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  • Lesbian_Consummation_02_Oct

    Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of GLBT Family Studies on 17/02/2016, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1550428X.2015.1104273

    Accepted author manuscript, 162 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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We’re all same (sex) now?: lesbian (same) sex ;consummation; adultery and marriage

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>2016
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of GLBT Family Studies
Issue number5
Volume12
Number of pages23
Pages (from-to)468-490
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date17/02/16
<mark>Original language</mark>English

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.

Bibliographic note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of GLBT Family Studies on 17/02/2016, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1550428X.2015.1104273