perfidy

Yes. Yes. Yes. Donald Sensing has an excellent idea.

The one marriage I have performed so far was very much in this spirit. As "officiant," I was the master of ceremonies and leader of the wedding ceremony itself. A ceremony, that, I might add, not once mentioned religion. Since the couple were not members of any church, her family was Israeli Jewish and his was Boston Catholic, and I am not much of anything, that seemed to be the most honorable way to go.

I did a ceremony; everyone got to cry. It was a beautiful memorial to the love the couple shares and an opportunity for the family to lend their good wishes. Although not spiritual in the organized religion sense, and utterly meaningless in a legal sense, it was a good way to mark their joining.

Then ten minutes later we signed the certificate and the actual deed was done. In practice, the way I did it that day was sort of an attempt to shoehorn existing (and hence semiotically significant) traditions onto an actual structure that behaves more like the "Civil Interpersonal Contract" that Sensing proposes. I think it's great.

My wedding, as Buckethead will remember, proceeded along the same lines as well. Except that we used "Peter Gunn" as the processional music and my wife promised in her vows to let me enjoy my hobbies even when they don't make any sense. I married a woman of surpassing quality.

I could accept that. Sensing explains very well what I have long thought without having really rolled it out to look at it - that marriage in the traditional sense is long dead, and the pill was the proximate cause of its death. Even though I had a rather more traditional wedding than Johno - Russian Orthodoz, to be exact; I still fell into the pattern that Sensing describes, as my wife and I had been cohabiting for over a year when we actually 'got hitched.'

Sensing is sensible.

three categories?
single
married (religious)
legally cohabitating

Ask anyone who has been divorced, marriage is really only about a legal contract.