument, which I've found prompts furrowed brows and the kind of look that suggests I'm speaking in an ancient tongue. We've also perplexed people with the argument that private relationships should not have to be sanctioned and dissolved through the government. As one lawyer demanded in a lawyerly way, "Don't you have a driver's license?"--as if my legalized ability to operate a motor vehicle were neatly analogous to my position as a wife.

More than anything else this dilemma–to wed or not to wed–has made me reexamine my position as a feminist. My stance seems like a classic example of a radical feminist position that progressive social change is never entirely possible within the confines of an institution–especially one as well-entrenched and patriarchal as marriage. But of course my philosophical and ethical beliefs are never as simple as the chapter divisions in my trusty women's studies textbook. It would be naïve–and hardly productive–to argue that my friends' egalitarian marriages, their insistence on things like shared housework and separate bank accounts, do not make marriage a safer, happier place for women–and men. And the radical feminist presumption that it is ever possible to exist outside of social institutions seems questionable. But something still holds me back from the precipice of that gilded alter. Perhaps it's because marriage feels so very institutional, from the wedding itself (the last frontier for feminism, seemingly) to brewing legislation that would make divorce harder than ever to attain. To have that piece of paper in hand–benign as it may seem–feels like my ethical equivalent of a briar patch.

All this is not to say that we shun the idea of a ceremony. Two years ago, we gathered with a small group of family and friends in Rocky Mountain National Park to celebrate our lifelong commitment. I find it curious that people who weren't there often presume it was quite simple–jeans and tennis shoes, even–as if a commitment ceremony is by definition a casual affair. What does this suggest, I wonder, about social attitudes toward such ceremonies, or the people who compose them? The popular belief that these relationships can't possibly be permanent has a disturbing amount of power; on occasion I've even questioned ours. Everyone in a serious relationship occasionally wonders whether it will last, of course, but that question is even more troubling when you lack the official stamp of social approval.

In planning the ceremony my partner and I were confronted with what one friend calls The Wedding Machine. For the first time in my life, I was the absolute center of a business transaction even when "The Groom" was standing right next to me. My mother ranked second. Eric didn't even make the list. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, given that the wedding section of the local bookstore boasted a dazzling array of books for The Bride while there was only one book directed to The Groom: an emaciated, pathetic little volume that reminded him to bring clean underwear along on the honeymoon. Throughout the planning Eric was frustrated by florists' and dressmakers' and bakers' astonishment that he was actually there. And even though we were in a relatively conservative town, my mention of a "commitment ceremony" was instantly translated into a "wedding" as if no alternative  language existed for what we were doing. In some sense, I suppose, it doesn't.

We chose to do the ceremony ourselves. I wore a hunter green dress (as my partner's mother explained to her bewildered six-year-old great-niece, this is my favorite color).  After Eric and I said a few words our parents filed in–a total of seven people, including his three step-parents–and we told each what he or she meant to us.  We continued by reading lines from a eleventh-century Islamic poem and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," telling stories about ourselves and our life together, and finally exchanging hand-written vows. At one point I told the audience  that we were doing the ceremony this way because of our commitment to equality between women and men.  When I announced this before all of the people who had watched me grow up–and some, like my dear Uncle Tad, who weren't sure what to think–the women's studies classes, the theories, the protests, the pain and progress crystalized in one glorious moment of a Colorado June morning. Leslie Marmon Silko says best what our ceremony was all about:  "I have made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong."

Not one of our parents tried to intervene in our decision not to get a marriage license. They were–and still are–somewhat confused; my father in a fatherly way expressed concern about things like health insurance and kids. But they stood behind us–literally, figuratively, some slouching and a bit nervous. A few of our friends who have pursued alternative ceremonies haven't been so fortunate.

I must confess that when I heard recently that Gloria Steinem had gotten married, I felt a certain disappointment. It seemed so, well, conventional. Perhaps in her I saw myself, years down the road, when the practicalities of health insurance and my children's status overwhelm any idealistic visions of youth. But declaring that some family arrangements are morally superior to others smacks of the very right-wing ideology to which we're so opposed. We're treading dangerous waters when we claim we have the corner on the market of what's best for everyone else. And I would hate for my future decision to wed to be seen by other feminists as a sell-out. As I like to think, I'm leaving myself room for more wisdom.

July 2005

My partner and I "got legal" last year so that, to put it in its simplest and most disturbing terms, he could get a refill. I had a full-time job with benefits; he did not. Our feelings for each other, and the equality of our relationship, have not changed; but I went overnight from feeling like I was a noble example of heterosexual disobedience to a rather shame-faced convert. As we signed the papers in the court house, we offered up one final challenge in asking the clerk if there would ever be a day when "one man and one woman" did not appear as the first requirement for receiving a marriage license in Colorado. We were answered with a prepackaged wedding gift from the county: a collection of recipes and laundry detergent that aptly included a sample of Pepto Bismol to ease the "stresses of your big day." In this uncomfortably married state, our solace is in knowing that we define our relationship entirely apart from its legal status. It may be selling out, and it may be a pricey compromise, but we have to believe that even from this well-trodden place we can support those who can't or choose not to join us.

Cari M. Carpenter currently lives with her partner in Morgantown, WV, where she is an English professor. Both come from Fort Collins, Colorado: a place she will always call home.