The marrying kind…

Back to some more edits on my book. It was only a footnote, but I had to mention that hints about a recent Mexican president’s exta-marital adventures were positive spin.

The Mexicans (and, for that matter, much of the human race) found the recent Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky thing amusing, but confusing. We’re the ones with the weird hangups. When Vicente Fox first became President, I was always amused to hear Marta Sahugun introduced — quite formally — as the president’s “concubina”. (It’s not quite as kinky as it sounds — they weren’t suggesting the guy had a bevy of babes stashed somewhere, but only that Ms. Sahugun and the President were … as the old-fashioned phrase has it… “shacking up” in the very nice shack of Los Pinos).

The brilliant — and underrated “tiredandretired” who regularly posts on the Lonely Planet Thorntree Message Board (in a thread having to do with traffic police, of all things) tried to explain the difference between US and them when it comes to sex and marriage. He did a hell of a lot better job than I could:

In the US we hold our system of marriage, where you apply for a marriage license, then have the marriage recorded, as somehow morally superior, though with at least 40% divorces, it isn’t much of a system of marriage. Here in Mexico, a couple simply announces they are married, and unlike most shack-ups in the US, claim they are married. After their parents stop throwing rocks, they are accepted by all, except the courts, as married. If some of you expats know married Mexicans, you might be surprised how often they aren’t married by the law. Here in our little village, a cousin who really did marry by the law wanted to baptise his little daughter. They finally had to import a young virgin cousin from Mexico City as sponsor. Neither grandparents were married both legally and in the church, and no other family members, in a very large family, were married legally in both law and church, and in most cases, neither.

When they decide they are divorced, they hold themselves out as divorced. No judge, no lawyers.

In the US, we tend to view this as immoral. I did at first. But, now I realize what the Mexicans realize. Marriage is between two people, and is not really the government’s business, except for property rights for those who are marrying for those reasons. Ditto for divorce.

The key to marriage is not some piece of paper in a government office, but the fact that a man and a woman believe they are married, and so do their friends and family. I have read the Gypsies married by holding hands and jumping over a broom in front of witnesses. I think that is a valid marriage.

So, now I think the Mexican system is actually better. However, in any case, I think it is correct for Mexico.