A chara, – Anthea McTeirnan says "now that everyone can get married, isn't it time for everyone to be able to choose not to get married?" ("Cohabiting couples are legal strangers till death us do part", November 1st). No need for "a piece of paper". The only problem is that it is that piece of paper that indicates to the State who it is wants to be treated as if they were married and who does not.
Now, people are quite entitled to reject marriage on ideological grounds if they chose. But choices have consequences and it would make that decision something of an empty gesture if people were going to be treated as if they were married in spite of that rejection. It would also render rather pointless the public commitment to the life-long relationship that is marriage that other people make if those who refused to make that commitment were to be treated exactly the same under the law.
Currently people make a choice about whether they want to enter a legal relationship with someone or not and the State respects that choice. The effect of Anthea McTeirnan’s proposal would be that not only would that decision not be respected but that people might well be forced into a legal situation they were deliberately trying to avoid.
It would all serve to make marriage meaningless; and it would also mean that the referendum she references might as well have been to abolish marriage rather than redefine it. – Is mise,
Rev PATRICK G BURKE,
Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny.