I think you are missing the point. Children, in the past, were seen as positive proof of consummation. If you have a child, you must have consummated the marriage. If you don’t have a child, you may or may not have consummated the marriage. One state is definitive, the other less so.
Yes. Once you take sexual relations ordered toward procreation, out of the definition of marriage, any two people who are of age and not closely related can obtain a civil marriage.
Yes, but the point is that heterosexual couples have always had a possibility (and for older married couples, a near-certainty) of not having proof of consummation. There is nothing new about it with SS’M’ at all; thereby, the thread title makes no sense.
Thanks. Now, that makes more sense. It’s the continuation of the culture’s perceived separation of sex and marriage from childbearing. Because we make exceptions due to age and infertility, now we must make exceptions for sex. (It may be the logical trajectory given our current situation, but how is it not a big deal?)
Is there?
And that view is why the OP was a valid question.
I personally think that the whole civil marriage concept has become irrelevant. I wonder what the future holds for the Catholic Church when She refuses to officiate a same sex marriage and the law comes down with the dreaded word, “Discrimination”. Probably She will be refused the legal right to perform civil marriages.
You are correct, it can stop relatives from doing so.
As a Catholic, it would be a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with having civil marriages and religious ceremonies that take place either separately or simultaneously. There is a lot wrong with lumping civil marriages in with civil SS"M"s and other civil partnership contracts.
Not true, they are more hesitant about it because they are less inclined to divorce than Boomers and have witnessed what divorce does to children either directly or to their friends.
Actually from a legal point of view this is not true. From a legal point of view consummation is heterosexual intercourse and may render a marriage invalid for heterosexuals (if the “innocent” party brings it up). For same sex couples it has not been addressed yet or taken it to Court. From an administrative point of view as to same sex just getting the license seems to be enough. This is not the case for heterosexuals. However declaration of invalid marriages through consummation for heterosexuals is one of those things that are in the book but you will never see in practice and basically it has just been “left” there.
The affected party must bring it up. That is why it is never going to be resolved because no SSM party is going to bring that kind of stuff up. The area of immigration where this actually does have significance looks at many things to determine if there has been consummation: are there children, do they live in the same house, do they share one bed( yes immigration officials can go to your house to verify those things) and a million other things to make a determination. That is why immigration may be the only area this can come up…but knowing how scared people are of the USCIS, I don’t see it happening.
This is exactly why I support “civil unions” and believe that I am not contradicting Catholic teaching by doing so, because I would like to see such unions defined in a way that had no necessary sexual implications at all. People who are deeply involved in each other’s lives should be able to get legal recognition of this with implications for hospital visitation rights, inheritance, etc.
I don’t think we are in disagreement here. For the very reasons you state, many young people see civil marriage is a farce. The pain of divorce is no more painful that a split-up of a “relationship”. In fact a split of a “relationship” can be worse because there can be no beginning or end. Just a drifting away.
Consumation and infertility are not the same. Consummation is the “ability” to consummate marriage, to be more exact from a legal point of view: impotency. A person who is infertulile is not necessary impotent hence an unfertile person cannot have his marriage be contested as invalid because they have the “ability”. An impotent man on the other hand does have an invalid marriage but to be judicially declared the wife has to be the one that brings it up. I did divorces and family law for many years and have to say I never saw under this area, one claim of this kind. Again one of those things that you won’t see in practice.Then why allow infertile couples to get married? How can the government know they’re consummating their marriages? Are we going to demand every married couple send the government a sex tape?This really is a ridiculous conversation.
No, I know that. My point was that if a couple is infertile (or uses contraception permanently), the government has no way of tracking their consummation status. So this isn’t a new issue.
Yes, this is how I see it for two reasons: a) it does not use the word ‘marriage’ and b) it stays as far away from the part of the Church, that is to say, Christianity as a whole, that does not assent to it. It makes people quite content.