Law reform must move to seek out the individual case, the specific area of society which merits, rather needs, particular attention. Without such a movement the law may just be standing still while justice and equity are denied. The law must be stable yet cannot stand still. – Norma Monica Ford
The habit of people’s behaviour preceding recognition by the law can be acknowledged by a single stroke of the pen. In the Family Law Act instead of saying “parties living as husband and wife”, just leave out the husband and wife or substitute “de facto union”.
Here in Barbados we have learnt to adapt to reality. We had followed English law as closely as we could but divergence brought on by different circumstances compelled change. That is why from as early as the 1980s we reformed the Family Law Act.
There are many things going on that the outside world hails as new but we in Barbados have considered commonplace for years. Take for instance the latest palaver to hit the airwaves and cyberspace. Same-sex marriage. We have had that since Adam was a lad, only we call it “de facto union”.
You may remember we passed a law saying that if you live five years with somebody, you have the same rights as if the union had been sanctified in front of the pulpit. Well, our men living together can enjoy the same rights as a man and a woman living together for five years.
The same goes for two women. The truth of the matter is that the de facto union has been entered into mostly with the desire for permanence just as the traditional priest or magistrate marriage.
Men have been living with men for over five years and have already come out of the closet without any fuss. Women openly prefer the close companionship of women, so much so that some men, when they figure that they are being horned by another man, eventually find out that the horner is not a man but a woman. The converse is also true.
There is no need in Barbados to make a mountain out of what President Obama said or what Trinidad is contemplating. We were there, did that, and have moved on.
We can even boast that our family laws envisaged the need for harmony between man and man and woman and woman from early o’clock. Just omit a few words and the law is changed to conform with reality.
But there is one thing that the Wild Coot would like to have sanctified. Muslims have it, Mormons have it, and the Bible heralded it; it was once part of our past before we were dragged from Africa. Men can have more than one wife. Recently the island had a mammoth setback when a gentleman sought to rectify this lapse in the law and found himself in jail for being forward-thinking. I do not blame the gentleman. He was only trying to do legally what we in Barbados have been practising openly for years. We are not all slow.
The Wild Coot is in a dilemma; he is too old to take advantage of it if there is any amendment. However he is thinking of others to follow – he is thinking of women who eschew the present vogue of same-sex marriage, but weekly write openly and longingly to a fellow columnist decrying the preference of older men for young chicks.
You all know that the Wild Coot is a piece of a linguist. Here is the gravamen of my argument. They have to rewrite dictionaries worldwide. In Spanish a man’s male wife would be referred to as el esposa or el mujer as against a man’s female wife who would be la esposa or la mujer.
“But, Wild Coot, when you say ‘husband and wife’, how do you know who is the husband and who is the wife?”
On a sad note, we have lost veteran guitarist Clifton Glasglow. Nobody can play El Reloj as sweetly as he could. May he rest in peace!
