April 2, 2005
From the desk of Jane Galt:A really, really, really long post about gay marriage that does not, in the end, support one side or the other
Unlike most libertarians, I don't have an opinion on gay marriage, and I'm not going to have an opinion no matter how much you bait me. However, I had an interesting discussion last night with another libertarian about it, which devolved into an argument about a certain kind of liberal/libertarian argument about gay marriage that I find really unconvincing.
Social conservatives of a more moderate stripe are essentially saying that marriage is an ancient institution, which has been carefully selected for throughout human history. It is a bedrock of our society; if it is destroyed, we will all be much worse off. (See what happened to the inner cities between 1960 and 1990 if you do not believe this.) For some reason, marriage always and everywhere, in every culture we know about, is between a man and a woman; this seems to be an important feature of the institution. We should not go mucking around and changing this extremely important institution, because if we make a bad change, the institution will fall apart.
A very common response to this is essentially to mock this as ridiculous. "Why on earth would it make any difference to me whether gay people are getting married? Why would that change my behavior as a heterosexual"
To which social conservatives reply that institutions have a number of complex ways in which they fulfill their roles, and one of the very important ways in which the institution of marriage perpetuates itself is by creating a romantic vision of oneself in marriage that is intrinsically tied into expressing one's masculinity or femininity in relation to a person of the opposite sex; stepping into an explicitly gendered role. This may not be true of every single marriage, and indeed undoubtedly it is untrue in some cases. But it is true of the culture-wide institution. By changing the explicitly gendered nature of marriage we might be accidentally cutting away something that turns out to be a crucial underpinning.
To which, again, the other side replies "That's ridiculous! I would never change my willingness to get married based on whether or not gay people were getting married!"
Now, economists hear this sort of argument all the time. "That's ridiculous! I would never start working fewer hours because my taxes went up!" This ignores the fact that you may not be the marginal case. The marginal case may be some consultant who just can't justify sacrificing valuable leisure for a new project when he's only making 60 cents on the dollar. The result will nonetheless be the same: less economic activity. Similarly, you--highly educated, firmly socialised, upper middle class you--may not be the marginal marriage candidate; it may be some high school dropout in Tuscaloosa. That doesn't mean that the institution of marriage won't be weakened in America just the same.
This should not be taken as an endorsement of the idea that gay marriage will weaken the current institution. I can tell a plausible story where it does; I can tell a plausible story where it doesn't. I have no idea which one is true. That is why I have no opinion on gay marriage, and am not planning to develop one. Marriage is a big institution; too big for me to feel I have a successful handle on it.
However, I am bothered by this specific argument, which I have heard over and over from the people I know who favor gay marriage laws. I mean, literally over and over; when they get into arguments, they just repeat it, again and again. "I will get married even if marriage is expanded to include gay people; I cannot imagine anyone up and deciding not to get married because gay people are getting married; therefore, the whole idea is ridiculous and bigoted."
They may well be right. Nonetheless, libertarians should know better. The limits of your imagination are not the limits of reality. Every government programme that libertarians have argued against has been defended at its inception with exactly this argument.
Let me take three major legal innovations, one of them general, two specific to marriage.
The first, the general one, is well known to most hard-core libertarians, but let me reprise it anyway. When the income tax was initially being debated, there was a suggestion to put in a mandatory cap; I believe the level was 10 percent.
Don't be ridiculous, the Senator's colleagues told him. Americans would never allow an income tax rate as high as ten percent. They would revolt! It is an outrage to even suggest it!
Many actually fought the cap on the grounds that it would encourage taxes to grow too high, towards the cap. The American people, they asserted, could be well counted on to keep income taxes in the range of a few percentage points.
Oops.
Now, I'm not a tax-crazy libertarian; I don't expect you to be horrified that we have income taxes higher than ten percent, as I'm not. But the point is that the Senators were completely right--at that time. However, the existance of the income tax allowed for a slow creep that eroded the American resistance to income taxation. External changes--from the Great Depression, to the technical ability to manage withholding rather than lump payments, also facilitated the rise, but they could not have without a cultural sea change in feelings about taxation. That "ridiculous" cap would have done a much, much better job holding down tax rates than the culture these Senators erroneously relied upon. Changing the law can, and does, change the culture of the thing regulated.
Another example is welfare. To sketch a brief history of welfare, it emerged in the nineteenth century as "Widows and orphans pensions", which were paid by the state to destitute families whose breadwinner had passed away. They were often not available to blacks; they were never available to unwed mothers. Though public services expanded in the first half of the twentieth century, that mentality was very much the same: public services were about supporting unfortunate families, not unwed mothers. Unwed mothers could not, in most cases, obtain welfare; they were not allowed in public housing (which was supposed to be--and was--a way station for young, struggling families on the way to homeownership, not a permanent abode); they were otherwise discriminated against by social services. The help you could expect from society was a home for wayward girls, in which you would give birth and then put the baby up for adoption.
The description of public housing in the fifties is shocking to anyone who's spent any time in modern public housing. Big item on the agenda at the tenant's meeting: housewives, don't shake your dustcloths out of the windows--other wives don't want your dirt in their apartment! Men, if you wear heavy work boots, please don't walk on the lawns until you can change into lighter shoes, as it damages the grass! (Descriptions taken from the invaluable book, The Inheritance, about the transition of the white working class from Democrat to Republican.) Needless to say, if those same housing projects could today find a majority of tenants who reliably dusted, or worked, they would be thrilled.
Public housing was, in short, a place full of functioning families.
Now, in the late fifties, a debate began over whether to extend benefits to the unmarried. It was unfair to stigmatise unwed mothers. Why shouldn't they be able to avail themselves of the benefits available to other citizens? The brutal societal prejudice against illegitimacy was old fashioned, bigoted, irrational.
But if you give unmarried mothers money, said the critics, you will get more unmarried mothers.
Ridiculous, said the proponents of the change. Being an unmarried mother is a brutal, thankless task. What kind of idiot would have a baby out of wedlock just because the state was willing to give her paltry welfare benefits?
People do all sorts of idiotic things, said the critics. If you pay for something, you usually get more of it.
C'mon said the activists. That's just silly. I just can't imagine anyone deciding to get pregnant out of wedlock simply because there are welfare benefits available.
Oooops.
