a vinculo matrimonii [translation]

I have new eyeglasses. Shortly after the eye exam and new frame selection, Sh and I were walking home, and she commented that the salesguy had it all wrong: "At one point you tried a pair on, and he said, 'Everybody's wearing those these days,' and I thought, 'This guy's never going to sell Eric on frames; doesn't he realize that Eric will run screaming from anything that everybody is doing?'"

That's my gal.

She's right. Though I try to not just run counter to every fashion the crowd is following, I'm highly suspicious of doing something just because everybody else does.

For example, Dan Savage's recent book The Commitment details his grueling decision about whether to get married to his boyfriend. Reading it, I felt like it was inappropriate for me to take advantage of the privileges that heterosexual marriage provides when committed couples (with children, even!) are barred from similar benefits.

The list of benefits is pretty long. Various web sources suggest that there are presently around 1,400 advantages provided by state and federal law to married couples. Many of these can be duplicated by other complicated legal means, but some—such as inheritance of Social Security benefits—are completely confined to only heterosexually married couples.

This is unfair. And I feel like there's absolutely nothing I can do about this. Except, perhaps, try to empathize.

There's a point in The Commitment that really stands out in my memory. I found it online here, but the important bit is:

"It wasn't until 1215 that the [Catholic] church finally decreed marriage a sacrament," [E.J.] Graff writes [in What is Marriage For?], "...and according to the church, what turned two individuals into a married couple? It was—drum roll, please—the couple's private vows. Why a drum roll? Because the church insisted that a private promise was an unbreakable sacrament... After a great many theological volleys and debates, theologians decided that a marriage was made and permanently sealed the moment that the pair knowingly and willingly said 'I marry you.' Even if they said their vows in absolute secrecy, with no witnesses."

The emphasis is mine [Dan Savage's].

I grabbed the Henning Mankell novel out of Terry's hands and handed him Graff's book.

"You have to read this," I said.

Here was a marriage ceremony we could get behind. It had the added benefit of being a more traditional, ancient, and sacred marriage ceremony, a marriage ceremony that predated cake toppers and florists and obviated the need for seating charts. If marriage was a promise two people made to each other, and if you didn't have to make it in front of anyone else, then here was a marriage ceremony infused with quiet dignity. All we had to do to turn our anniversary party into our wedding reception was mutter "I marry you" to each other before we walked in the door.

We wouldn't even have to tell anyone we did it.

I'd been thinking about proposing to Sh for a long time, but I couldn't come up with a good way to do it. My married friends always have such great stories about how it happened—on a beach, a surprise ring, a family heirloom, a special moment. I had no ideas how to go about it, and the last thing I wanted was someone else's input. This is my chance to ask a very important question, so it should come from my heart, not someone else's romantic notions.

It turns out what I had in my heart was "wing it". (Well, and "don't do it the way other people usually do," of course.)

Sh was working up in the Castro at the time (also known as "the gayest neighborhood in the gayest city in the United States"), and we'd occasionally stopped by Brand X Antiques while wandering around there in our free time. One day we stopped in, and I noticed they sold rings there. So I started asking about their ring selection. Sh noticed, and we started looking together, admiring their antique rings, hearing descriptions of the various materials, shapes, designs, what works well, what he thought made the most sense for wedding bands, etc.

It was really fun. We didn't come to any solid conclusions that day, but a while later we stopped there once more together, and more closely considered the rings. I have a thing for copper (and non-traditionalism), so I was thinking a copper ring would be cool. Sh digs silvery colors, so was leaning more toward white gold. F (one of the proprietors of Brand X) mentioned that copper is the metal that tints rose gold, and that nickel is in white gold. I was leaning toward rose gold as a general concept when I found out that nickel and copper with gold make plum gold, and looky here, there just happens to be an awesome men's band made of that alloy.

In the meantime, Sh had found a nice curlicue-engraved white gold ring that sparkled as if it were diamond-encrusted. It wasn't the perfect size, but F assured us it could be stretched. Then F pointed out that Sh has normal knuckles that are large enough to hold a ring on, while I have tapered fingers that require something like a vise grip from the ring to hold it on. (In case I haven't sufficiently demonstrated how totally cool F is, I was completely fascinated by all the little facts and tidbits he was sharing with us about all the rings we were looking through.)

F pointed out that some of the rings we were looking at were one-of-a-kind antiques, so if we really really liked a certain ring, we should consider buying it soon to avoid losing it to someone else. (Sure, this is a common pressure sales technique, but I never felt pressured by F, so you should just wash away your cynicism right now, reader.) With this in mind, I bought the ring I liked. Sh was surprised, and softly admitted that she wanted to buy a ring, too, which I gladly accommodated.

It was at this point that F and his partner T revealed that they had recently celebrated their 25th anniversary together.

Twenty-five years. It seems like forever. Maybe I'm just getting maudlin, but there's something about buying wedding bands from a couple that's been together for 25 years. It feels like a blessing.

So I wholeheartedly endorse Brand X Antiques in San Francisco's Castro district. Unless you're queasy about pictures of naked men with enormous penises. No, I'll endorse them even then. You just need to get over it.

After Sh's ring had been resized, she wanted to start wearing it. (To be honest, I kinda wanted to start wearing mine, too. I can't stand jewelry, generally, but my ring is awesome. (Better than Sh's, even, but don't tell her I said that.)) So I asked Sh to read The Commitment. She enjoyed the book very much, and kinda saw my point about how getting legally married feels wrong these days.

A couple days later, maybe a little tipsy from rice wine, holding her in my arms, I told Sh, "I marry you." Much to my delight, she said the same to me, and we are now illegally married.

The next day, the first thing I remember her saying to me, like a kid on Christmas morning: "So can we wear our rings now??"

We do.

Last updated by eric Sat Jul 22 14:34 2006 | deed | link