Courtney McGrailDear Editor, The Catholic sacrament of matrimony comes to us from the non-Christian Latin word ‘matrimonium’, meaning the state or position of being a mother. The problem is that the word ‘marriage’ also comes from the Latin and, in my view, means much the same.
I am not a lawyer and for all I know the Oireachtas may pass a law saying that black means white, but it stands to reason that a same-sex couple cannot make one or other partner a mother.
Interestingly, Article 25(6) of the Constitution provides that in the case of conflict in the language texts of a law, the Irish text has pre-eminence. While the Irish word ‘posadh’ is commonly used as equalling ‘marriage’, it actually does no such thing. It derives from the Latin word ‘spondere’ which means ‘to pledge’. Its nearest English equivalent is ‘wedding’.
It therefore seems to follow that any certificate of State law in the English language which uses the word ‘marriage’ or any cognate form thereof is in itself illegal whether it applies to a same-sex couple or otherwise.
Of course, a certificate of ‘matrimony’ or ‘marriage’ offered by a Church authority is not a certificate of State law, so the wording has the meaning the Church wants it to mean when offered according to Church rules.
In short, the May referendum, if I am right, was an extremely expensive farce and same-sex couples cannot be ‘married’ under the State law. They are then stuck with the unromantic and un-poetic term ‘civil partnership’. Quite rightly, there is mighty objection to such a term. But is ‘black’ actually ‘white’?
Yours etc.,
Gerald Murphy,
Marley Grange, Dublin 16.