It just seems like yesterday my wife and I were married. Oh, no, we weren't married yesterday. It is ... let's see ... more than 22 years now. But I'm not talking about weddings. I'm talking about married. Because sometime in the first decade of the 21st century ... we stopped being married.
Now, calm yourself. My wife and I are still together. No divorce. Not even a hiccup. Still happily a couple. But sometime prior to 2008 the ground shifted and the earth opened up and swallowed "marriage". Oh, you and I still use the word. I mean, I still tell people I'm married and all. But the truth is that what I am to my wife that I term "married" is not what the culture at large means when they say "married." If I tell someone I'm married it's like describing what it's like to sit in a fire as "warm".
To be fair, I don't actually know what the term means today. While they went about wrenching it loose from its moorings and setting it adrift in this new direction, they didn't seem to set the sails, to keep the boating metaphor going. I mean, not only is it no longer what it used to mean, but it also seems that no one is able to explain to me what it means now let alone where it's going. They just tell me it doesn't mean what it has meant since time immemorial. And that's obviously true.
So, my wife and I are still ... hitched. We're still a couple. We're still husband and wife, united in one flesh for mutual support and for procreation for life. (Well, to be clear, we've done our procreation part.) I just don't have a word anymore for that thing. They took the perfectly good word I had and didn't bother leaving me a substitute. I wonder what word I can use now when I want to convey my marital status, since "single" is clearly wrong and "married" doesn't convey it properly anymore?
3 comments:
How about a hyphenated word? Biologically-married.
I was thinking about this whole thing this morning. As it turns out, "male" and "female" still have meaning in the hardware store. Perhaps you could write a new post: "Could An Intellectual Ever Be A Plumber?" or "Are Plumbers More Ontologically Grounded Than Intellectuals?"... or something like that.
True. Same with electronics. There are "male" and "female" connectors (and by design male connectors CANNOT mate with male connectors). Seems like plumbing and electronics know something post-mosderns can't figure out.
California will out law the terms "male" and "female" for ANY usage!
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