Today the law is intent on examining all relationships of emotional, financial, sexual, and social support. Of particular interest is the institution of marriage.

In the New Yorker a recent cartoon was captioned: "Gays and lesbians getting married ? haven't they suffered enough?" The law of marriage is part of family law, and family law is a dismal subject. For the most part, it deals with the end ? love's final gasp ? of what might well have been a momentary liaison.

To be sure, the law expresses some interest in the wedding and first days of marriage. For example, there are rules on the capacity of citizens to enter into marriage, on its celebration, and on its registration.

Judges are also called upon to decide cases of broken promises of marriage, return of wedding rings, and unpaid receptions. During the marriage there may be children, but they are studied more out of interest for their incapacity in property and contract matters than out of concern for their education and welfare.

On the whole, the study and practice of family law is about selfishness and bad conduct. Take marital property, for example. A good deal of divorce law is about the allocation of property.

The spouses are said to be partners. They pool their resources so that their economic partnership can prosper. However, unlike commercial partnerships, the idea that a bad partner should get less at the time of divorce still exists.

In no-fault jurisdictions, short marriages and adultery are not issues when dividing marital property or determining alimony. It is in full-fault jurisdictions that we often find an unwholesome fascination for sexual matters on the part of the media, curious neighbours, and judges.

In England the Court of Appeal has renewed its interest in inappropriate conduct in a recent case. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were married two years nine months.

He had upwards of ?17.5 million. She wanted ? 7m. He offered ? 1.5m. She was awarded ? 5m. The husband said that she was too house-proud and overly possessive. She was irritating, he added. As a result ? get this ? he was forced to have an affair!

The husband then stated that the marriage was too short-lived to merit such a handsome award. The court replied that his extramarital affair was not a consequence of his wife's alleged personality defects but was a cause of breakdown.

As a cause, it shortened the marriage and was a circumstance to consider in making an award. Last month New York's highest court put a new twist on the tradition of marriage and on irresponsible behaviour.

A majority of the court held that the state's constitution did not compel recognition of same-sex marriage.

Although across the United States the courts have usually relied on procreation or child rearing as arguments against same-sex marriage, the New York judges put forth something new ? the idea of "reckless procreation".

Heterosexuals need marriage, they said, to prevent the growth of unstable relationships. Gays don't because "?they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse".

In other words ? and less delicately ? marriage exists to contain lust. "Better to marry than to burn." (1 Corinthians 7:9) For so many reasons, no one should want traditional marriage, least of all women.

Women should be celebrating the end of their servitude. A woman's legal personality is no longer merged with that of her husband. Moreover, for most of history, women have been things ? pieces of property.

So, the comfy picture of traditional marriage is an invention. Curiously, women are still marching for tradition and they're marching against gay marriage.

Why is that? Gay men and women are not threats to marriage, traditional or otherwise. Divorce and remarriage are. Mrs. Miller herself might well have been the subject of that pithy New Yorker cartoon: "Gays and lesbians aren't a threat to the sanctity of my marriage. It's all the straight women who sleep with my husband."

We're scornful of marriage here in Bermuda. We like our marriages but we don't much like those of others. In fact, in 2004 we passed a law that, for all intents and purposes, endorses fraud and theft.

This law actively invites one spouse to establish trusts to "defeat" the rights of the other under foreign law. Does any one care about his or her neighbour across the sea?

We must all thank gays and lesbians for drawing our attention to this miserable situation and to the tragic focus of the law.

Their craving for marriage has encouraged the lawmaker to look again at the rights, duties, incidents, and effects of marriage and to study issues of shared shelter, social services, economic support, and financial interdependence affecting both married couples and other intimates.

Marriage is being reinvented. We should be glad for its future.