Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Leckey on pluralism in the history of
Canadian civil marriage Posted by Mary L. Dudziak Profane
Matrimony is an essay by Robert Leckey, McGill University -
Faculty of Law. It appeared in the Canadian Journal of Law and
Society (2006). Here's the abstract: Recent debates over same-
sex marriage prompt reflection more generally on the competing
norms regulating marriages. Two supremacy claims emerged in the
debates, one that religious traditions provide the supreme law
of marriage, another that civil marriage is entirely secular and
its supreme law is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This paper identifies similarities in these claims. Both wrongly
ascribe an internal uniformity to cultural communities.
Referring to historical amendments to marriage law, the paper
argues that both claims are unfaithful to the Canadian tradition
of marriage law. Amendments to the prohibited degrees of
relationship and the introduction of federal divorce legislation
show the federal Parliament to