Last week I found myself at a dinner in Macau — the special administrative region tied to China — held in honour of the 30th anniversary of TPF (Trans Pacific Network). Nine people sat around the table, representing five continents. My wife and I were there, as was a Korean couple beside us.

Somehow, the conversation drifted toward the Korean couple's 26-year marriage. We joined in — "twenty-five years for us" — and the woman representing Canada added, quietly, "We're not married." I mentioned that the idea of living together without marrying hadn't yet found much acceptance in Turkey, then felt the need to add something. So I explained the etymological meaning of the Turkish word for marriage — evlenmek.

What Turkish Reveals

In Turkish, evlenmek — to marry — derives from ev, meaning home. For both the man and the woman, the word places each of them as an equal subject of the act: together, they are building a home, a shared life. It signifies that two people have become a couple who will carry the responsibility of a decision they made together.

What Western Languages Reveal

In Western languages, something different catches the eye — a perspective that historically turned the person, and especially the woman, into an object. And the role of the Church in shaping that framing is hard to ignore.

In Western culture, being married — marriage — carries a quiet undercurrent of following the Church's path. The Latin root of marriage relates to giving a woman to a man, or the act of marrying her off. The Church appears to have bent this etymology to its own purposes. The word Mary — Meryem in Turkish — has no etymological connection to marriage, but marry and Mary are homophones. In the Christian world, getting married has been sanctified with the implicit suggestion that in doing so, one is following the example of the Virgin Mary — doing something righteous.

Modern people — and women in particular — have grown resistant to being cast as objects, and to having the Church's institutional purpose placed ahead of love itself.

The Shortcuts Our Languages Build

When we speak a language, we are running an algorithm we are barely aware of. The brain thinks; the language model sequences the sounds; and the weight of meaning we have assigned to life carves shortcuts into how we perceive and express everything. The real question to ask is: where am I in all of this?

Another small example: in English, the word Turkish serves for both the people and the language they speak — a neutral, object-like construction. In Turkish, there is an Alman (a German person), a place called Almanya (Germany), and a language called Almanca — literally, the language of those who are German. The subject is always present.

I am not suggesting that Turkish is the world's finest language, or that everything is wonderful for those who speak it. What I am saying is that cultures build shortcuts in their minds based on their lived experiences — and those shortcuts are what make each of them unique and powerful.

Why This Matters

On a history programme, when asked whether the Turks could disappear from the stage of history, Professor Erhan Afyoncu answered: "Of course it's possible — a language unused for a hundred years vanishes from history. Thousands of languages whose names we no longer know have already done so." He added: "If a language and culture are still standing today, it is because of something irreplaceable in their structure. No language or culture deserves to be diminished."

Our Canadian friend wasn't against marriage itself. She was happy to have a partner. What she resisted was the idea that marriage should be something imposed on her by the status quo — an action she was expected to perform rather than freely choose.