Thoroughly Modern Marriage in Canada

Marriage in Canada has always been shaped by both law and custom, and each has shifted a great deal over the decades. A congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church once held a ceremony to mark ten years since the first same-sex weddings in the country, and both couples from those original ceremonies attended.

Around the same time, the CBC aired a documentary called Thoroughly Modern Marriage, which looked at how varied the institution has become.

Same-sex marriage as a turning point

Federal legislation made same-sex marriage legal across Canada in 2005, after courts in several provinces and territories had already opened the door. Canada became one of the first countries in the world to take that step. Critics at the time forecast moral decline, while supporters said the change simply extended an existing legal institution to more couples and left its core meaning intact.

A range of households

The film's director followed several people who all use the word marriage for arrangements that look very different. One couple ran an open marriage. Another had split the family house into two separate apartments after more than forty years together. A third was a married lesbian couple, and a fourth had won a dream wedding in a draw at a wedding fair. Together they let the film ask why people marry in the first place and why they stay married.

The director said she was surprised by how widely the label gets applied. In her view, public ceremonies persist because they announce something to a community and carry status as a mark of personal fulfilment. She also doubted that older patterns, with men as the only earners, would return, and she called that a good thing.

Legal questions at the edges

The same period saw court proceedings in British Columbia over the criminal ban on polygamy. Canadian courts have weighed whether that prohibition fits with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the cases kept questions about the boundaries of marriage in public view.

Shifting patterns

Census data from Statistics Canada show that common-law partnerships and one-person households have grown across recent generations. Marriage now sits beside several other recognized ways of forming a household, and public talk about religion, tradition, equality and personal choice continues to shape how it is described.