Felix and Oscar quarrel all the time, but they cannot imagine life without one another. Each has the other\u2019s power of attorney. There is as much chance of their moving to separate apartments, now, after all these years, as there is that the Empire State Building will spontaneously collapse into dust. They wouldn\u2019t know how to get through a single day. So they wish to celebrate this lifelong friendship. They wish to throw a party, and to gain the Social Security benefits that accrue to the survivor in a marriage.<\/p>\n
So Felix and Oscar are going to tie the knot.<\/p>\n
In a saner day than ours, someone would object, \u201cThere\u2019s no knot to tie! They can\u2019t marry! You\u2019re confusing friendship with marriage.\u201d\u009d That would be quite right. Nothing prevents Felix or Oscar from naming the other as sole legatee in his will. But nothing that Felix and Oscar do with one another is specifically marital. The thing that a married man and woman do, that no one else can do, is to consummate the marriage, bringing it to its fullest realization. The marital act unites across the chasm of the sexes and across the generations, from the past into the future. In it alone do human beings bring together precious strands of human history, from the beginning of our race. In it alone dwells the possibility of new life. The act is biologically, essentially, summative of the past and oriented toward the future.<\/p>\n