It sounds creepy, but in my adopted country, France, you can marry a dead person. This doesn’t happen often, but sometimes there can be a wedding between someone who’s alive and someone who isn’t. It’s the kind of thing that makes the local news—unless, of course, a two-headed calf is born the same day.
You can’t just marry any dead person. It has to be somebody you were engaged to when both of you were still alive. And they’re strict about it. You have to prove that you were taking concrete steps toward getting married before one of you died—things like reserving a date at City Hall or having blood tests. In other words, only decisive, take-charge dead people can get married.
Also, the president of the republic has to give his personal approval, but that’s not too hard to get because French presidents just love marriage. Without marriage you can’t have cheating, and without cheating, well, what’s the point of being the president of France?
There are certain advantages to marrying the dead. First of all, nothing can derail the ceremony. Dead people don’t go off on soul-searching fishing trips the weekend before the wedding and then never come back. Dead people don’t get cold feet—at least, not the metaphoric kind.
Nor will dead people argue with you about the details. Dead people don’t care about the color of the napkins or the seating arrangements at dinner. “Honey, I’m thinking of putting your parents in a different reception room altogether with a live satellite feed. How’s that sound?”
“ .”
One curious thing about this is that the French are usually skittish about death, and yet they’re willing to put that aside when it comes to marriage. The French almost never come right out and say somebody died. They prefer to say he “disappeared,” as if the person’s photo might turn up on the back of a milk carton.
I’ve been asking myself if the idea of inter-worldly marriage would fly in America. Marriage in America is a touchy subject these days, but what if we stopped debating gay marriage and started debating dead marriage? Would it be considered an “assault” on traditional marriage?
Would overpaid sports stars say they have nothing against dead people, so long as they don’t bring the dead agenda into the locker room? Would the military adopt a policy saying that “marrying or attempting to marry” a dead person is grounds for dismissal? (Probably not, and here’s why: the military avoids the subject of dead people because it’s not good for recruiting.)
During elections, would people try to pin the candidates down on dead marriage? Would Republicans thunder on about how dead marriage would erode the fabric of society? Would Democrats look like deer caught in the headlights and give muddled, wishy-washy speeches explaining that they’re in favor of dead people (hooray!) and against discrimination (hooray!) but still opposed to dead marriage (crud!)
Would single women stop moving to places with lots of unmarried men (like Alaska) and start moving to places with large populations of dead people (like Arlington, Va.)?
Would movie stars keep their marriages to dead people secret and pay publicists barrels of money to keep things quiet? Would agents tell stars to steer clear of dead roles, unless they smelled Oscar? Would late-night comedians strike gold with jokes about “shotgun marriages”?
I myself am not married. Fifty years ago, people like me were called “confirmed bachelors”—the idea being that most people would think I was a ladykiller who couldn’t be tied down to one dame, while a few people would realize I was gay. Gay as a hissy fit at the Ice Capades.
Then attitudes changed, and gay rights slowly took hold. Yet somehow I’m still single. I have to face the fact that nobody wants to marry me, gay or straight. But I’m not giving up. I’m not moving someplace snowy and accepting where gay people can get married (think Norway or Massachusetts). And I’m not moving someplace with warped demographics where younger guys have their pick of the successful, distinguished men around them (think the U.S. Senate). I’m staying right where I am. In France. And I’m going to get married if I have to do it myself.
With a little help from beyond.