Of course, change didn't happen overnight. But the marginal cases did have children out of wedlock, which made it more acceptable for the next marginal case to do so. Meanwhile, women who wanted to get married essentially found themselves in competition for young men with women who were willing to have sex, and bear children, without forcing the men to take any responsibility. This is a pretty attractive proposition for most young men. So despite the fact that the sixties brought us the biggest advance in birth control ever, illegitimacy exploded. In the early 1960s, a black illegitimacy rate of roughly 25 percent caused Daniel Patrick Moynihan to write a tract warning of a crisis in "the negro family" (a tract for which he was eviscerated by many of those selfsame activists.)
By 1990, that rate was over 70 percent. This, despite the fact that the inner city, where the illegitimacy problem was biggest, only accounts for a fraction of the black population.
But in that inner city, marriage had been destroyed. It had literally ceased to exist in any meaningful way. Possibly one of the most moving moments in Jason de Parle's absolutely wonderful book, American Dream, which follows three welfare mothers through welfare reform, is when he reveals that none of these three women, all in their late thirties, had ever been to a wedding.
Marriage matters. It is better for the kids; it is better for the adults raising those kids; and it is better for the childless people in the communities where those kids and adults live. Marriage reduces poverty, improves kids outcomes in all measurable ways, makes men live longer and both spouses happier. Marriage, it turns out, is an incredibly important institution. It also turns out to be a lot more fragile than we thought back then. It looked, to those extremely smart and well-meaning welfare reformers, practically unshakeable; the idea that it could be undone by something as simple as enabling women to have children without husbands, seemed ludicrous. Its cultural underpinnings were far too firm. Why would a woman choose such a hard road? It seemed self-evident that the only unwed mothers claiming benefits would be the ones pushed there by terrible circumstance.
This argument is compelling and logical. I would never become an unwed welfare mother, even if benefits were a great deal higher than they are now. It seems crazy to even suggest that one would bear a child out of wedlock for $567 a month. Indeed, to this day, I find the reformist side much more persuasive than the conservative side, except for one thing, which is that the conservatives turned out to be right. In fact, they turned out to be even more right than they suspected; they were predicting upticks in illegitimacy that were much more modest than what actually occurred--they expected marriage rates to suffer, not collapse.
How did people go so badly wrong? Well, to start with, they fell into the basic fallacy that economists are so well acquainted with: they thought about themselves instead of the marginal case. For another, they completely failed to realise that each additional illegitimate birth would, in effect, slightly destigmatise the next one. They assigned men very little agency, failing to predict that women willing to forgo marriage would essentially become unwelcome competition for women who weren't, and that as the numbers changed, that competition might push the marriage market towards unwelcome outcomes. They failed to forsee the confounding effect that the birth control pill would have on sexual mores.
But I think the core problems are two. The first is that they looked only at individuals, and took instititutions as a given. That is, they looked at all the cultural pressure to marry, and assumed that that would be a countervailing force powerful enough to overcome the new financial incentives for out-of-wedlock births. They failed to see the institution as dynamic. It wasn't a simple matter of two forces: cultural pressure to marry, financial freedom not to, arrayed against eachother; those forces had a complex interplay, and when you changed one, you changed the other.
The second is that they didn't assign any cultural reason for, or value to, the stigma on illegitimacy. They saw it as an outmoded vestige of a repressive Victorial values system, based on an unnatural fear of sexuality. But the stigma attached to unwed motherhood has quite logical, and important, foundations: having a child without a husband is bad for children, and bad for mothers, and thus bad for the rest of us. So our culture made it very costly for the mother to do. Lower the cost, and you raise the incidence. As an economist would say, incentives matter.
(Now, I am not arguing in favor of stigmatising unwed mothers the way the Victorians did. I'm just pointing out that the stigma did not exist merely, as many mid-century reformers seem to have believed, because of some dark Freudian excesses on the part of our ancestors.)
But all the reformers saw was the terrible pain--and it was terrible--inflicted on unwed mothers. They saw the terrible unfairness--and it was terribly unfair--of punishing the mother, and not the father. They saw the inherent injustice--and need I add, it was indeed unjust--of treating American citizens differently because of their marital status.
But as G.K. Chesterton points out, people who don't see the use of a social institution are the last people who should be allowed to reform it:
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.
Now, of course, this can turn into a sort of precautionary principle that prevents reform from ever happening. That would be bad; all sorts of things need changing all the time, because society and our environment change. But as a matter of principle, it is probably a bad idea to let someone go mucking around with social arrangements, such as the way we treat unwed parenthood, if their idea about that institution is that "it just growed". You don't have to be a rock-ribbed conservative to recognise that there is something of an evolutionary process in society: institutional features are not necessarily the best possible arrangement, but they have been selected for a certain amount of fitness.
It might also be, of course, that the feature is what evolutionary biologists call a spandrel. It's a term taken from architecture; spandrels are the pretty little spaces between vaulted arches. They are not designed for; they are a useless, but pretty, side effect of the physical properties of arches. In evolutionary biology, spandrel is some feature which is not selected for, but appears as a byproduct of other traits that are selected for. Belly buttons are a neat place to put piercings, but they're not there because of that; they're a byproduct of mammalian reproduction.
However, and architect will be happy to tell you that if you try to rip out the spandrel, you might easily bring down the building.
The third example I'll give is of changes to the marriage laws, specifically the radical relaxation of divorce statutes during the twentieth century.
Divorce, in the nineteenth century, was unbelievably hard to get. It took years, was expensive, and required proving that your spouse had abandonned you for an extended period with no financial support; was (if male) not merely discreetly dallying but flagrantly carrying on; or was not just belting you one now and again when you got mouthy, but routinely pummeling you within an inch of your life. After you got divorced, you were a pariah in all but the largest cities. If you were a desperately wronged woman you might change your name, taking your maiden name as your first name and continuing to use your husband's last name to indicate that you expected to continue living as if you were married (i.e. chastely) and expect to have some limited intercourse with your neighbours, though of course you would not be invited to events held in a church, or evening affairs. Financially secure women generally (I am not making this up) moved to Europe; Edith Wharton, who moved to Paris when she got divorced, wrote moving stories about the way divorced women were shunned at home. Men, meanwhile (who were usually the respondants) could expect to see more than half their assets and income settled on their spouse and children.
There were, critics observed, a number of unhappy marriages in which people stuck together. Young people, who shouldn't have gotten married; older people, whose spouses were not physically abusive nor absent, nor flagrantly adulterous, but whose spouse was, for reasons of financial irresponsibility, mental viciousness, or some other major flaw, destroying their life. Why not make divorce easier to get? Rather than requiring people to show that there was an unforgiveable, physically visible, cause that the marriage should be dissolved, why not let people who wanted to get divorced agree to do so?
