{"id":103071,"date":"2021-06-14T17:00:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T21:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=103071"},"modified":"2021-06-14T17:58:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T21:58:39","slug":"pd-alexander-riley-who-knew-emile-durkheim-was-a-conservative-on-sex-and-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=103071","title":{"rendered":"(PD) Alexander Riley–Who Knew \u00c9mile Durkheim Was a Conservative on Sex and Marriage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Durkheim was a trenchant critic of the contractual view of marriage, in which the relationship is said to involve only the two spouses and to depend entirely on their satisfaction with each other. In his 1906 essay \u201cDivorce by Mutual Consent<\/a>,\u201d he criticized the liberalization of divorce that many secular intellectuals then championed. Like their counterparts today, the latter argued that it was clearly in the interests of both parents\u2014and frequently of their children\u2014for marriage to be dissolvable by agreement of the spouses alone. Durkheim countered that such a shift potentially harms the institution of matrimony itself.<\/p>\n

Durkheim noted empirical evidence that divorce affects suicide rates. Marriage appeared to significantly reduce the likelihood of suicide, and in the parts of Durkheim\u2019s France in which divorce was more common, this positive effect of marriage was weaker. Although married women were less likely to commit suicide only if their marriage had yielded children, for married men the risk was less in many scenarios. Absent an exterior regulatory force or presence, Durkheim reasoned, individual men are largely ineffective at moderating their sexual energies, and they end up emotionally distressed and dissolute. The marital institution regulates their desires. However, he went on, \u201cRegulation from which one can withdraw whenever one has a notion is no longer regulation.\u201d By removing the judge\u2014the representative of society, whose authority historically extends from the religious origins of the polity\u2014from the decision-making process of divorce, contractual marriage inevitably weakens the regulatory force of marriage.<\/p>\n

Durkheim also insisted that marriage affects parties beyond the two spouses, most obviously their children. Children so change the marital relationship that, once they exist, they alter the marriage\u2019s purpose. In Durkheim\u2019s view, the couple, formerly the end of the relationship, becomes but a means to the end of the family for which they are responsible. Spouses\u2019 obligation to their children clearly invalidates a model for divorce based merely on mutual consent.<\/p>\n

Even the partners themselves may benefit from marriages that they would rather escape out of anger or spite. Although in a few marriages disharmony between the spouses may be so great that separation is the only reasonable path, Durkheim maintained that there are many, many more \u201csimply mediocre marriages\u201d\u2014exciting and joyous only in an irregular, inconstant manner\u2014that nonetheless produce \u201csufficient feeling for . . . [the] duty . . . to fulfill [one\u2019s] function.\u201d They thereby they provide a significant social good. This argument was almost perfectly consonant with that of the Christian conservatives of Durkheim\u2019s day. It also scandalizes most contemporary sociologists, who have moved far from the origins of their discipline.<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Who Knew \u00c9mile Durkheim Was a Conservative on Sex and Marriage? https:\/\/t.co\/cmI8dWEQn9<\/a><\/p>\n

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) June 4, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n