Quakers and Equal Civil Partnership

In a legal development in which British Quakers were vocally involved, equal marriage has been achieved in Great Britain – with separate laws in Scotland and in England & Wales, of course. Since 2014, it has been possible for two people to marry regardless of gender. Northern Ireland, for complex cultural and political reasons, has yet to follow suit, although they recognise same-sex marriages as civil partnerships, and civil partnerships can be entered into in that part of the United Kingdom.

As well as the campaign on the long road to equal marriage, along which the introduction of civil partnerships is generally considered a stop, there have also been those arguing for opposite-sex civil partnerships. I have known Friends who have been involved in this action, including those who stated their wish to form a civil partnership rather than a marriage, despite not being a same-sex couple. That campaign has now, thanks in large part to a supreme court judgement (the Steinfeld-Keidan judgement), led to a change in law in England and Wales and opposite-sex civil partnerships are expected to be available before the end of the year.

Now, when civil partnerships were introduced in the various parts of Britain for same-sex couples, many Quaker Meetings got involved. Supporting equal marriage, or at least legal recognition of same-sex relationships, and not being able to record marriages for same-sex couples, many Meetings began to celebrate – or at least be willing to celebrate – or even record in Meeting for Worship these new civil partnerships. For many of us, this was supported as a sort of “best we can do”, though we religiously wished to report same-sex marriages, and since the summer of 2009 that has been in line with the discernment of Yearly Meeting in session. Given our organisational support for equal marriage, it is likely now possible in many Meetings to celebrate and record both civil partnerships (for same-sex couples) and marriages (for all couples).

The introduction of opposite-sex civil partnerships raises a question: do we wish to celebrate and record such civil partnerships as well?

The obvious and easy answer is ‘yes’, but we should stop a moment and think. If we were starting from a blank slate, with both marriages and civil partnerships available to all, would we wish to celebrate and record both, in a Meeting for Worship with due solemnity and so on and so forth? If you think the answer is still an obvious ‘yes’, without thought or reasoning, perhaps it is worth considering the following…

“Marriage” is not just a word, to Friends. It does not represent some contractual relationship, as the language around civil partnerships suggests for those unions, and indeed as some legal approaches to marriage around the world would indicate. Marriage is a sacred thing, and we recognised civil partnerships in similar manner to marriages because, essentially, we recognised that in our terms the relationship being recognised through civil partnership was, in fact, a marriage. Marriage is a state that exists between two people and that may exist even without recognition, and I have heard from Friends who participated in Meetings for Worship for, well, the terms varied, but Celebration of Commitment is one I’ve heard – meetings after the manner of Meetings for Worship for Solemnisation of Marriage but with no legal meaning and no claim to be marriages – that their experience of these meetings was that they had witnessed, participated in a marriage.

But if we can call all Meetings for Worship that recognise that commitment and that state marriages, even civil partnerships are no longer the “best that can be done” for some people, would we not be being truer to our testimony concerning marriage to say “that is it, we are done with civil partnerships entirely, for we call a spade a spade”? It could be argued that we should just conduct (or recognise, or more legally solemnise) marriages, for if all such relationships are marriages to us and we can call them all marriages, then to speak plainly would be to call them all marriages and record them all as marriages. Certainly it would be hard to defend continuing to support and recognise civil partnership for same-sex couples and refusing to do so for opposite-sex couples once the law allows for such. This would mean telling people who want their relationship registered as a civil partnership, rather than a marriage, that we can’t help them – but then, there are things we refuse to do. Indeed, while it’s not a general refusal there are cautions in Britain Yearly Meeting’s Quaker faith & practice regarding the marriage of those who have previously been divorced, in language that suggests we must suspect them of not believing in marriage as something that is intended to be life-long:

Area meetings should be sympathetic to and understanding of those who wish to be joined in marriage in a Friends’ meeting and who have been divorced or who have had a civil partnership dissolved (see 16.13). Many in this situation may regret that they have not been able to keep solemn promises they have made in the past. We should all be able to share these feelings, realising the occasions when we have not been able to fulfil the promises we have made. Whilst in no way departing from our corporate testimony as to the sanctity and lifelong nature of marriage, area meetings are given discretion whether or not to grant permission to those who wish to be re-married in a Friends’ meeting.

