To define coverture is to go back in time when a woman gave up any rights of independence to her husband, for she was under the protection, power and influence of him. It was her place in marriage to be the homemaker and the child caregiver and his place to earn the income. Labor was divided between the sexes because it was the natural thing to do. Women had their place in society and within the marriage.
The traditional views of marriage tell women that it is their duty to play their role in this marital relationship. Men and women are not equally qualified to perform the roles of the other. Vows were taken at the altar to love, honor and obey their husband.
This medieval concept of marriage lingered for hundreds of years where women were more property than partner until the equality of women began to emerge. Women finally obtained the right to vote, then moved into those traditional fields that only men had occupied. Their struggle for equality continues to be an ongoing effort.
Today we see a new woman, much different from our mothers and grandmothers even, one that is capable of doing much more than she could 100 years ago. Marriage laws also changed giving her greater responsibilities in the marriage contract. She is less likely to be automatically given child caregiver custody in divorce. There is greater equality in who pays whom alimony.
The Right wants to define marriage in an antiquated fashion much like the coverture of old. Arguments to keep this definition have brought up procreation, yet have ignored the fact there has never been a requirement to be fertile to have a legal marriage. Testimony in the Prop 8 trial in California pointed out that 38% of all children born in the United States are from unwed parents. So how is procreation necessary for marriage or marriage necessary for procreation? How is same-sex marriage different from an infertile one?
The Right wants the American people to believe that a child needs both a mother and a father. This only reinforces the notion that traditional marriage is necessary to rear children because the mother and the father have roles that must be held. In other words, the mother's place is in the home caring for the children. That is her role.
Another argument the Right makes is that gay and lesbian people are not being discriminated against because they have the right to marry, just not to one of the same sex as they. Yet the courts have ruled in opposition. The California Supreme Court stated, "[b]ecause a person's sexual orientation is so integral an aspect of one's identity, it is not appropriate to require a person to repudiate or change his or her sexual orientation in order to avoid discriminatory treatment." The fact is that being gay cannot be changed; and therefore, the right to marry is denied based on sex. How could a same-sex marriage fit the arcane definition without a man and a woman?
The right to marry is a fundamental right of all Americans. Yet the right to marry someone of your own sex is denied in most states and only recognized as marriage in a handful of others. But the Right provides a solution, domestic partnerships, because that is not marriage. This is yet another form of discrimination. Domestic partners have no rights as do married couples under most state laws and certainly not federal.
Ah, but the Right argues that opening the door for same-sex couples to marry brings into play polygamy and incestuous marriages while ignoring the compelling interest of the state to not recognize those relationships. Laws preventing a father from marrying his daughter are the same for two brothers marrying.
The trial in California over Prop 8 provided evidence that the Right used threats and intimidation for those in favor of same-sex marriage. The Catholic Church and LDS joined forces to finance a campaign using those tactics. Even though only 2% of Californians are Mormon, the financial contributions from out-of-state and the volunteer force they brought with them worked in unison with other religious organizations to bring the vote to repeal the law by 4.6%. This, in effect, had established a number of marital statuses within the state. Of course, there are those opposite-sex couples who were/are free to marry before and after Prop 8; 18,000 same-sex couples who married between 17 June and 4 November 2008 but cannot remarry if that marriage is dissolved by death or divorce; and those same-sex and opposite-sex couples that marry legally outside the state.
The Right used the people of California for their own purposes, to keep the woman and traditional marriage in place. They have campaigned to stigmatize the gay and lesbian population as being undesired and less deserving of recognition of the status of a civil marriage. They fail to recognize that gay and lesbian individuals have relationships that mirror that of the straight population. They want to refuse the right of marriage and the state and federal benefits enjoyed by that right. To exclude gay and lesbian individuals from the institution of marriage in order to promote traditional marriage is nothing more than a new coverture wrapped up with a pretty bow. Women have fought for their rights, racial minorities have fought for their rights and gays and lesbians are now fighting for theirs.
