Clarification on marriage

Published: 9 October 2011
By: Vito Cuzzubbo

IN response to Jules Macleod's concern (Opinion, CL 2/10/11) about her friends' forthcoming marriages could be "broken" as they may not be able to have children, I feel she has sadly missed the point.

An individual who is impotent or another who is infertile does not change the definition of marriage in principle because a man and a woman in principle are deemed always to be capable of procreation and it is that potential to procreate that gave rise to the institution of marriage in the first place.

But when it is impossible, as between two males or two females, we are not talking about something incidental. It is impossible in principle.

VITO CUZZUBBO
Cairns, Qld