----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
> JUDGE SILVERMAN: Okay, good. Now we're getting somewhere, legally
> speaking. Austin may in the end be wrong, as Derrida suggests, about
> seriousness being decisive, but what he is right about is this: when
> such words are uttered in the "appropriate" context-by two parties
> who have obtained a marriage license, presided over by me ("by the
> power vested in me," as one often hears), and so on-then those words
> are nevertheless binding, no matter what anyone thinks.
>
> All of which is why the very first definition of the word "marry" in
> the Oxford English Dictionary is "to join for life as husband and
> wife according to the laws and customs of a nation. " And this, in
> turn, is why it is misguided to think that what validates a wedding
> ceremony is the making public of innermost feelings, and the
> sincerity or earnestness thereof. That may be a satisfactory
> performance, but it is beside the point of the wedding vow as a
> performative.
>
============================
Of course the law is never performative and self-referential; it's always objective, serious and non-deconstructable............:-)
"Judge not, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah......"
Ian