The world's first "I do"
Forty years of love, a town hall and a kiss for the history books: how a worldwide movement began in Copenhagen.
On 1 October 1989, two elderly gentlemen made world history in Copenhagen. Axel and Eigil Axgil registered their partnership at the town hall, becoming the first same-sex couple in the world whose relationship was recognised by the state. Axel was seventy-four, Eigil sixty-seven. By then they had been a couple for four decades.
It had been a long road. Inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the two had founded Denmark's first gay organisation with friends in 1948, the "Forbundet af 1948". At the time, even the word "homosexual" was taboo. They created their shared surname from their first names, as a sign of their bond.
Parliament had passed the registered partnership law by seventy-one votes to forty-seven. Opposition came mainly from the small Christian People's Party. The new partnership brought almost all the rights of marriage. Only adoption and joint custody remained excluded.
The big day was a sunny Sunday. Onlookers, photographers and camera crews from all over the world crowded in front of the town hall. In a horse-drawn carriage, the newly registered partners toasted with champagne and kissed. On the same day, ten more couples said "I do".
Little Denmark became a model for many. Norway, Sweden and Iceland followed a few years later with similar laws. The Netherlands became the first country to open full marriage, and Denmark followed in 2012.
Eigil Axgil died in 1995. Axel did not live to see marriage opened in his home country; he died in 2011 at the age of ninety-six. The wedding photo from the carriage hung in his Copenhagen flat for many years.