Why gay marriage is good for straight women

But while Arndt is probably right that de facto relationships are more likely to break down than marriages, perhaps this has less to do with the “uncertainty” of the former than the fact marriage remains so sacred many women feel trapped by the pressure to be good wives and mothers at whatever cost to themselves.

One UK woman recently confessed that she has lied to her young children for the better part of a year about the breakdown of her marriage, rather than confront the stigma of divorce. Her perceived necessity for this parental subterfuge is born out of an anxiety that also sees many women remain in abusive relationships so as to uphold the expected marital status quo - and for whom “till death us do part” may have a very different meaning.

Until we let go of our privileging of heterosexual marriage we do such women a great disservice. It prevents us from having real discussions about how best to improve women’s rights within relationships, whatever their form, and outside of them.

It stops us from encouraging a societal recognition that women can be successful whether single, cohabiting, married or divorced. Marital status shouldn’t matter. Marriage should not be seen as the ideal, nor as an ideal only available for a man and a woman to uphold. There should be nothing gendered about it.

The institution of marriage has long been enshrined in patriarchal and religious values that have done nothing to improve the lot of women. If Gillard represents, as a woman and an atheist, a challenge to those values, why her resistance to gay marriage rights? Why uphold the sacredness of heterosexual marriage at all?

Which isn't to say marriage should no longer be an option. Rather, that it must be a choice for everyone, and not an ultimatum via its continued confirmation as the relationship pinnacle - for only a husband and his wife.

Otherwise Gillard’s “difference” is just doomed to repeat the same cultural narratives of the past. And it will remain one step forward for the Gina Rineharts of the mining world, and two steps back for women doing it tough in the suburbs.