Lying on the couch in that early morning daze, Grace just asked me,

Mama, can people marry objects?

I had to stop and think.

I don’t think so.

Grace asked a child’s inevitable follow up question,

Why not?

Of course, not being a legal scholar, I had no answer. Her logic for the impulse that sparked the question, however, is irrefutable:

People should be able to marry something, if they love it.

I thought about describing marriage as a socially-constructed institution that preserves a status quo and testing her notion against that theory, but then thought, She’s only eight, so I’ll wait.