In exercising such discretion, area meetings will need to be fully satisfied that those who wish to be remarried share this testimony and, except in rare cases, are well known to and associated with the meeting. Area meetings should appoint certain Friends of sound judgment and discretion to serve as a meeting for clearness (see 16.37–16.39 & 12.22–12.25) to consider each application and so assist the meeting in reaching a decision without undesirable discussion of details in the meeting itself. (Paragraph 16.40 of Quaker faith & practice)

It is subtle, but inescapable, that this indicates a suspicion of the divorcee. We mean it in the kindest way, I am sure, and we are asked to approach it sensitively, giving them every opportunity to explain their failure (for it is certainly phrased as one), or a change in their view of marriage. While we might record the marriage of those not already known to our Area Meeting, or indeed not Quakers but sharing in our view of marriage, we are cautioned strongly against doing so for divorcees. This is not a small thing – though how much it relates to current practice, I am unsure.

So, that’s it, isn’t it? All marriages are marriages, and call a spade a spade. Ah, but what do you call a small, portion-sized bread product? Is it a bun, a bap, a barm, a barmcake, a roll, a cob, a… well, you get the idea. That may be a matter of dialect, a regional thing, but there’s also a factor of intent to it, a matter of the other meanings associated with the word. I know people who will call a filled roll a barm (as in a “bacon barm”), unless it’s filled with a burger, in which case it’s a bun – but if served unfilled with soup it’s a roll. For some, it’s a bun or barm or bap if it’s soft-crusted, and a roll if it has a crisp crust. We need to think about intent and associated meaning here, because they are at the heart of the campaign for equal civil partnership.

We have, as Quakers (at least in Britain), had for some time a view of marriage in which the parties are symmetric, with that symmetry in the words we say (except in terms of gendered words in a mixed-sex union, though in the latest revision that is now optional, with gender neutral options throughout) and in the expectations that we place on one another. To us, at least speaking ideally, marriage is an equal partnership and the only difference between husband and wife is that the words are used for people of different genders – and in our own statements, my wife and I avoided all gendered language, to make a point as much as anything else. However, we must accept that the wider society in which we are situated, and the history of that society and of many others that have become interwoven within it, does not see things that way. Oh, a lot of people are like us, idealists who say things as we do, and many are as sincere about it as we are. But they, and we, are still affected by our cultural environment in which the husband is seen, at a deep level and through much of our fiction, folk tales and history, as the protector and provider, while the wife is the supporter and home-maker. The deep cultural association of those words cannot be shaken off easily.

The very institution of marriage is given association with that asymmetry by the use of these words, and by the fact that it has for much of history and across much of the world been an asymmetric institution. In England and Wales, the possible causes for divorce (once divorce was made regularly available without a Private Act of Parliament) were different for the husband and the wife. From 1857 to 1937, in England and Wales, a man could divorce his wife on the sole grounds of adultery, while a woman whose husband philandered while married could not do so unless she could show an additional cause, such as incest, sodomy or cruelty. Going back further, all the language and expectations around marriage in the dominant church in England at any given time was always unequal, and among those whose marriages were truly seen to matter by the state – the propertied and noble classes, and the wealthier burghers – marriages were often matters of complex and unbalanced contract that cold bear a striking resemblance to a commercial agreement of selling or leasing something, and one or both of the parties could be seen as part of the exchange. The party ‘changing hands’ was, of course, usually the woman (or, to be frank, girl). Whatever we say it means to us today, we cannot dismiss this historical baggage in the minds of those who take issue with it – and we cannot dismiss it entirely from its influence on ourselves, either. To make a point, when we married my wife and I avoided gendered terms, as I have mentioned, but do you think we keep using ‘spouse’ in our everyday speech? Of course not, we refer to one another using ‘wife’ and ‘husband’, like most people, and I know that in so doing we cannot escape what we have learned from our cultural environment about the different expectations that are placed on wives as compared to husbands.

