Memories from my mother: her Uncle Jack

[sollers]

Amongst the old family photographs that I've been sorting out, I found one of my mother's Uncle Jack. He's middle aged, with receding hair and a nice if rather solemn face. He looks like the old-fashioned stereotype of a bank clerk; I don't know whether or not he was originally, but that isn't how he ended up.

My mother's family was Anglican rather than Methodist, so they weren't quite as horrified as they might have been when he married a Catholic, but they were horrified enough. The main sticking points were that he would have to promise that all children would be brought up as Catholic, and if it were a difficult birth her life would be sacrificed to ensure that the baby survived, if only just long enough to be baptized.

This all turned out to be ironically academic, as it turned out that she couldnn't have children. Her priest told him that they should therefore never have sex again, as if procreation was impossible it would be sinful. Since he wasn't a Catholic the priest didn't think he could be trusted if he stayed in the same house so he should move out - as far away as possible. Uncle Jack did as he was told, and went really far away, to the West coast of Canada. And that's where he stayed for the rest of his life, sending money back to his wife, but living well on what was left: he worked as cook in lumber camps for half the year, and spent the other half in the best hotels in Vancouver.

People I have told this to have been shocked and told me that no Catholic priest would say such a thing. Maybe not in their lifetimes, or their parents', but around the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries, it happened.

Which brings me to my daughter's civil partnership. I found it offensive that on the wall of the registrar's office, apparently a fixture that had been there for years, was a notice stating that a marriage could only take place between a man and a woman. I was happy with the ceremony itself (though I would dearly like to know who handed the meerkat hand puppet to a certain person), but the rigorous divide saddened me.

Because if the function of marriage is procreation, there are whole categories of people who should never be able to marry, including any woman past the menopause. Yet every now and then there are wedding pictures in the local press of a pair of pensioners. I'm having problems phrasing this, but in my view anyone who opposes same sex marriage falls into the same category as that priest.

Comments

[mme_hardy]

"People I have told this to have been shocked and told me that no Catholic priest would say such a thing."

People are silly. Catholic priests have said a wide variety things, especially on the vexed subject of sexuality.

I hope Uncle Jack was contented, at least when in the best hotels.

[sollers]

I think he was contented, including while doing the cooking (there is a great deal of satisfaction in producing food for people who appreciate it) but he would have preferred not to leave home.