I'd prefer something akin to "the union of two sapient beings defined and/or recognised as adults, or otherwise legally able to consent to said union".
Doesn't specify sex (physical, mental, or legal), doesn't specify that it has to be to the exclusion of all others, isn't limited to particular timeframes.
As an interesting side effect, it wouldn't actually prohibit multi-partner marriages, although they would be technically recorded on paper as a related set of two-person marriages. You could even have A married to B who was married to C, with A and C choosing whether or not to be married to each other or not, completely independently of anything else. A and C could even marry and then divorce without affecting their respective marriages to B.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-05-13 07:54 am (UTC)Doesn't specify sex (physical, mental, or legal), doesn't specify that it has to be to the exclusion of all others, isn't limited to particular timeframes.
As an interesting side effect, it wouldn't actually prohibit multi-partner marriages, although they would be technically recorded on paper as a related set of two-person marriages. You could even have A married to B who was married to C, with A and C choosing whether or not to be married to each other or not, completely independently of anything else. A and C could even marry and then divorce without affecting their respective marriages to B.