It is for this reason that many of those who have campaigned for equal civil partnerships have done so. They wish to completely avoid the cultural associations of marriage, of husbands and wives, and of course they won’t do so even by not marrying; even if their relationship weren’t legally recognised, they would be impacted by the expectations of gender roles that are entwined so closely with the expectations of a husband or wife. I expect most of them would accept that. But they want to do what they can to push back against this cultural norm, to say publicly “we will not associate ourselves with this history”, to be able to actually argue with anyone who refers to their partner as their husband or wife. At the same time, they do want the legal status, the protection and rights, and the support of their community in their relationship, to establish their commitment.

There may be other differences, of course. We won’t know until the regulations are promulgated. If the rules for mixed-sex civil partnerships are the same as for same-sex civil partnerships, then there will be differences between it and marriage. The rules for annulment are different in small but very significant ways, and the facts to establish a breakdown such that a civil partnership can be dissolved are different to those which allow a marriage to be ended in divorce. Adultery is not a cause to dissolve a civil partnership, though it is cause for divorce; having a sexually transmitted infection (STI) at the time of marriage is grounds to annul a marriage, as is non consummation (except in a same-sex marriage), but neither is grounds to annul a civil partnership. Actually, the consummation and adultery examples are probably somewhat a product of the same-sex aspect, as the law as written would make it impossible for a same-sex couple to consummate the relationship, and impossible for a fully and completely homosexual person to commit adultery (and lawmakers often seem to forget about bisexual people, or any form of not-entirely-straight-or-entirely-gay identity). Frankly, to my mind the voidable nature of an ‘unconsummated’ marriage is something of a dark ages holdover.

Anyway, the fact the rules are (slightly) different for same-sex and opposite-sex marriages means that the regulations for opposite-sex civil partnerships may create some difference between such civil partnership and same-sex ones, but if they do not, then there will be legal differences that might matter to people. They may actually feel it more appropriate to them, as a couple, not to presume that adultery be forbidden. They may feel that the legally implied expectation of consummation isn’t appropriate, either to them personally or as a matter of principle. They may think that an undisclosed STI shouldn’t be grounds for annulment. All of this on top of the fact that they may wish to avoid association with the historical and still culturally pervasive idea of what marriage is, and what it means to be a husband or a wife.

Now, we as Quakers – as a whole Religious Society, or a whole Yearly Meeting – probably can’t form a view on those legal differences. I know some Quakers would support the idea that adultery shouldn’t be a cause for divorce in itself, while others would say that marriage is inherently exclusive so obviously adultery may be seen as a violation of that commitment (though I note that Britain Yearly Meeting’s form of words for marriage doesn’t include anything about exclusivity – the meaning of ‘faithful’ is very much a matter for the parties involved). Views on consummation are likely to be extremely varied. But when it comes to the equality, the partnership of equals without the social loading of terms like ‘husband’ and ‘wife’, we are right there (at least among liberal Friends; the situation with pastoral and evangelical Friends is not contrary, as I understand it, but complicated, as might reflect the range of cultures in which you find such Meetings). In fact, you might even say that, in terms of those elements that cause discomfort with ‘marriage’, what we believe in is closer to civil partnership than to marriage.

And so we come down to my position on this. We believe in marriage, for its sacred meaning and the weight of the concept. We believe it is more than a contract, that it is something done by God and that we are “but witnesses”, as the much-loved quote goes. Some would even say, as do I, that a marriage may exist whether or not it has been recognised by a worshipping community or by the state. However, in terms of what a marriage is practically and socially, we believe in civil partnerships. We believe in equal and symmetric obligations and promises, and generally in a lack of set gender roles. We believe that no-one is in any sense property of another, and that there is nothing of the commercial in the union of two people, and would probably like to distance it from the historical reality that many marriages had a distinct whiff of the commercial, the diplomatic, or both.

Marriage. Civil partnership. They are, I argue, two sides of the same coin, two ways to look at the same thing, in terms of Quaker testimony. So let each couple call it whichever they will, and record them in more-or-less identical ways. Let us solemnise civil partnerships as we do marriages, if the state will let us, and let us understand that there is no spiritual difference between the two, regardless of the sexes and genders of those involved.

Love is love, partnership is partnership, commitment is commitment, and each couple should bear witness to theirs in the way that speaks their truth most strongly. Let us embrace equal civil partnership, and see it as a valid religious option for all, not in tension with our testimony concerning marriage but as an expression of it – and a reflection of our ability to allow all to express their truth their way.

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