We've been invited to a wedding in June. Well, not exactly a wedding, a "commitment service." There's to be a religious ceremony, a "uniting." Music, vows and all that sort of thing. But there is a difference with this event. There's a bride; in fact, there are two brides. Both of the participants are to be women.
They are pretty, pleasant, and attractive, and they have been living with one another now for a couple of years. They love each other enough that they want to be part of a permanent relationship.
So this is a first for them. It's also a first for us, the first time we've ever been to what people are calling, for lack of a better term, a same-sex marriage. That's an awkward way to put it at best. The union is not exactly a marriage in the conventional sense. Certainly it isn't what the dictionary defines as a marriage: a union between a man and a woman.
On the other hand, we know the two parties in this partnership-- another awkward way to explain what's taking place--well enough to know that they are entering into it as seriously as any heterosexual couple would. They do love one another deeply, and they aren't ashamed of it.
I was talking about this problem with a friend who said, "Why don't they call it a 'dyad'?"
So I looked up dyad in the dictionary. It's a perfectly legitimate word. It's used in biology (fitting enough, I suppose, since we are dealing with two biological creatures) to describe a pair.
Most often it is used in biology to denote the status of a cell, but that's all right. The dictionary defines a dyad as "two units who are regarded as a pair."
Since people of the same sex who elect to share their lives are two units, and since they would like to be known as a pair, even if they are not married in the conventional sense, why not call them dyads?
Well, I don't know. I guess so. It certainly would be different. Pairs of males or females who love one another could say they were "dyaded," that they had had or were going to have a "dyad ceremony" or that they were "an old dyad couple."
The problem, at least at first, would be that no one would know what the heck they were talking about. For instance, someone who used the phrase "Oh, no, I'm an old dyad" as an excuse to put off the advances of another of the same or opposite sex might not get very far.
Or a dyad of long standing who said "I've been dyaded for 44 years" would draw stares, but not much understanding.
My friend admits it would take a while for his phraseology to catch on, but he thinks it's worth a try. He suggests starting to use it immediately in Hawaii, where (I'm sorry, I have to use the better known phrase) same-sex marriages are legally recognized.
The Aloha-land court decision, which is seen as a threat by some states, might seem more innocuous if it recognized dyads rather than "same-sex marriages."
I must add parenthetically that the Hawaii Legislature, in a sort of non-aloha spirit, is at the moment undoing the court decision by passing a law forbidding same-sex marriages. I don't suppose this bothers the young couple we have been asked to see joined in dyadism. They don't plan to join together permanently in Hawaii, and they, like a lot of other such couples, have not yet solved the problem of getting their arrangement recognized by California law.
Getting the law to recognize a "dyad" as an accepted description of a union, same-sex or otherwise, seems to be difficult everywhere. But it seems reasonable enough to me, even though I seem to be in the minority.
Heterosexual couples, who do get legal recognition, seem to have no more guarantee of permanence than those of the same sex. Indeed, heterosexual dissolutions seem to be keeping lawyers employed. Adding same-sex dissolutions to the law would only increase family law practice for lawyers.
Legal acceptance of dyads, after all, is much of what most dyadees or (you should pardon the expression) same-sex couples are after. That's because recognition of a dyad in law provides for medical and legal benefits for the partner, er, the dyadee or dyader. For many contemplating being part of a dyad, legal recognition is as important as being bound religiously. After all, a lot of folks these days get married legally but never bother with the religious ceremony.
In the end, I suppose, the test of a dyad is not whether it is legal or religious, but how strong and how long it remains. That's the real test of a dyad (or a conventional marriage) in this day of divorce, single parenthood and unmarried, often casual, commitment. Whether it is two people of the same sex or two of differing sexes, living together for a long time is a real test of human understanding and good will.
Or to put it another way, a dyad, whether legal, religious or whatever, is only as strong as its weakest link. So I wish my young dyaded friends success, happiness and a long life together, knowing that there's not much going for them and a lot going against them. Still, maybe love will, as in all great stories, find a way.
Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Saratoga News.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, April 9, 1997.
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