Who is to say what marriage should mean? Not dictionaries, for they record what words do mean, not what they should. Lexicographers are like lepidopterists, catching and describing species, not pig-farmers, breeding and improving them.
Last week Lynne Featherstone, the equalities minister asked: ‘Who owns marriage?’ She answered: ‘It is owned by the people,’ and then declared: ‘If a couple love each other and want to commit to a life together, they should have the option of a civil marriage, irrespective of whether they are gay or straight.’ I suppose she meant ‘irrespective of whether they are men or women’.
The Oxford English Dictionary’s first definition of marriage is: ‘The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between persons married to each other; matrimony.’ It then adds: ‘The term is now sometimes used with reference to long-term relationships between partners of the same sex.’
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