One expects, but does not require: because my infertile friends are just as married as anyone else. They have the paperwork, they went through the vows, and they have life-long fidelity as they understand it.
We don’t know what arrangements people have made for sexual satisfactions in their marriage. We know that Augustus was married to Livia. Gossip had it that she supplied his appetites with slaves. He’s married to her, not the slaves.
I’m not talking about the finer points of a higher union of souls and feelings- union. I’m talking paper. enforceable, good-enough for a divorce lawyer- legal paper.
Ideally, there’s a soul union, physical satisfaction, a growing bank balance, children to be proud of, etc etc etc.Ideal is not the only sort of real. My infertile friends already have the heartbreak of not having children. Why insult them with telling them their marriage is not real?
Any mistress is going to cry that her “personal” “freely chosen” “true, spiritual love” with a cheater is better than that ” paper marriage” where ‘the other partner just doesn’t understand’ the cheater….this article is a gay variant on this- sort of a political brokeback mountain. whether or not the guys had a life-long affair- they were both married men, and both had children, and both legal wives had claim on their person and possessions. That’s the part I’m calling out. I’m really clueless about the gay part, but I’m really up on the mistress/wife divide.