Because if you make divorce easier, said the critics, you will get much more of it, and divorce is bad for society.
That's ridiculous! said the reformers. (Can we sing it all together now?) People stay married because marriage is a bedrock institution of our society, not because of some law! The only people who get divorced will be people who have terrible problems! A few percentage points at most!
Oops. When the law changed, the institution changed. The marginal divorce made the next one easier. Again, the magnitude of the change swamped the dire predictions of the anti-reformist wing; no one could have imagined, in their wildest dreams, a day when half of all marriages ended in divorce.
There were actually two big changes; the first, when divorce laws were amended in most states to make it easier to get a divorce; and the second, when "no fault" divorce allowed one spouse to unilaterally end the marriage. The second change produced another huge surge in the divorce rate, and a nice decline in the incomes of divorced women; it seems advocates had failed to anticipate that removing the leverage of the financially weaker party to hold out for a good settlement would result in men keeping more of their earnings to themselves.
What's more, easy divorce didn't only change the divorce rate; it made drastic changes to the institution of marriage itself. David Brooks makes an argument I find convincing: that the proliferation of the kind of extravagent weddings that used to only be the province of high society (rented venue, extravagent flowers and food, hundreds of guests, a band with dancing, dresses that cost the same as a good used car) is because the event itself doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to, so we have to turn it into a three-ring circus to feel like we're really doing something.
A couple in 1940 (and even more so in 1910) could go to a minister's parlor, or a justice of the peace, and in five minutes totally change their lives. Unless you are a member of certain highly religious subcultures, this is simply no longer true. That is, of course, partly because of the sexual revolution and the emancipation of women; but it is also because you aren't really making a lifetime committment; you're making a lifetime committment unless you find something better to do. There is no way, psychologically, to make the latter as big an event as the former, and when you lost that committment, you lose, on the margin, some willingness to make the marriage work. Again, this doesn't mean I think divorce law should be toughened up; only that changes in law that affect marriage affect the cultural institution, not just the legal practice.
Three laws. Three well-meaning reformers who were genuinely, sincerely incapable of imagining that their changes would wreak such institutional havoc. Three sets of utterly logical and convincing, and wrong arguments about how people would behave after a major change.
So what does this mean? That we shouldn't enact gay marriage because of some sort of social Precautionary Principle
No. I have no such grand advice.
My only request is that people try to be a leeetle more humble about their ability to imagine the subtle results of big policy changes. The argument that gay marriage will not change the institution of marriage because you can't imagine it changing your personal reaction is pretty arrogant. It imagines, first of all, that your behavior is a guide for the behavior of everyone else in society, when in fact, as you may have noticed, all sorts of different people react to all sorts of different things in all sorts of different ways, which is why we have to have elections and stuff. And second, the unwavering belief that the only reason that marriage, always and everywhere, is a male-female institution (I exclude rare ritual behaviors), is just some sort of bizarre historical coincidence, and that you know better, needs examining. If you think you know why marriage is male-female, and why that's either outdated because of all the ways in which reproduction has lately changed, or was a bad reason to start with, then you are in a good place to advocate reform. If you think that marriage is just that way because our ancestors were all a bunch of repressed bastards with dark Freudian complexes that made them homophobic bigots, I'm a little leery of letting you muck around with it.
Is this post going to convince anyone? I doubt it; everyone but me seems to already know all the answers, so why listen to such a hedging, doubting bore? I myself am trying to draw a very fine line between being humble about making big changes to big social institutions, and telling people (which I am not trying to do) that they can't make those changes because other people have been wrong in the past. In the end, our judgement is all we have; everyone will have to rely on their judgement of whether gay marriage is, on net, a good or a bad idea. All I'm asking for is for people to think more deeply than a quick consultation of their imaginations to make that decision. I realise that this probably falls on the side of supporting the anti-gay-marriage forces, and I'm sorry, but I can't help that. This humility is what I want from liberals when approaching market changes; now I'm asking it from my side too, in approaching social ones. I think the approach is consistent, if not exactly popular.
Update A number of libertarians are, as I predicted, making the "Why don't we just privatise marriage?" argument. I don't find that useful in the context of the debate about gay marriage in America, where marriage is simply not going to be privatised in any foreseeable near-term future. I wrote an immediate follow up saying just that, but of course, I got a lot of readers from an Instalanche, which I didn't expect (no one expects an Instalanche!), and they just read the one post. So the second post is here; if you are thinking of making the argument that we should just get the state out of the marriage business, please read it.
Also, a lot of readers are saying that I'm wrong about marriage always being between a man and a woman, citing polygamy. I have been told this is a "basic factual error."
No, it's not. Polygamous societies do not (at least in any society I have ever heard about) have group marriages. Men with more than one wife have multiple marriages with multiple women, not a single marriage with several wives. In fact, they generally take pains to separate the women, preferably in different houses. Whether or not you allow men to contract for more than one marriage (and for all sorts of reasons, this seems to me to be a bad idea unless you're in an era of permanent war), each marriage remains the union of a man and a woman.
Posted by Jane Galt at April 2, 2005 6:24 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>Jane,
If this was an essay on economics, it would be the best essay on economics I've read in a year or more.
If this was an essay on social structures, it would be the best essay on social structures I've read on a year or more.
If this was an essay on conservative versus reformer mindsets, it would be the best essay on *that* that I've read in a year or more.
In fact, it was all three of those things, and I'm frankly stunned at how excellently you've made so many points in such a short space.
Bravo.
TJIC
Posted by: TJIC on April 2, 2005 8:45 AM
Amazing essay. Simply amazing.
While I find myself on the "pro-" side of the gay marriage issue, that's more because I know several 20+ year extremely stable gay couples, and those are the people I can't see forbidding to marry. In practice, that's probably not going to be the norm, any more than it's the norm for heterosexuals. Any analysis of the effects of gay marriage will have to include analyzing how gay marriages will fail or become disfunctional, just like heterosexual marriages do. Their failure modes could easily be different than het marriages, and those differences could be socially significant.
I agree that there might be unintended consequences in legalizing gay marriage, I always read the fine print and "game" all rules, at least in my head, anyway. There is certainly a chance that the legalization of gay marriage would cause social change that we can't anticipate. I think the areas you concentrate on, quickie divorce, modern contraception, and welfare laws are/were all easily gamed by people who want to "beat the system", i.e. gold diggers, the pathologically promiscuous, and deadbeat dads in your examples.
