Whatever!
And the British Government has no sense.

Civil servants have overruled the Oxford English Dictionary and hundreds years of common usage effectively abolishing the traditional meaning of the words for spouses, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper says:

‘The guidance gives the example of some early health and safety legislation drafted in 1963 which includes a range of exemptions for family businesses where the terms husbands and wives will mean people of either gender.

‘“This means that ‘husband’ here will include a man or a woman in a same sex marriage, as well as a man married to a woman,” it says.

‘“In a similar way, ‘wife’ will include a woman married to another woman or a man married to a man.

‘“The result is that this section is to be construed as including both male and female same sex marriage.”

‘Yet it then goes on to say that in future legislation the traditional male-only meaning of husband and female-only understanding of wife could make a comeback – but not in all cases.’

‘“The term ‘husband’ will in future legislation include a man who is married to another man (but not a woman in a marriage with another woman),” it adds, confusingly.

‘“And ‘wife’ will include a woman who is married to another woman (but not a man married to another man) unless specific alternative provision is made.”’

Confused?  Not half as much as they are.

 

Related stories:

28/06/2013: Supreme Court Decision Winners and Losers

27/06/2013: Supreme Court Gay Marriage Ruling

26/06/2013: Pro-Marriage student arrested in France

21/06/2013: Law Society pushes homosexual propaganda

05/06/2013: How your Peers voted on ‘Gay Marriage’

21/05/2013: Gay Marriage Bill Threatens to Divide Tory Party

18/05/2013: Hammond warns against redefining marriage

 

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8 COMMENTS

  1. This would be particularity confusing in Germany, because the usual word for husband is “Mann” and the usual word for wife is “Frau”. You can tell that the words mean this only because of the addition of a word such as “mein” (my). Thus “mein Mann” or “meine Frau” , really my man or my woman.

    I think in that case, BOTH the men in a homosexual marriage would have to talk about “mein Mann”.
    This is equivalent in English to BOTH men referring to “my husband”.
    Similarly, for BOTH women, it would have to be “meine Frau”, so in English “my wife”.

    Now I come to look at it again, that is what English law does envisage for the future. I don’t think outsiders can be expected to take account of which of the pair claims to be dominant (at any particular time).

  2. With respect, far from a mess of conflicting muddy water, how Rox suggests things would have to be, how Stephen says they are in English, German usage, and the proposed future law, all come to the same thing ! Not a woman called “husband” and not a man called “wife”, but husband and wife meaning married man and married woman respectively.

    • Which comes back to the original point. A man cannot marry another man. Nor can a woman marry another woman. Our Government may change the definition of marriage. They may declare Sunday is Saturday. They may mandate that everything ‘evolved’. But their pretensions will not change what is.

  3. I don’t think that is the point here. The point here is about what words should be used for men who are married and women who are married, even if they are “married” to each other. There are plenty of other articles about whether they should be married to each other or not !

    • We don’t agree that men can be married to men, nor that women can marry women. So we cannot enter into any discussion about what mock ‘spouses’ should be called. What we must do is point out the folly and absurdity of it.