Tup, an agricultural word no longer widely used, means to join together. So tup, tuppage and tupped would be equivalent to marry, marriage and married respectively. 

Instead of legislation to change the meaning of marriage we would legislate to introduce tuppage, giving it equal recognition and standing. Couples would be tupped or married and registered as one or the other in the newly named registry of marriages and tuppages.

Given the enthusiasm with which the homosexual community embraced the word ‘gay’ (which then underwent a change in meaning), there may be widespread acceptance of the word ‘tuppage’ to distinctively describe homosexual union. There would be no need for that to be lost within marriage and for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike to forever have to describe which type of marriage they represent. 

Our society becomes one where people may be either tupped or married and equal acceptance, rights and privileges afforded both institutions.

With the emergence of homosexuality in recent times and now the desire for legal recognition of homosexual union, there is a need to make this change distinctive through the use of new terminology. 

Forcing a change to the meaning of marriage is to mess too much with something which has been part of our culture from its beginning. 

Let’s put this divisiveness behind us and become a truly egalitarian society where both tuppage and marriage are the norm. The issue of equality is enshrined by legislation granting same standing to both. Then with education, in less than a generation we will have become a culture embracing marriage and tuppage, without lingering resentment and confusion.

Ian Hazelton, Armidale