I guess you could point at health insurance for the spouse as an area that could be gamed by gay marriage. For me, thats not a major factor, I favor universal health care. Gay marriage should be a matter for each religion to decide. But gay's should be allowed civil unions that give them the same rights and financial considerations as heteros. Just think how much fun the Schiavo case would have been if it was Michelle instead of Michael. Think Delay and the far right would have cared if that were the case? Sorry, sometimes I just can't resist.
Posted by: So Fabulous on April 2, 2005 9:54 AMHoly cow! How about an executive summary? You've come down with JayRosenitis.
Posted by: Stanley on April 2, 2005 9:57 AMMarriagve is an institution to encourage monogamy and social interdependence. As a single woman on my own, I can tell you that economically speaking, I would be better off if I were living with a roommate or a partner.
While I would have higher expenses for some food, I can tell you that most food is often sold in bulk or in units that are more friendly towards a couple, as opposed to a single person. I pay more for food in smaller portions. The same is true on rent. A two bedroom apartment in my building is approx. 400 more than a one bedroom per month. I pay more per square foot than my friends do. After that, many of my monthly expenses would be cut in half.
In rural societies, there was a reason a marriage was between a man and a woman. On a farm, extra hands were an asset, and the cheapest way to produce that asset was to have a baby and wait ten years. Sure there was a delay, and investment in a child, but on the whole, marriage between a man and a woman was the best way to ensure plenty of farm hands for twenty years, especially when half of them weren't likely to make adulthood.
Further, a marriage was a partnership that worked on doing different types of work to be successful, work that fell down gender lines - laundry versus plowing. It fell on gender lines because of comparative advantage. Due to a man's upper body strength, different relexes, and overall being stronger, it made more sense for a man to be out in the fields, doing very brawny labor or hunting, as opposed to being in the house and gathering.
Nowadays, we don't need as many children (though saying we need none is a way to social doom), and labor does not need to fall as much down gender lines. However, marriage is still the best way of ensuring monogamy, which is economically and emotionally more healthy state. Monogamy ensures a person is less likely to catch a STD, provides a unique source of emotional support and eliminates risks associated with a promiscuous lifestyle.
While there are other reasons for marriage, and I admit straight marriage falls down on this a lot, the best reason is because two people want to commit to supporting each other and being full partners for the rest of their lives. This is not a unique phenomenon to straight people; there are a lot of gay couples who want this. But unless we can say that that is what we want gay marriage to look like - monogamous, full-on emotional and economic support - then we risk losing the whole point of marriage. And the problem is, I have seen too many gay commentators say that gay marriage would need more "outs" for individuals to cheat and not invalidate the marriage (Andrew Sullivan come one down!). Which defeats the whole freaking point.
There may be other, better reasons for marriage, and for the reason marriage has always been between a man and a woman, even in extensive slave holding societies where adoption was relatively easy, and field hands could be made by breeding your slaves (I'm thinking Greece and Rome here). But until we say that gay marriage will be just as monogamous as straight marriage - or, more precisely, gay marriage will not have as a premise the idea that infidelity is part of the package (i.e. all marriages are open and supposed to be), then we are mucking around in the roots of marriage, and should stay clear.
Posted by: Nora on April 2, 2005 10:04 AMJane:
If we replace "gay marriage" with "desegregation," what exactly changes? Should, for example, we be a little more forgiving of the memory of Bull Connor, who acted on roughly the same argument?
Social institutions matter, and changing them can have big effects. Good point, I suppose. But how you are distinguishing social institutions from other changes that effect a number of people, or the social institution of marriage from others, I can't see. Even if all you're arguing is that we should be more forgiving of people who make arguments against the extension of civil rights (however trivial), there needs to be something more. After all, the guilt of those previously on the wrong side of history has been a pretty powerful social institution as well.
Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on April 2, 2005 10:25 AMExcellent essay--well worth the length. One basic issue that you don't consider, though, is to what extent the historical legal changes were the result of rather than the cause of social changes. By this reasoning, the big change is the social acceptance of gays and gay relationships. This change what may (or may not) have a the subtle but profound impact on the institution of heterosexual marriage. The actual legalization of gay marriage may be rather unimportant--it has become a topic for debate because of the greater acceptance and, as the level of acceptance increases, legalization of gay unions will likely become a foregone conclusion. But even if the laws are maintained in opposition to public opinion, the effect of homosexual unions being thought of as a an alternative form of 'normal' rather than 'deviant' will have it's effect on heterosexual marriage anyway.
The recent bankruptcy law changes are an interesting point of comparison. It seems that what has happened is that bankrupcy filings have increased substantially without changes in the laws at least in part because the social stigma associated with bankrupcy has mostly disappeared, but in this case, rather than codifying this increased tolerance, the effort has been to try to pass a law that will counteract it.
But it is still a case of changes in attitudes and behavior leading legal changes rather than being caused by legal changes.
Posted by: mw on April 2, 2005 10:26 AMIf we replace "gay marriage" with "desegregation," what exactly changes? Should, for example, we be a little more forgiving of the memory of Bull Connor, who acted on roughly the same argument?
I was going to write something like this...but Tim beat me to it and probably wrote it better than I would have.
We could substitute any number of social or economic issues for "gay marriage" for this exercise. Jane's argument would certainly speak truth to power for those against the change.
In the end it's all about oppressing civil rights because of fear and losing control.
Posted by: carla on April 2, 2005 11:11 AM"I realise that this probably falls on the side of supporting the anti-gay-marriage forces, and I'm sorry, but I can't help that."
What's to apologize for? No matter what your sympathies (within reason), reality will sometimes run against them. Gay marriage didn't become an issue for serious public consideration until a few years ago, and not even gay activists agree with each other agree on why it's a good idea. I don't think there's anything untoward about pointing out that changing things without thinking through the ramifications is a bad idea.
Posted by: Sean Kinsell on April 2, 2005 11:30 AMI really enjoyed this essay and found it very stimulating, but I do have one serious problem with it: The argument ignores the possibility that same-sex marriage might have unknown positive consequences. If the consequences are either neutral or bad--but we don't know which--then caution is clearly in order. But if same-sex marriage might actually help both gay and straight people alike (as Jonathan Rauch has argued), then we face a very different situation.
