In the referendum to make marriage open to two persons of the same sex, fairness and equality means people should vote yes.

I think there are many faults in marriage, and the law should be changed: but the choice to marry should be to a person of the sex that you choose, and not to only the other sex.

Very many writers have shown that arguments against the marriage of two people of the same sex, based on children, on the concept of marriage, and on the structure of society, have no strength at all. We should ignore those supposed arguments and vote yes.

I write about one supposed argument against same-sex marriage that I have not seen closely examined: how some persons married to persons of the other sex are sure that they will lose status, after couples of the same sex can legally marry.

Status (in marriage) in history

I suspect that status for a person who is married has very little real content now. I think it had some meaning in earlier centuries, when the society was tribal. Marriage still has some features that are tribal, but it has lost most of the feature of status.

A married woman was not allowed to own property, up to the nineteenth century. The woman who was married was property of her husband, in many aspects of the law. A young woman was the property of her father until she reached 21 years. This applied to young men also. Society seems to have wanted a woman to get married soon after 21, and then she would become the property of another man (the husband). Society and its members look like they were afraid of a woman being legally independent, and plenty of marriages were just before the woman reached 21.

This looks like people did not like a woman who was legally independent, that they feared what she would do. A woman who became married no longer excited this fear, and became more accepted in society, and was less open to criticism for her status.

Corresponding to the perceived dangerous status of an unmarried woman over 21 was the positive status of a married woman. A woman who married would feel of higher status than a woman living with a man or than a single woman.

Status recently

The law came to let married women own property (late 19th century), to refuse sex to the man she had married (late 20th century), and to divorce the man by the same rules as the man could divorce her, so that the differences of status no longer exist.

But the idea of status that is higher when you are married persists, in the minds of some people. I have heard or read this idea more often from women than from men.

It looks like some people have transferred the status of not being a socially uncontrolled person (the unmarried woman was supposed to be “uncontrolled” in earlier centuries) to a status of being in some way better than some other group(s) of people. Better than whom would the married person be, now? Would a married woman have a higher status than a married man, or the reverse? Both of these would be contrary to the laws that prohibit discrimination on the grounds of gender. Would a married woman have higher status than a single or divorced woman, and a married man also higher than a single or divorced man? These are also prohibited by law as they are discrimination by family status.

So, it is hard to support the idea of a status that is at present higher for a married woman or a married man than for some other class of person. So there is not a status that can be lost.

Is the status that some married people claim that they will lose, after two people of the same sex can legally marry each other, the status of a person who because of being heterosexual can marry their chosen partner, which is therefore higher than that of the minority who are homosexual and so now cannot marry their chosen partner? This looks contrary to the law against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, so the law is already against the idea that the status of one orientation would be higher. It also looks a bit petty, as the set of people who would gain equal status is small compared to the set of heterosexuals and so it is no real threat.

Conclusion: A woman used to have a higher status by being married, but a married person does not now have any status higher than other people, so there is no status to be lost if the minority of people who are gay are allowed legally to marry a person of the same sex.