Is SSM really a "redefinition" of marriage?

Opponents of equality are on very shaky ground when they claim equal marriage is a "redefinition" of marriage in an attempt to undermine equality.

If same-sex marriage is a "redefinition" of marriage, then so was the British legalisation of divorce in 1858.

And so was the British legalisation of civil marriage in 1836.
 
The opponents of equal marriage may try to counter that divorce and civil marriage did not change the core definition of marriage, which they claim has always been between a man and a woman.
 
It is surprising that those who maintain this do not seem to regard the removal of the necessity for marriage to be a contract made before God, as happened with the legalisation of civil marriage, to be something that altered the core definition. Especially for fundamentalist religious believers, who seem to make up the large bulk of those opposed to equal marriage, one might have imagined that the removal of God's name from the definition might have been regarded as a significant change in the core definition of the institution. Do fundamentalist religionists not think it changed the core definition of marriage that the blessing of God no longer needed to be included?
 
Those who classify equal marriage as a "redefinition" of the institution might be challenged to say what they think about women being allowed to vote. For centuries, "democracy" was defined as allowing the vote only to men. From the times when dictionaries were available, they would have declared unambiguously that this exclusively male privilege was the very definition of democracy, in the same way as, until recently in many countries, and until soon in ours, "marriage" would have been defined as only possible between a man and a woman.
 
Of course, women's suffrage is not an absurdity: and it was not a misappropriation or redefinition of the word "democracy" to allow women the vote. It was instead a perfection of democracy in its empirical, historical manifestation, and this perfection realised an ideal of which the historical manifestation of democracy had hitherto fallen lamentably short.
 
In the same way, same-sex marriage is not an absurdity, and neither is it a misappropriation or redefinition of the word "marriage". It is instead a perfection of marriage in its empirical, historical manifestation, and this perfection realises an ideal of which the historical manifestation of marriage has hitherto fallen lamentably short.

It was an uncritical clinging to historical reality, hampered by the prejudices and mental limitations of historical human beings, that impeded the possibility of the ideal of democracy being realised when women became able to vote. The parallels with equal marriage are obvious.
 
Of course, social conservatives were strongly opposed to votes for women, in the same way as they are today opposed to equal marriage. But their opposition to allowing couples of the same sex to express a lifelong commitment to love and care for one another by entering into society's mainstream and ancient institution for supporting and affirming such unions, is no more justified than was their opposition to women having a say in who represented them electorally.
 
Bertrand Russell said, "The good life is inspired by love, and guided by knowledge." So often, a lack of love, or a lack of knowledge, or both, have distorted the way we have forged our ideals in human history. But ideals are born of the heart and soul, and not of the lexicon; and where ossified definitions take us away from the ideal nestling within a verbal term, we must make sure it is the heart and soul that triumph.

© Gary Powell, 2013