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| LinkExchange Member | Free Home Pages at GeoCities |
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| LinkExchange Member | Free Home Pages at GeoCities |
I've never really paid much attention to this question before. I mean, all my life when I've thought about marriage, I've always automatically assumed "husband and wife." In our predominately heterosexual society, that's really not that surprising, I guess.
Now, however, I've had reason to give this some thought. You see, much to my pleasant surprise, I have suddenly found myself in love with a wonderful man that I have every intention of spending the rest of my life with. Lucky for me, he happens to feel the same way.
Just this morning he and I were sitting down at the computer to create an account for him at GeoCities so that he could have his own email and web page. We got to the section in the home page editor where you can put in links to other pages on the web and started to put in a link to my page.
That's when it just sort of hit me. What do we call ourselves? My mind started cataloguing all the terms that I'd heard over the years, but none of them seemed to accurately describe our relationship. I asked Chris what he thought about it, and after a short discussion we decided to put it down as "life partner." After thinking about it for some time now, I think we actually may have found the best possible description for us. My reason for writing this is to talk a little about my reasons for why I feel that way.
Let's take "husband" first, since that seems to be the most logical term. For me, that term is permanently and completely associated with "wife". With that in mind, now consider that "husband" is also traditionally associated with the so called "masculine" roll in a heterosexual marriage. Well, neither Chris nor I are in any way effiminate. To my ears at least, calling him my "husband" implies that I must be the "wife", or vice versa, which couldn't be further from the truth.
Then there is the ever popular "lover". That term seems to imply something less than permanent, something less than a complete committment. Maybe it's because in our society that term is usually applied to the "third" person in an extra-marital affair, I don't know. Whatever the reason, the term "lover" just doesn't seem to fit for me.
"Boyfriend" is even worse. A boyfriend is someone that you date, however seriously, before you make a committment. This one is a definite "no-no", since Chris and I are far beyond the "boyfriend" stage. (Well, maybe not that far, but you know what I mean.)
Well, what about "spouse"? It's not gender specific, so it would seem to be appropriate. Unfortunately, it also implies a legal position that we, as a same-sex couple, are not priviledged to achieve at this time. Until such time as society can get over it's fear and modernize the marriage laws, I'm afraid "spouse" in the true sense of the word will just have to wait.
Now let's take a look at "life partner". A marriage is definitely a partnership - ask anyone who is in, or has had, a successful and happy marriage. I'm sure they'll tell you that there is no way that it could have worked if it was not a partnership. Partner also implies equality, at least to me. In the business world, a partner is someone who works with you, not for you. So "life partner" says to me "an equal in a life long relationship who will work with me for our common goals, in love." Since that pretty much describes how I envision my life together with Chris, and I believe he feels the same way, that seems to be the best possible term.
Now that the push is on in our society to legalize gay marriage, it seems to me that this is a question that everyone in our community ought to be asking themselves. Actually, I would be surprised if this doesn't end up being an issue in the gay marriage debate itself. If that is the case, then we as a community need to come up with some answers now, so that we can provide a united front in the battle that is sure to come. Without that united front, we can never hope to achieve the rights that we so desperately want and need.
What do you think? If you are in along term same sex relationship, have been in one in the past, or just feel strongly about this issue, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter. What do you call yourselves, and why? Please send your responses to in-a-name@fundingvisions.com. I'll collect the responses and post a summary of the responses, along with some of the more interesting messages, on my home page in a few weeks.
Bob "Toantom" Parker
March 9, 1997
