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Article: Marriage a la mode Today's debate over same-sex marriage assumes that Western cultures have always agreed on what it means to wed. But history tells a different story.
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- June 13, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1999 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Marriage is sleeping in a room that's too hot next to someone
who's sleeping in a room that's too cold.
A few years ago, I sent Reader's Digest that one-liner about
marriage and found out that it had been published when the magazine
sent me a check. But my real joke was on Reader's Digest: I'm a
woman whose lifetime thermostatic debate is with another woman.
So am I married? Yes, according to my climate-control
definition, but no, according to the law. Surprisingly, this
disagreement, between the inside and outside definitions of marriage,
runs throughout the institution's history. The story of the line
between public and private marriage is therefore also a story of how
marriage has ...