OUTSIDE of fiction, there has seldom been such a stunning, public declaration of romantic love as that made by Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan to each other, in court. They had already been together for 25 years, and married to each other, under Canadian law, for three years . . . they would have married earlier had Canadian law allowed it. In Ireland's long history of speeches from the dock there has been none to equal it.

Robert Emmett spoke of love of country. These two women spoke of love for each other.

From the moment they met, said Zappone, "I adored her." It took Gilligan all of two weeks, from the day they met, to rise to similar heights.

(Some women are hard to please. ) They swore that they have been faithful to each other ever since, and committed, and happy together.

Such a marriage is rare . . . what guest attends a wedding these days without fingers crossed?

Sure God love the happy couple, we think; if they knock 10 years out of it, they'll be lucky.

There's more happiness and certainty at a funeral. The troubles of the deceased are behind them and their suffering is over, is our heartfelt response.

What's love got to do with it?

Last Thursday, the judge told Gilligan and Zappone that marriage is an institution confined to, and exclusive to, union between a woman and a man. Britain passed a similar verdict on a samesex Canadian marriage last July.

However, the sensible judge (a woman, don't you know, Elizabeth Dunne) did not say that happiness and love and sexual congress are reserved exclusively to heterosexuals. Just marriage. Or, as Tina Turner famously asked, "What's love got to do with it?" Turner was raped and beaten by her husband. Turner's experience of marriage was, alas, far from rare.

What indeed, does love have to do with marriage in Ireland? The judge did not say. Her judgement was based strictly, and rigidly, on an interpretation of our constitution. This is not the first time that toes have been stubbed on that particular instrument, which governs so much of our lives. The constitution was drawn up in 1937. It needs modernising, to put it mildly. It is being modernised, bit by painful bit, at an agonisingly slow pace. Indeed, the only time we moved swiftly to change it was when we removed certain subsections on abortion, in the Maastricht referendum, in exchange for a multi-million pound subsidy from the European Community.

The Celtic Tiger was born that infamous day.

I'm not saying we sold the children for a mess of potage. Let's put it like this . . . we sold the zygotes.

Now then . . . what does the refusal to recognise the Zappone-Gilligan marriage say about us, what is to be done, and . . . crucially . . . does it matter? It certainly matters to those two loving women, who have a spiritual belief in the institution of marriage. In as much as this writer supports freedom for anyone to express love through marriage then I hope for their sakes that Ann Louise Gilligan and Katherine Zappone succeed in having the judgement overturned.

Otherwise, frankly, my dears, I don't give a damn. The couple has already succeeded in changing our concept of union, if not of love, between two people. I remember that amazing week in the run-up to Christmas 2004. They announced that they were going to court to have their marriage validated, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern responded that gay couples had a right to civil union, and the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin followed by saying that he agreed.

Those were the less-than-seven days that shook our world.

What is the difference between marriage and civil union? Not that much, really. Essentially, in Ireland, it is currently held that God sanctions marriage between heterosexuals, while the Irish state is moving towards the sanction of same-sex civil union. (Britain recently sanctioned the first such union, between two women at that, in Northern Ireland, of all places. ) Still and all, apart from the Zappone-Gilligan declaration, what's romantic love got to do with either marriage or civil union? Amazingly, last week, the government posed the question in respect to heterosexuals.

We will get a preliminary answer to the link between love and Irish heterosexual marriage very soon: the government has asked that a report be delivered within three months on the desirability of signing pre-nuptial agreements.

Indeed, the government has gone so far as to suggest that such a pre-nuptial agreement may be more necessary than desirable. This is because of the increasing rate of divorce in Ireland and the financial mess that invariably attends divorce, government has suggested.

That particular nugget of dawning wisdom was published the very day of the Dunne judgement on gay marriage.

For richer and whatever else you can grab Not many people noticed it . . . the news was buried under a welter of stories about gun murder. In short, and in crude sum, government thinking on heterosexual marriage is that heterosexuals should consider dropping the traditional pledge to cherish each other "for richer or poorer".

The government wants heterosexuals to consider a pre-nuptial agreement about who gets how much, from day one: half, quarter or an equal share in the current bank account, savings account, weekly wage, current assets and, oh-myGod, the pension?

Picture it, readers: the day before they marry, heterosexuals will have to decide if the beloved will get a share in the pension 30 years down the line, even if the marriage only lasts 10 years?

Awesome, or what? To put it another way, what has she ever done, your honour, that she should get half my money straight away? Cooking, cleaning, giving birth and rearing children is hardly rocket science, your honour. I mean, she's only a woman, a wife, and a mother. What's love got to do with it? I'm the plumber/businessman/brain surgeon around here.

I know, I know, boys, there a few women around town who earn more than men, and some of those women are real tightwads, but I'm going on the national average income, and so far men call the financial shots.

The greatest gift No such considerations entered the minds of Zappone or Gilligan. These two women share everything in their marriage but they went to court to ensure, amongst considerable other things, protection for the financial health of each other. Ye gods, they have set the gold standard for that institution. And they love each other, still? No wonder their application was rejected. Romantic Ireland's dead and gone.

It will be a while yet before heterosexuals and gays alike aspire confidently to both the loving ecstasy and domestic companionship, in either marriage or civil union, that Gilligan and Zappone enjoy.

The reason for our knuckle-dragging reluctance is simple. Apart from love of the children of union, adults have become, through mundane experience, sullen about enduring romantic love of each other within union. These two radiantly experienced women have recalled to us that it is possible; that none shall prevail against their love.

What a Christmas present they have given us.