Book Review: “The Brides of March”

(Originally published on Bay Windows, June 14, 2007. Read an excerpt from the book in my post from yesterday.)

When the Goodridge decision first made same-sex marriage a reality in Massachusetts, it sparked a string of jurisdictions around the country to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Beren DeMotier’s The Brides of March: Memoir of a Same-Sex Marriage is a memoir of her family’s trip to and through those heady days of marriage fever in Multnomah County, Oregon. Unlike Courting Equality, the recent volume on same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, DeMotier’s book is not a formal history. Instead, it is a personal, raucous, touching look at the events that began in March 2004 and are still echoing in the lives of those who took part.

DeMotier, a mother of three, begins her story the night of March 2, when a friend called to say their county would begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples the next morning. She takes us through the scramble of preparations to gather paperwork, children, and friends, and make their way to stake out a place at the County Building for the night. Small details and a touch of humor bring the occasion to life: “Call Marty and Lisa, they’re bringing down sleeping bags and supplies. . . . Could you find the port-a-potty? Chris thinks we’ll need it, you know, three middle-aged women. . . .”

As the events of the next few weeks unfold, DeMotier takes us back and forth between them and key incidents of her past—the first meeting with her future spouse, deciding to have children, and attempting to give up Diet Coke, among others. The alternation can be a little disorienting at times, but adds depth and texture to the tale. It helps us see the infrastructure behind her marriage—all the accumulated pieces of life that played into the decision to wed immediately when it became legal to do so.

The rush to marry, viewed this way, was not simply a desire to make a political statement or be on the news. “I’d wanted a wedding from the moment I knew she was the one,” DeMotier writes of her spouse Jannine. “For years, I couldn’t look at a bridal registry sheet without misting up.” If there is one serious theme that emerges from the book’s humor, it is that marriage bans affect real people and impact lives in a way that goes beyond mere politics. As DeMotier puts it, “This is not an intellectual exercise, people!”

Not that she ignores the political angle. She writes with clear knowledge of DOMA and other legislation, but instead of a dry repetition of the arguments, she imbues them with wit and always makes the personal connection: “While I wanted to bounce back fast and keep on fighting for marriage,” she says, after the vote that made her marriage unconstitutional, “there was a part of me so hurt by the voters who drew the line between us and them, that it was hard to recover from . . . the possibility of our marriages so threatening they needed to be voted out of existence. We went through a lot of chocolate as I recall.”

She also turns a twinkling eye to the ins and outs of motherhood. “We’d like to be naturopathic, chemical-free individuals raising children without pesticides in their veins and cartoon characters in their brains,” she asserts, but admits, “Alas, we can’t even take our vitamins on a regular basis. . . .” She writes with uncoated honesty about issues many LGBT parents will relate to, such as coming out to parents of our children’s friends, mixed feelings towards our children’s sexuality, and the need for community. Of her local lesbian moms group, she says:

We share the struggles with school administrators, with doctors who look at us blankly and say “He can’t have two mothers,” with trying to keep our relationships going during the marathon race of high maintenance child rearing. . . .We are, in effect, that extended family of old, part of the village it takes to raise a child, made from a new model.

DeMotier’s riotous humor saves her insight and sensitivity from becoming saccharine, however. Whether she’s making the male guests at her baby shower wear “Not the Donor” buttons or calling the toppers on her wedding cake “bridal action figures,” she proves that amidst all the stresses of parenting and politics, it’s often better to laugh than cry.

The book is self-published, and this shows in a few places where further editing might have helped. Several winding sentences had me scanning back to find the subject that went with the verb. A few typos stood out (“Jodi Foster” instead of “Jodie”; “Gortex” instead of “Gore-Tex”). In general, though, DeMotier wields her long, detail-packed sentences with humorous effect, and her casual style makes it seem as if she is relating the tale as you both wait for your kids at soccer practice.

This is a lively wedding scrapbook of a memoir, its interlinking vignettes showing us not just the happy couple on their blissful day, and not just the political background, but also the details of life and love surrounding both. If it ends on a bittersweet note, with the legal rescission of the marriages, it also offers hope: “I thought they were already married,” says the eight-year-old daughter of a friend at DeMotier’s reception. With members of the younger generation viewing our relationships that way, surely full legal equality cannot be far behind, on either coast or in between.