The Marriage Dance, to a Different Tune

Anybody who has been successfully married to the same person for any length of time has a theory about the dynamics of being married. Mine is that marriage is a dance. The music and the rhythms are in the heads and hearts of the dancers. Lucky couples hear the same tune, often at the same time. The patient listen for points along the way where the melody of one complements the chorus of the other. The tolerant learn to adapt to the music emanating from a partner. The state, through its marriage laws, sells tickets to the dance.

A lot of us don’t want same-sex couples legitimately on the dance floor.

The majority of us take our matrimonial dance for granted. Any man is free to marry or not marry any woman and to stay married for the wrong, the frivolous, the most venal of reasons. As long as each partner is a member of a different sex, the law averts its eyes. So the woman I know who married so that she could quiet the ticking of her biological clock could do so with the state’s approval. A couple I know has been unhappily married for several years now; he has affairs, and she prefers not to know about them. My twice-married friend applied for and got a third license with no questions asked and celebrated in a lace dress like a first-time bride, bless her heart. And there is no state law that stops men from ordering wives through catalogs, like they are buying canvas luggage. But Congress has paved the way for any state to deny a marriage license to same-sex couples. A number of states, including California, took up the invitation. And those of us on the dance floor let that happen.

In my more cynical moments, I wonder if our collective objection to same-sex-couple marriages is grounded in the fear that those couples will dance better than we do. Maybe the absence of gender difference will cause less friction, and only 25% of all same-sex marriages will end in divorce. That would certainly make the current 50% rate for opposite-sex marriages look even shabbier. In point of fact, there probably won’t be much difference in the long run. Any two people who step into any marriage have as much chance as the next couple of succeeding at it. In some cases, it is the measure of success that the parties determined to let go of one another before more major damage was done. In others, the divorce process is just the last nail in the coffin.

Most of the same-sex couples seeking to enter into a legally sanctioned marriage don’t want to dismantle the institution of marriage. They certainly aren’t after your daughters or your sons or your spouse. Some couples just want the law to recognize their style of doing the marriage dance as valid. A number of these couples have been practicing their steps in the privacy of their own homes. What else would you call moving to the city in which their partner had a great career opportunity? How about taking turns visiting each other’s relatives at key holidays or deciding to have both families over and let the sparks fly? Fighting about money and negotiating to avoid being the one who always changes the litter box. Sounds a lot like the marriage I have been in for 11 years. It boggles my imagination that we would want to legislate to stop the next two people ready and willing to sign on to abide by the rules, to love, honor and cherish, through sickness and in health, for better or worse, because they don’t look like me and Gene as a couple.

Here’s what I know. Our daily calls to one another during the workday will be just as constant, the Friday nights in front of “Homicide” with sorbet will be just as fine. We will still have conflicting tastes in music, and our checking accounts will be just as separate, whether the married couple next door is gay or heterosexual. They will be doing their dance, and we will be doing ours.