In the end, the question comes down to whether we think the hard-to-calculate good consequences outweigh the hard-to-calculate bad consequences. One way of approaching the problem is to experiment with same-sex marriage on a limited scale as a way of gathering data about it. And that's exactly what we are doing right now.
Posted by: Jason Kuznicki on April 2, 2005 11:32 AMTim and carla:
Segregation was the historical ehco of five hundred years of brutal, systemmatic kidnapping, rape, and torture. Civil rights activists of the last few decades understood it as such, and few today would disagree that we're better off without it. Indeed, African American authors from Frederick Douglass forwards were intimately acquainted with the antecedents of the "social institution" of segregation: the legal institution of slavery.
In other words, desegregationists had more than met Chesterton's criteria for bulldozing the gate; he's offering a warning, not posting an injunction against all social change.
You, on the other hand, suggest that nonexistent warning (made out of "fear of losing control", right?) as a justification for the change itself. Please.
Conflating marriage with slavery is exactly the kind of vapidity Jane is arguing against here. If you don't see that one is worthy of social sanction, and that the other was abominable, you're probably missing her point.
Posted by: John Deszyck on April 2, 2005 11:53 AMSee, I disagree that the primary reason marriage has become a completely different institution is because of relaxed divorce laws.
Marriage has become a completely different institution, in my opinion, because marriage doesn't bring as many advantages anymore.
Life isn't what it was 100 years ago. 100 years ago, people needed long, secure, dependable relationships to survive. Today, long, secure, dependable relationships generally create uncertainty, and the advantage goes to people who can drop everything and re-invent themselves in a year or two.
Today, the people who suffer the most from economic downturns, changes in industry, and anything else, are families. People who have long-term commitments they have to honor.
I'm single, never been married, early 30s. Life in the modern world suits me just fine. I life a life of near-luxury. Meanwhile, the "families" I know -- friends of mine who had kids, settled down -- live in general terror of the completely unpredictable and rapidly changing modern economy. No job is secure. At any time, they could go from being comfortably middle class to impoverished, as their careers of choice are wiped out.
There's no place to set down "roots" because any neighborhood you move to could drastically change from middle-class to either gentrified or impoverished within the next 10 years. There are no more family farms, or family businesses -- these get scooped up or crushed by massive institutional competitors.
Marriage is one of two things today:
1) A pooling of resources, in which spouses pursue separate career paths, and combine their earnings while sharing costs. This is simply a trade-off of flexibility for higher income. As long as both spouses have stable, predictable careers, it's great, but what's stable and predictable about a career these days? Whenever one spouse has to make a career change they are immediately limited by whatever the other spouse is doing at the time. For example, several friends of mine in law school are married. As they graduate they are either a) looking for a job within driving distance of their spouse's job or b) completely uprooting their spouse from spouse's career. I on the other hand, have the entire united states to choose from, with no trade-offs, as I look for a job.
2) A division of labor, in which spouse earns income, while the other stays at home and raises the kids. Once upon a time, one breadwinner could lead a fairly reliable career path, either by creating a small business/farm, or choosing a trade to develop. No more. Does daddy have a good job? Tomorrow daddy could be selling pants at the Gap, whether Daddy today is 5 or 25 years into his chosen "career." This isn't horrible for a single, mobile person -- I've changed careers three times already in my life and I'm in my mid-30s. But for a "family" doesn't bring much security anymore.
The second situation is especially important for the non-breadwinner, because it means that those (mostly women) who agree as part of a marriage contract to "stay home and raise the kids" aren't committing to any kind of secure, predictable situation. "Marry me and I'll take care of you for the rest of your life" doesn't have the same ring to it anymore than it did when a man with a farm, or a business, or a good trade once said it.
Posted by: Aaron on April 2, 2005 12:08 PMCarla, Tim -
Segregation is not the norm in every society from the dawn of time. Many societies were much more racially mixed (Greece, Rome, Egyptian, and I am sure a lot of tribal societies). While there has always been fear of the other, especially individuals of different ethnicities and religions, and with it accompaning discrimination, that discrimination has not been UNIVERSALLY legislated into law based on race, or factors that cannot be changed. In fact, you cannot say the same ethnic or religious group has been discriminated against across all cultures.
On the other hand, marriage has universally been deemed to be between a man and a woman. Whether or not gay relationships have been considered the norm, marriage has always been heterosexual. So gay marriage is not quite the same thing as the civil rights movement.
Posted by: Nora on April 2, 2005 12:18 PMOne argument I've never seen addressed, at least to my satisfaction is this: what are the practical matters that gay folks have to endure that married couples dont? All the church marriages I've been to are religious ceremonies, which are then recognized by the state.
Are there benefits? I know there are. But aren't most of them economic? And I think, really, kind of dated. Most of them seem to lie in the area of relationships (i.e. visitation, who can speak for the other spouse, insurance provided for spouses), taxes, and property rights, i.e., inheritance. Are there any I'm missing?
I say this because it seems to me that its not the relationship issues that are the problem, gays are as free to associate or not as anyone else and any church could perform a ceremony that was binding before god, if they so chose. So what's the nut of the practical matter? That if there is a non-working spouse of a gay couple, there's no insurance benefit? That there is no automatic inheritance for the spouse? As a trust and estates lawyer, I can tell you this is quickly remedied the same way a heterosexual couple's wills are taken care of.
That's why when I hear Ellen DeGeneres say that her partner wouldn't be protected in the event of her death, I laughed, thinking "Hmm, if your lawyers and accountants dont' have you legally papered up 9 ways from sunday, I just got me a new client . . . ". Ellen, the only way your partner isn't protected in event of your death, is if YOU don't do anything about it.
I am sympathetic to the emergency cases of say a hospital not allowing what, a spouse, or something to visit? Is this really an issue? And honestly, I'm asking because I want to know, and don't have any familiarity with the issue.
But the ultimate point I'm getting at is that the "civil rights" aspect of this doesn't really pursuade me, and I think some folks compare as well as most commentators who use this argument seem to think. Essentially, denying someone's cohabited partner the right to get insurance, joint filing of tax returns, and being to lazy to pay to get a will done (trust me again, even heterosexuals don't want the default), when millions of heterosexuals are similarly situated doesn't strike me as the most compelling of civil rights claims. I am open to persuasion, but goodness, the law is full of "well, you can't do it that way, but this way will work" situations.
