Difference between revisions of "House of D'outh"

Revision as of 09:58, 25 July 2015

I've written out this brain dump here to sort out my thoughts about marriage.

SO YOU WANT TO HAVE A ROM CEREMONY...

In Singapore, it is often called ROM Ceremony. ROM stands for REGISTRATION OF MARRIAGE. Typical of Singaporeans to acronymise even what ought to be a beautiful, romantic sounding event into ROM. Even more telling that the stereotypical singapore wedding proposal is actually: "Shall we buy a HDB flat together?"

But first, what the hell is a marriage even?

According to my understanding and research on it, the "legal" purpose of a marriage is as follows (in my own words):

1. to establish each other as the legal parent of your partner’s children (assuming if you have any or adopt any)
2. to have monopoly in your partner's sexuality (ie: monogamy)
3. to have rights to your partner's domestic and other labour services (eg: "COOK ME DINNER NOW! CLEAN THE FLOOR NOW! HELP ME MOVE THIS HEAVY BOX!!!")
4. to give your partner control over property belonging or potentially accruing to each other (ie: SHARING THINGS - whether good things or bad things)
5. to establish a joint fund of property - which may be for the benefit of both of you and any resulting children (ie: an economic partnership)

So the marriage certificate is a paper which thus says that these agreements can be legally recognised - and also enforced.

For the most part I can agree with these legal terms of what constitutes a marital union and I can see the value of stating it down on paper especially where it may relate to children, money, medical consent, property and other financial decisions, because today's society is full of coldly rule-abiding people who only believe in a thing if it is legally written on paper!

For me then, the bigger question is: why do we require the law or the state to come in to ratify our partnership? Could I have come up with a better terms of agreement for our union as a couple or family unit? What would this better terms of union be like?

If we had to think of it in an old fashioned sense, perhaps community recognition (and family support) of this private agreement between individuals is what qualified unions as marriages. However, I feel I should clarify that I do not want to do this just because we want to gain our community's recognition of our union, but to have the opportunity to celebrate it together with the wider community around us. In a way,

CEREMONY

What is a wedding? INTERNET DICTIONARY SAYS: "A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage." I wish to design a ceremony for ourselves.