Merav Michaeli: Cancel Marriage at TEDxJaffa (Full Transcript)

Merav Michaeli at TEDxJaffa

Here is the full transcript of former journalist Merav Michaeli’s TEDx presentation: Cancel Marriage at TEDxJaffa conference.

Listen to the MP3 Audio: Cancel Marriage by Merav Michaeli at TEDxJaffa

TRANSCRIPT:

Marriage, that holy matrimony, that mystical union that brings us together, to have and to hold, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.

We must cancel marriage. Not only religious marriage, marriage is not an issue of religion. Also civil marriage. I want all secular states to totally eliminate all registration and regulation of marriage. I want to cancel the very concept of marriage.

While you were clapping, I think you thought I was laughing and in your hearts you were saying to yourselves, “Oh my God, who is this crazy person? What does she mean, cancel marriage?” “Cancel this beautiful covenant of love and romance?”

The thing is that love is about love, but marriage is not about love. I mean, not in your case, of course, you’re all madly in love with those you’re married to.

But as an institution, and marriage is an institution, political, legal, financial institution, it has nothing to do with love or romance.

It started ages ago, back when man started wanting his name and property to remain after him. Simone de Beauvoir links this desire to the longing for immortality; one is transferring his existence into his property, and thus continues to exist after the body’s dissolution. Brilliant, or what?

But the thing is that this can only work if the property remains in the hands of its owner, someone he sees as his own reflection: His biological heir. There’s the rub: The woman is the one giving birth to the biological heir, the child.