But that's just the practical argument. I'm fully persuaded by the moral argument that gay couples should be allowed to enter into socially binding arrangements. So, yes, I'm pro-gay marriage, but really, its not as open and shut, as Jane so admirably pointed out, as folks might have you believe, that either you're standing on the side of goodness and enlightenment or knuckledragging conservatism. I do believe there will be negative repercussions, but that on balance, its worth the risk. Folks don't often point out that after segregation the black communities ended up losing their best and brightest who moved up and out. That meant two things, the local communities lost their business and social leaders, and the business and social leaders were now in a pool of folks where they probably didn't stand out as much anymore.
Posted by: CyberSurfer on April 2, 2005 12:28 PMAaron if what you say is true, and I suspect that it is to some degree, then it may be necessary to have the polity confer more benefits to married couples who have children. If being married and having kids does not confer an economic advantage anymore, and society suffers greatly absent sufficient procreation with competent socialization, as we may see in Japan and Western Europe in the next few decades, then we may need to provide more incentives for people to marry, stay married, and have children. It is wonderful that you have a great life. If too many people respond to incentives as you do, however, the outcome would not be positive for society as a whole. Note that I ma not specifically proposing anything. Yet.
Posted by: Will Allen on April 2, 2005 12:28 PMWill,
Why incentivize people to do what's economically inefficient? While the married-with-children relationship was once valuable, it's no longer so, as far as I can tell.
I agree that kids are important. But why simply encourage people to go back to the old relationships when they aren't efficient anymore? If marriage is economically inefficient NOW, how much more so will it be if society subsidizes that economically inefficient relationship?
If kids are important, why not subsidize having kids? Why subsidize the marriage relationship? Marriage doesn't cause kids.
Posted by: Aaron on April 2, 2005 12:44 PMSimple arguments applied to complex systems or institutions are generally wrong. In spite of Jane's lengthy post, each argument basically came down to a simplistic "X was done, therefore Y happened.". Virtually nothing in society is that simple. A large number of factors can and generally do affect any one institution during any given time frame. She points to what happened to marriage in the inner city from the 1960's to the 1990's. What else happened during that time frame? How did the War on Drugs and the attendant increase in the number of young men from the inner city being in prison contribute? Did the initial promise and then failure (in the eyes of some) of aspects of the civil rights movement contribute? How about white flight from the cities, taking away a large tax base to help support the infrastructure and services of the cities? How many other factors can anyone who cares to think about it come up with that could easily break down the validity of the arguments based on a one action, one reaction relationship?
Posted by: Jim S on April 2, 2005 12:49 PMGood post, cybersurfer, although my attitudes more closely mirror Jane's. Part of the reason I am more agnostic than pro gay marriage is that, although there are certainly circumstances in which gay partners suffer because they cannot marry, their tribulations aren't even in the same universe as was the case with the victims of Jim Crow, and, as Jane notes, the unforseen outcomes with tinkering with marriage are potentially hugely detrimental, as has been already witnessed in the past 50 years.
It seems to me that that primary societal purpose of marriage in the modern world is to provide the best chance of a good environment in which to socialize children. Socializing children is still the most important wide-spread activity that any society engages in. This is easier to do with two adults under the same roof, and I know this for a fact. Whether there is any significant statistical advantage to having role models of both sexes for a child to learn from is not something I can make any judgement on. If simply allowing gay mariage, in the current context of marriage, lessens the percentage of children who have two adults under the same roof to socialize them, then I would oppose gay marriage, and it is not inconceivable that this is the case, for reasons Jane illustrated extremely well.
If, on the other hand, it were to be recognized that the way in which heterosexual marriage has been degraded, in terms of the institution's performance in socializing children, then perhaps this could be addressed in a fashion in which allowing gay marriage would be of minor importance. This is extraordinarily complex, to put forth an understatement, which is why I do not have firm opinions on the matter, other than I strongly believe that nobody really knows much of anything regarding this topic.
Posted by: Will Allen on April 2, 2005 12:55 PMIf we want to see what effects gay marriage will have on the institution of marriage, I suggest that we sit back and watch the countries that now allow it. Let's do lots of analysis over a 30 - 40 year time span and then make a rational, informed decision. I only wish we had used that criterion when we were debating no-fault divorce.
Posted by: cj on April 2, 2005 12:58 PMBecause, Aarron, there is significant reason to believe that children have a better chance of being socialized well when there are when there are two adults under the same roof engaging in that task. If this outcome of having two adults under the same roof socializing children can be accomplished, absent calling the relationship a "marriage", fine, but that seems to be re-inventing the wheel.
Posted by: Will Allen on April 2, 2005 1:00 PMAaron, one thing that too few libertarians realise is that there is a societal interest in having lots of kids even if there is no social security system. When you are eighty or so, and you need to retire, you are going to want to draw on your assets. But your assets just represent a claim on current production. No kids, no current production. Or to put it more simply, if people don't have babies, who's going to take care of you in the nursing home?
[Immigrants! say many libertarians. Look again. Birthrates are falling faster in the third world than they are here. And immigration to the US is made attractive only by the high productivity of current native-born workers
If no one has kids, when you are old, you will starve.
Posted by: Jane Galt on April 2, 2005 1:11 PMBy the way, Jane, this may have been your best post ever. It would be interesting to get a response from Andrew Sullivan.
Posted by: Will Allen on April 2, 2005 1:18 PM". . .by creating a romantic vision of oneself in marriage that is intrinsically tied into expressing one's masculinity or femininity in relation to a person of the opposite sex; stepping into an explicitly gendered role."
I'm tearing out a piece of Jane's great post to run down a rabbit trail.
I think that the same thinking applies to sexuality within marriage. When I define my sexuality always and only within the context of my marriage and my wife, then I am a bit more "bulletproof" when it comes to pornography and affairs; and thus also to STDs and children out of wedlock.
The benefits to society if most people married for life and remained faithful to their spouse really stagger the mind.
I really haven't read much of Sullivan's, or anyone else's punditry on this matter, because nearly everyone speaks with a certitude on the issue that is entirely unwarranted, but if Sullivan has indeed envisioned gay marriage in a fashion in which the value of monogamy is reduced further, he really is off-track.
Posted by: Will Allen on April 2, 2005 1:27 PMJane, you made one error of fact. "For some reason, marriage always and everywhere, in every culture we know about, is between a man and a woman." In the Cheyenne and possibly other American Indians, there apparently were male-male marriages. Since the Cheyenne had very strongly defined male and female roles, one partner (called hemanah) apparently had to play the female role fully - like cooking the food and then feeding the manly partner first.
