Beresford, Sarah (2016) We’re all same (sex) now? : lesbian (same) sex ;consummation; adultery and marriage. Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 12 (5). pp. 468-490. ISSN 1550-4298
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Abstract
This article argues that in the Marriage (Same Sex) Couples Act 2013 applicable in England and Wales should have included non-consummation as grounds for annulment and adultery as a fact of divorce. The absence of these two concepts is representative of a failure by law to fully accept the importance of equality. As such, the legislation will continue to perpetuate formal and substantive inequality resulting in the continued repression of women who marry women. This will have important ramifications for the citizenship of intimacy for such women to which rights, duties and obligations will attach. The legal ability of women who marry women to join the ‘marriage club’, as it is currently defined, will not queer or radically challenge marriage. Whilst it might have been ‘easier’ to abandon the concepts of consummation and adultery altogether, only widening the concepts of consummation and adultery to include same sex couples, would offer the potentiality to undertake a queering of marriage. To exclude these concepts risks perpetuating the idea that gay men and lesbians are not sexual beings. Given the heteropatriarchal nature of the concepts of adultery and consummation, this article specifically focuses upon how same sex marriage will affect women who marry women as opposed to what is commonly termed the LGBTQ community.