Love & Marriage…and prison
Flowers…check. Photographer…check, check. Best man…check…bridesmaid…check…cavity search before and after ceremony…
Errr, what?
This week’s ARTICLE adds a new level to the term destination wedding. Pretty interesting history of cons who’ve “tied the knot” while incarcerated.
Thoughts?
I obviously knew that there were married convicts in the prison system, but I never thought a marriage ceremony can be held while the person is incarcerated. Though I try not to pass judgment on the decisions and/or past of others, I find myself questioning why someone would want to marry someone convicted and still incarcerated off the charges these men have been convicted of. Some of the men are serving life sentences, I just don’t understand why someone would openly enter a relationship knowing that the distance would be indefinite. I’m fully aware that everyone makes mistakes and deserves to be loved, but the whole process of this just seems … off.
It is very common to be married while you are sent to prison, but getting married while you are in prison would be a whole different ball game. I personally would not feel the same connection in a prison like you do a church. When you marry someone you not only make a promise to your significant other, but you make a promise to God as well. Making a Promise to God in Prison would be almost devilish in my eyes. So many get married in prison to have certain visiting rights, but many I feel would not have married if it were not for those conjugal visits.
From a rehabilitative perspective, I think allowing marriage while in prison could be a good tool to help inmates keep (or make) invaluable and positive social bonds. Although inmates like this are likely never to see the light of day again, and will never achieve any resemblance of a normative family structure, it may be in the prison system’s best interest to allow these inmates certain life pleasures to keep them filled with hope. In their position, what else do they have? I think it may make their prison experience easier, but it may also increase the workload of the appellate courts that these inmates have already kept busy for the past [however many] years. Marriage may reinvigorate the effort they put in to be exonerated and released. I suspect, the privilege (rights?) of marriage from prison, will follow the same path that has decided most all prisoner rights issues.. If it doesn’t conflict with the operations, safety, or rehabilitation of the inmate, then I don’t see a reason they should be denied marriage.