In present American society, often both partners in a heterosexual marriage take on what my grandparents would have called "the man's role." That is, they go to work full-time, and give their job nearly as much importance as their family, if not more. So would it be all that destructive if in a few percent of families, both partners actually were men.
Also, "a man and a woman" seems to imply one of each. You're forgetting all the polygynous cultures, some of which (Arabic for instance) used to be pretty successful. (You can't say the same for polyandry - many husbands. The only known example is Tibet, where in some places life was so hard that one man might fall short in doing the "man's work" of one small household.)
Now, if you want to argue that monogamy was part of the reason European cultures kicked everyone else's butts for the last five centuries, you could probably find some good arguments there. Like maybe bad marriages were what pushed Socrates to spend his spare time philosophizing in the marketplace and later Europeans to take years-long voyages of exploration. Or more seriously, a good marriage in a society with some respect for women enables a man to go on voyages, crusades, etc., knowing his wife would hold the homestead in his absence. I think that would be less likely to work out with multiple wives - but worse, polygynous societies tend to downgrade women to the point where a wife could not carry on her husband's business in his absence.
Posted by: markm on April 2, 2005 3:07 PMI don't see any reason that encouraging people who would divorce to remain married would cause them to raise better kids than if they divorced.
One of the reasons two-parent families raise better kids is because the parents get along. Being raised by two parents who don't get along but are incented to stay together anyway won't necessarily have the same positive effect as being raised by two parents who chose to stay together on their own.
Posted by: Aaron on April 2, 2005 3:40 PMHere's my idea of what one major unintended consequence of gay marriage will be:
Decrease in fecundity as a whole across the country. Now, yeah, there's already been a huge decrease already but one of the main remaining forces behind marriage remains "you get married because you want to have children". Two people who want to have kids together get married first. Why? Because that's the way it is. If marriage stops being something for people who want to have children together and starts being seen as something for people who are just "in love and want to live together", fecundity will decline even more.
I still think that homosexuals should be allowed to get married (or, at least, the state doesn't have the right to prevent it) but I'm not going to pretend that it won't have negative impact as well. I think that the main negative impact will be on childbearing.
Posted by: Jaybird on April 2, 2005 4:03 PMFor almost all of Western history, and perhaps human history, marriage has been defined as the union of a man and a woman of the same religion.
How come no one ever discusses the controversy surrounding interfaith marriages and the state's role in encouraging them? Without a doubt, the American government's openness to destigmatizing a formerly stigmatized relationship has been very destructive to the Jewish community in America. Ask anyone involved in a Jewish community, intermarriage is considered, at best, a reconcilable problem.
Yet no one acknowledges this historical tradition, which has been cast away, because most people know of interfaith couples or could conceivably be part of one. (Heck, that applies to the person who referred me to this site, as well as to me.) No one asks that interfaith couples have their right to be recognized by the state be analyzed according to this metric. I wish someone would have that discussion, instead of always talking about the destructive effects of same-sex marriage.
That's why I have a problem with the "go slow, bad things can happen" approach. It depends on the lack of empathy people have for those of us, the gay and lesbian people who are married or considering marriage, who would be affected by the decision. Yes, by all means, analyze us as for our effect on society as a whole. But don't keep that from looking at the beam in your own eye, and whether it's consistent with your sense of your own liberty to have the government prevent interfaith marriages.
This is why the comparison to interracial marriages is so apt. People were willing to oppose legalizing them--and in some states, a large minority are still willing to do so--precisely because they have no personal stake in the matter. That's why it's worth banning, or studying, or using as a basis for a worst-case scenario. It took the virtual criminalization of race-based thinking to get the government to stop focusing on the potential negative effects of interracial marriages.
I am hopeful, but not optimistic, that people without gay loved ones will come around to looking at this issue with the same humanity they consider issues that involve them directly. I fear that I will continue to be a strange agent of disruption, an alien factor to be considered for the chaos I cause and not as an equal member of society whose freedom and stake in the final outcome is as valued as that of straight people. People will continue to talk about my relationships, my sex life, my interactions with children, my intentions for western civilization, in ways that would make them punch out a stranger if they were applied to someone they knew and cared about.
If conservatism requires this sense of alienation, this treatment of historically alienated classes as suspect individuals because of past alienation, I hope you will drop any rhetoric about liberty or equality or respect for man. I hope you will look at yourselves with the same jaded eye you aim in my direction so willingly. And I hope that in the end we will all be able to talk to one another with respect as equal, but different, Americans.
Posted by: Brittain33 on April 2, 2005 4:37 PMJ. Deszyck:
Just to be clear, your argument is that now, after the fact ("last few decades"), segregation is understood to be a great wrong. You are not, as I understand it, arguing that at the time of the Civil Rights Movement, people weren't making precisely the same sorts of arguments: segregation is there for a reason, leave it alone. Nor, I take it, are you arguing that there hasn't been, as a matter of history, discrimination against homosexuals. So what you're saying is … what? That you can't make the leap from believing that there is such a thing as long-standing homophobia to believing it might play an important part in the decision not let gay people marry? That you don't see that society treats homosexuality differently now than it did thirty years ago, and that this might make allowing gay people to marry a very different social fact (normalizing immorality vs. something that makes me queasy for reasons I don't understand) than it might have been thirty odd years ago? What?
Nora:
If I remember my Sociology 101, the two axes along which every society studied has discriminated are gender and age. So perhaps you should be raising the banner for those who claim that any gender-discrimination is OK, or at least less suspect than any other form of discrimination (save age discrimination). You'll still be wrong, but at least you'll be credible about your claimed justifications.
But, Tim, the cases aren't parallel at all. In teh case of segregation, we had at the time a very good idea--indeed, an exact idea--about how it came into being. We also had a pretty good idea why it came into being in the form it had: it provided economic benefit and social status to the white majority at the expense of the black minority. We could look at the north and see that, despite the dire predictions of the segregationists, desegregation did not in fact cause social chaos. We had ample other, extremely similar systems, both in history and contemporaneously, to examine, which revealed that the results of desegregation were positive.
