I am not your property!

Marriage has its origins in property law. This is the simple, irrefutable truth. In the ancient world, a man would sell his daughter to another man. Her sexuality was then tightly controlled in order to ensure that any children she had were the rightful, biological inheritors of her husband's estate. In Medieval Europe, only the aristocracy owned property in the first place, so only the unions of the very wealthy required the record-keeping of the church in the form of marriage. The common people simply celebrated with their families and moved in to a new home together. That's it.

This association of legal marriage with property law makes me, frankly, not want a legal marriage. I am not property to be passed from man to man, preserved for the purpose of assured heirs. I am an agent in my own right, capable of owning my own property and choosing my own partner. In this way, I prefer the concept of a civil union; the law may recognize me as an agent acting in my own name and may make note of my right to dispense of my property as I see fit. This would be a good, strong civil union contract.

Furthermore, the fact that I am an agent means that I do not need the church to say the magic words and "make" us man and wife. I can enter a contract with my partner to ensure that my property passes to my partner when I die, etc, on my own, and I can promise him my love, my body, and my future on my own. It just so happens that I want the opportunity to have my family acknowledge and bless my union, and that is the purpose of a religious wedding in today's world.

Conflating the holy state of matrimony with simple property law cheapens the blessing that is marriage. Once the property and inheritance laws are relegated to their rightful terminology "civil union", then we can allow the religious authorities to decide for themselves which unions they will bless. Legal contracts concerning inheritance must be seperated from the sanctity of marriage. Let's start today.