A Tinge of Lavender
When a forty year old woman walked into the Vera Wang Bridal Salon looking for a wedding dress, the experienced sales associate realized she was not dealing with a blushing bride. The woman appeared older and in need of some plastic help and liberal quantities of Botox. Assuming this was probably not a first marriage for her client, the sales associate explained. “For a first marriage, the bride will usually wear white. It’s a symbol of purity and virginity. If this is a second or third marriage, a bride often will select a gown in a pastel color.”
After a few thoughtful moments, the prospective bride said, “Well, I’d like to see something in white—with maybe a tinge of lavender added.”
The recent approval of gay and lesbian marriage in New York adds more than a “tinge of lavender” to the marriage horizon. The importance of New York’s action is not just that it’s the sixth state to allow same sex marriage, nor the fact that it’s the most populous so far. New York marks a turning of the tide. There won’t be a flood of states to follow, but, inexorably, more states and the federal government will have to address their legalized discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Conservatives and religionists shout, “The sky is falling; the sky is falling; marriage is one man with one woman.” And, while the one man-one woman crusade has the support of custom, there’s also historical and ethical backing for same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, the opponents of gay marriage may be partially right. The sky isn’t falling, but it is increasingly “tinged with lavender,” like a summer sunset. Younger voters no longer care about gay marriage. It’s not an issue for them. But sooner or later the philosophical and moral principles that underpin marriage will have to be addressed.
Traditional marriage, as we currently know it, is based on monogamy and the commitment of a couple to be faithful to each other emotionally and sexually. Frequently, traditional marriage falls far short of this goal. Nevertheless, we continue to adhere to the concept of monogamy.
Many gays, for whom marriage in past decades hasn’t been a possibility, thumb their nose at monogamy. They have enjoyed the variety provided by multiple sexual partners. Bath houses, gay bars, and internet hook-up sites are proof positive for that assertion.
So the question becomes, with acceptance of gay marriage on the rise, will gays and lesbians who marry adopt the traditional heterosexual goal of monogamy? Or, will heterosexual marriages move toward the gay position of greater sexual freedom and plurality?
There is no solid data on how many men and women have had more than one sexual partner in their lifetime. But if you accept Jimmy Carter’s Biblical standard, that looking on another person with lust in your heart is equivalent to adultery, then we all are adulterers. “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Ich bin ein adulterer.
A Muslim Egyptian woman whom I worked with in Saudi Arabia noted that Christians were just as polygamous as Muslims. “You don’t practice polygamy in America; you practice serial monogamy. But it’s the same thing,” she told me over a cup of Saudi tea. “In your country a man has one wife—divorces, takes another, and so on. A Muslim man may have four wives at the same time. But he must care and provide for all of them.” She’s right. Not every Christian has two or three wives in the course of a lifetime, nor does every Muslim. But many adherents to both faiths do have multiple sexual partners, some of whom may be wives, over the course of a lifetime.
Social evolutionists might argue that for preservation of the species males are meant to spread their seed. Having multiple sexual partners, therefore, is natural for the male. By the same token, in ancient Israel if a husband died, his brother-in-law under Jewish law had to marry the widow. That had nothing to do with love, compassion, companionship, or polygamy. It was preservation of the species. Jews were a minority in a foreign culture and a fertile widow couldn’t be wasted.
The New York Times Magazine of Sunday, July 3, featured an article by Mark Oppenheimer, “Married With Infidelities,” in which he quotes extensively from Dan Savage, popular gay columnist, frequent NPR commentator and author of Savage Love.
Oppenheimer says, “Savage believes monogamy is right for many couples. But he believes our discourse about it, and about sexuality more generally, is dishonest. Some people need more than one partner…. In some marriages, talking honestly about our needs will forestall or obviate affairs; in other marriages, the conversation may lead to an affair, but with permission. In both cases, honesty is the best policy.”
Savage insists, “There’s not a ‘one size fits all’ way to approach monogamy….
Folks on the verge of making monogamous commitments need to look at the wreckage around them—all those failed monogamous relationships out there (Schwarznegger, Clinton, Vitter, Edwards, Spitzer, whoever’s on the cover of US magazine this week)—and have a conversation about what it will mean if one or the other partner should cheat. And agree, at the very least, to getting through it, to place a higher value on the relationship itself than on one component of it, sexual exclusivity.”
For many of us, gay/ straight, liberal/conservative, Christian/Muslim, that may sound like heresy. But as gay marriage evolves from a concept to a fact, it’s bound to impact the broader culture of matrimony in America. And Savage is right. Honesty is the best policy—even in a marriage.
John Siegfried, a former Rehoboth resident, lives in Ft. Lauderdale. Email John Siegfried