Feminism and Full Marriage Equality

I'm bumping up this older entry because it still applies.

From comments on this blog:

Macha wrote about those who say an adult woman can’t consent to sex with her biological father…

I think this is partly rooted in the prejudiced and false belief that women (especially young women) don't want and aren't interested in sex, so if a younger woman is in a sexual relationship with an older man, she must have been coerced, ergo the man is just an abuser. Our society doesn't want women to have the power to consent. We perpetually deny the possibility that women have the ability to make conscious and deliberate choices about their sex lives, infantilizing them from womb to tomb.

Liz, who has a spousal relationship with her brother and a beautiful, healthy baby girl with him wrote about those who don’t want her to have that freedom…

There are no good arguments against incest, just the same old excuses over and over again. We need to make people realize that while they may not love family in that way, there are many adults that do and those people should be allowed to live and love the way they want to.

Full marriage equality is inseparable from feminism.

That a woman should be free to make her own decisions about her body and her associations is reinforced in full marriage equality.

With full marriage equality, a woman is free to live with, date, love, marry, and divorce any consenting adults she chooses.

This includes, among other things:

Her freedom to marry another woman.

Her freedom to marry more than one woman.

Her freedom to marry a woman who is already married.

Her freedom to marry a woman or women to whom she is closely related.

Her freedom to marry a man who is already married.

Her freedom to marry more than one man.

Her freedom to marry a man or men to whom she is closely related.

And, if she wants, her freedom to marry one unmarried man to whom she is not closely related.

A woman should have her choice, and not have those who aren’t a party to the marriage or relationship deny her her choices. These are the same freedoms a man should be able to pursue, because full marriage equality is about gender equality, not about denying or controlling women, their bodies, and their sexuality. Full marriage equality allows people to have the relationships they choose, and as such, does not hurt anyone.