Brittain33, you know nothing about me or my beliefs about homosexuality; as it happens, thank you, I have gay loved ones about whom I care very much. This is not an argument made out of bigotry, or ignorance of what it entails for gay people. I understand that gay people want marriage very much, and I think that that is an important value. But society is made of a lot of large groups of people who want things very much, indeed as much as gay people want to get married. If--and it is a big if--allowing gays to marry would undercut the institution of marriage, then I would be against it no matter how unhappy this made gay people. I am against a prescription drug benefit for Medicare because I think it is bad for society overall, even though I love some senior citizens very dearly indeed, and in fact plan to be one myself some day.
My understanding of these marriages among the plains indians, and some scattered tribes here and there, is that these are religious ritual behaviours of limited duration, do not involve homosexuality in the way that we understand it, and are exceedingly rare. They aren't--as I understand it--a fabric of the institution of marriage in the way that gay marriage is intended to be in the United States.
Posted by: Jane Galt on April 2, 2005 6:55 PMJason Kuznicki:
"If the consequences are either neutral or bad--but we don't know which--then caution is clearly in order. But if same-sex marriage might actually help both gay and straight people alike (as Jonathan Rauch has argued), then we face a very different situation."
I find it hard to sympathize with the idea that gay marriage would mean the certain doom of civilization, but it's worth noting that the basis of Jonathan Rauch's argument in that particular area isn't very solid. He (like Andrew Sullivan) talks a lot about the community pressure to behave yourself that comes when you marry. He then raises the question of whether society will actually apply that pressure to married gays...and fails to answer it.
Certainly, no one knows the answer definitively, but the passage of anti-SSM amendments in 20% or so of the states would appear to indicate that a lot of people wouldn't regard gay marriages as legitimate. We can dispute whether they're on the side of the angels--that's a different issue. But community pressure is cited by pro-SSM writers as one of its major possible benefits, and I think the evidence is lacking that it would be brought to bear as they hope.
Posted by: Sean Kinsell on April 2, 2005 8:29 PMThis essay is, unfortunately, quite off base. You regularly attribute causation where there is no justification for such.
As the best example, consider the relaxation of divorce laws 'causing' a higher incidence of divorce. While it may be so, you don't know that at all -- there were also massive societal changes simultaneously occurring, not least of which was the advent of equal rights and protection for women and the newfound ability of women, esp. post wwII, to earn an income and be economically independent.
earl
Posted by: Earl Hathaway on April 2, 2005 8:30 PMGenius.
As a critical libertarian myself, you've given me a lot to think about. This kind of analysis goes beyond the gay marriage issue. It is the kind of thinking that could cause an even more encompassing type of reformation.
...but even that statement now seems to be short-sighted in light of the limitations of my imagination exposed in your writing.
Thank you.
Posted by: Jake on April 2, 2005 9:02 PMHere's another approach, suggested in a post early last month:
http://www.e-manonline.com/blog.php?entryId=55
Should appeal to a libertarian, I think; it appealed to me.
Posted by: Everyman on April 2, 2005 9:35 PMI think you gave a brilliant analysis. Sure, a few things could be tweaked just by applying more of your own very sound logic, but brilliant still.
Adjustments I'd make: The *current norm* of being an unwed mother is bad for society and the *current norm* of frequent divorce is bad for society... but being an unwed parent and the ubiquity of easy divorce do not need to remain as damaging as they are any more than the cultures of 50 and 100 years ago could be expected to remain the way they were.
As for reform, if we agree that the institutions as they were did have value, and that the institutions as they are do have value, then we can work on ways to overcome the problems we see by strengthening - instead of ridiculing - those values.
With gay marriage, I don't think the argument should be that it is ridiculous that it would harm the institution of marriage. As you said, that is more likely a case of our own failure of understanding. The argument I think should be to show how gay marriage would *strengthen* marriage for all and promote all of the values the institution brings with it. Any such argument has to be cautious and considerate. That of course is one more strike against the "through the courts at all costs" approach.
Posted by: J.Kende on April 2, 2005 9:43 PMI am new to this blog. I came with the Instalanche of April 2. I am here to congratulate the author and all commentors on a very civil, thoughtful discussion. I have an opinion on marriage. It is the building block of society. Men are civilized my marriage, and then so are the children born to the mother and newly civilized father. Unmarried fathers and children of unmarried mothers are not civilized. Go visit a prison if you disagree. Marriage is severly damaged since many parents today don't understand that they should be in families for their own good, both men and women. Marriage is so damaged and misunderstood that people now are saying "Hey, two men could like each other a lot and maintain a household. That's what a marriage is, right?" Our measuring stick has lost all its markings and is now useless.
Posted by: Richard on April 2, 2005 10:25 PMSocial conservatives of a more moderate stripe are essentially saying that marriage is an ancient institution, which has been carefully selected for throughout human history. It is a bedrock of our society;
I'm not a SoCon, but that's been my claim as well. Marriage is like language in that humans are innately predisposed to incorporate them into whatever culture they create. It’s not because the state wants a standard language and marriage laws, RATHER it is the people who want state PROVIDED institutional support for their language and their marriages.
Marriage is not something invented by a particular human culture. It would be more accurate to say that one reason humans create culture and state is to enforce their innate disposition for common language and marriage customs.
The ancestors we are descended from probably had stronger commitment to marriage than their contemporaries whose bloodlines have faded. We have strong attitudes about marriage because we inherited our attitutes about marriage from them.
Posted by: boris on April 2, 2005 10:25 PMYou made some excellent analyses, and gave me much to think about, but I'm a little disappointed that you seem to have ignored the role of technology in the changes you spoke of. For instance, the invention of a reliable birth control pill and the entrance of women into formerly male-only jobs (with their higher pay rates) surely had as great an impact on marriage and divorce as legislation did. As for single women on welfare, you didn't mention that the concomitant rising drug culture wiped out a generation of young men, especially in the inner cities, that might otherwise have been available for stable family life.
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'd just like to see what you think about these other factors.
I think your essay is one of the best conservative presentations on any subject that I have ever read.
The inescapable fact of the matter is that introducing a new element into marriage will inexorably change marriage. Whether that change will be positive or negative may not be clear, but it is the burden of those proposing the change to convince a majority that the change will be positive. That is the conservative mentality at its best.
My own take on gay "marriage" is that it is a theological and biological impossiblity on the one hand, but that, on the other hand, gays have raised some important matters which affect them - health care, inheritance, &c. - for which some form of institutional arrangement should be made to accomodate their needs.
This is why the courts should keep their hands off in this controversy. The courts are incapable of making nuanced decisions in such matters, and when they do make decisions, they can have catastrophic results - witness Dred Scott & Roe v. