Professor Spooner's Blog

Recently my class spent a lot of time discussing the meaning of marriage, which is at the core of two Supreme Court cases regarding same sex marriage. Here in the United States, marriage is a legal, cultural, and religious term. Say “marriage” to ten different Americans, and ten different meanings will pop into their heads. You may all be too young to be on the wedding circuit yet, but sometime in the next ten years you will spend pretty much every weekend from May through September in a dress or suit, watching your friends take an oath of devotion and love. And every single wedding will be completely different; you will go to churches, temples, beaches, restaurants, and city hall. But all of the weddings will share a civil law component: before every party the couple goes to the local government to get a license. This license may be more magical than the wedding cake or first dance: it provides thousands of legal rights.

In contrast, in the Middle East, marriage is entirely a religious institution. This article is an interesting look at the efforts of a couple in Lebanon to be married without religion. As we in the United States grapple with the cultural and social change that comes with making same sex marriage legal, it is interesting to look at what marriage means in other parts of the world.