In sum, then, marriage is a legal relationship between two people, involving mutual legal rights and obligations, which reflect society's shared expectations about marriage; and the core of these expectations is that marriage typically involves sexual intimacy, economic and domestic cooperation, and a voluntary mutual commitment to sustaining this relationship.
(Ralph Wedgwood, "The Fundamental Argument for Same-Sex Marriage," The Journal of Political Philosophy 7 [September 1999]: 225-42, at 233)
Note from KBJ: This is known as persuasive definition. The word "marriage" has a favorable connotation. Unfortunately for Wedgwood, it doesn't include what he wants it to include, so he redefines it so that it does include what he wants it to include. Voila! Two men or two women can now be married! Compare Black's Law Dictionary, 5th ed. (1979), which defines "marriage" as "Legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife." Another shady thing about Wedgwood's "definition" is that he doesn't mention children. The purpose and point of marriage, as everyone knows, and as the law has long recognized, is to bind a man and a woman to one another for the sake of any children they produce. Please, please, please don't say that infertile heterosexual couples are allowed to marry, as though that refutes my claim. Immature 21-year-olds are allowed to drink alcohol, but that doesn't mean the purpose and point of the drinking age isn't to prevent immature individuals from drinking alcohol.
