Fridae

According to recent statistics from the Vermont department of health, the state's civil unions law is being used more by female than by male couples.

Since July 1, 2000, the first day that licenses were granted to same-sex couples till January 4, 2002, 3,471 licenses for civil unions were issued.

Of those, 2,291 were to female couples and 1,180 were given to male couples, said Bill Apao, director of public health statistics at the Vermont Department of Health.

That means that approximately two thirds of the unions--which confer many of the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples--were between women.

University of Vermont psychology professor and editor of the national Journal of Lesbian Studies, Esther Rothblum is conducting a survey of all couples who were joined in civil unions during the first year the law went into effect.

She suggested that one reason more women may opt for legal certification of their union, she said, is that more lesbian couples have children.

"The relationship with the children is more important," Rothblum said. "I think more women have children, and that might explain some of the gender differences."

The gender ratio among dissolved civil unions is roughly the same. Of four dissolutions reported in Vermont, three involved female couples. The only official male breakup so far, involving two Burlington men, was being finalized in court proceedings late last week.

Clyde Jenne, a gay and single Hartland Town Clerk who has issued 26 civil union licenses since July 2000, has his own observations on why so many more females then males join in unions.

"(In) this male-dominated society we have, (men) don't want to make that commitment for what the other guys will say. There have been women living together since God knows when, because they are not a threat to the system," Jenne said.