I’m a liberal Democrat. And I do not favor same-sex marriage. Do those positions sound contradictory? To me, they fit together.
Many seem to believe that marriage is simply a private love relationship between two people. They accept this view, in part, because Americans have increasingly emphasized and come to value the intimate, emotional side of marriage, and in part because almost all opinion leaders today, from journalists to judges, strongly embrace this position. That’s certainly the idea that underpinned the California Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage.
But I spent a year studying the history and anthropology of marriage, and I’ve come to a different conclusion.
Marriage as a human institution is constantly evolving, and many of its features vary across groups and cultures. But there is one constant. In all societies, marriage shapes the rights and obligations of parenthood. Among us humans, the scholars report, marriage is not primarily a license to have sex. Nor is it primarily a license to receive benefits or social recognition. It is primarily a license to have children.
I’m a conservative libertarian, and I favor civil unions for gays. But I have to admit that I do have trepidations about it, particularly reading informed, thoughtful pieces like this. We need to be careful that we don’t upend what Heinlein describes as the bedrock earthly axiom of society:
[blockquote]“All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society†on any foundation other than “Women and children first!†is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly — and no doubt will keep on trying.â€[/blockquote]
really admirable stuff from Mr. Blankenhorn. He is headed for Bob Casey status (i.e. pariah) for his position however. Pro choice and pro gay marriage are two things you don’t object to if you’re a Democrat…..
It was interesting to read the negative comments on the LA Times web page. I guess we know that the political, cultural and spiritual polarization in America can be discerned through the readership or viewing habits toward differing media outlets. There is no cookie cutter example of the typical American family. Nobody lives in perfection. I lost my wife. My children have no mother. No one can make up for that loss, but my children and I may find other relationships to ease the situation. My wife was my wife. My children’s mother was their mother. It was untimely to lose her when both were still in school. Nothing can totally replace that lost.
Marriage isn’t universal for everyone. Some are bad, some are destroyed, and some are not meant to be. Marriage is an ideal, and I agree with the author’s point of view. Before I had my own children, I had the experience, along with my wife, to be a chaperone to about forty teenage girls who were mostly from broken, but affluent families. I was the only male figure in their lives for three weeks. My experience through that period is at total odds with the comments from the LA Times. These girls needed a father in their lives and the witness of a loving married heterosexual couple.
[blockquote] [M]arriage is not primarily a license to have sex. Nor is it primarily a license to receive benefits or social recognition. It is primarily a license to have children. [/blockquote]
Since sex and children are joined at the hip, marriage traditionally conveyed public permission to have sex with the knowledge the children would result. Contraception shattered this connection and abortion even more so. The problem is that sex, marriage, and children are now viewed as three distinct components of life, and not as the unified trinity they were created to be. Marriage must be the gateway to legitimized sexual behavior, with the attendent assumption that children will be accepted as a consequence of engaging in sex. It must be more than just a license to have children. Otherwise, you end up where the Europeans currently are – lots of sex, but no children, and no marriage.
Marriage is all about forcing people to accept responsibility. That is why our autonomous libertine society is so hostile to it. People are seeking ways to assume the privilege of sex while avoiding the concomitant responsibility to raise children. The way to do that is to undermine marriage as the public institution that legitimizes sex. Making marriage only a license to have children does not help this situation. It re-enforces it by tacitly assuming that sex and children a severable.
carl
#4, the author says marriage primarily a license to have children, not that marriage is only a license to have children. I do agree he is trending into the culturally accepted norm of making marriage “all about the kids” here. He is lacking of course any understanding of the biblical concept of marriage that puts that relationship before any others (mortals), including (and especially) the kids.
#4, i think you have it exactly. And that trend, unfortunately, started a long time ago. I suppose a generation ago depending on how we count the generations.
5. Chris wrote:
[blockquote] the author says marriage primarily a license to have children, not that marriage is only a license to have children. [/blockquote]
He also said it was [i]not[/i] primarily either a license to have sex, or a license to receive benefits. What then did the author include by implication that would invalidate my argument?
carl
[i]It is primarily a license to have children.[/i]
This minimizes the role of marriage in old age. Perhaps we do not appreciate adequately the extent to which care of the elderly is borne by a spouse. Society has a huge interest in that.
He also brushes off divorce a little easily. True, most can all agree that divorce is a tragedy, but unfortunately not enough people agree that remarriages are tragedy. I wonder if Blankenhorn would agree to bar remarriages involving any person who has minor children. I await the day the latter ever reaches a ballot initiative.
He is lacking of course any understanding of the biblical concept of marriage that puts that relationship before any others (mortals), including (and especially) the kids.
Might I enquire where exactly in the Bible it says that a man’s duty is to his wife above his children? It seems to me that catholic theology in this area, which is the more substantially grounded, lays great stress upon the fertility of marriage as being a prime facet of its iconic nature. Christ and his Bride do not engage in a barren marriage.
Some wisdom to the article. It does mean that the category of “sin” shifts from being about genital behavior to about the caring of property.