I found out yesterday that someone has been messing with my Wikipedia entry. Kelley changed from being my partner to being my 'girlfriend'. Wikipedia doesn't let you alter your own entry, so there was nothing I could do. I checked Kelley's entry, and, Lo!, I too was now a girlfriend.
I tweeted, and many kind people leapt in, fixed things, and are now starting a process to build nomenclature guidelines.
This is just one example of the problems--thankfully a minor one--that stem from lack of equality regarding same-sex marriage. If my relationship with Kelley were federally recognised, she would be my 'wife'. I would be her 'wife'. Wikiloons wouldn't mess with that. (Or maybe they would, but they wouldn't be able to hide behind any notions of Good Intentions.)
But when--and I mean when because I think this will happen soon--we are legally married, I will have the hardest time using the word 'wife', whether for me or Kelley. There's so much cultural baggage attached to the word. But 'spouse' sounds so...bureaucratic.
Maybe, given that we have a marridge, not a marriage, we should be wyves.
So, here's a question for you: how do you feel about the word 'wife'?
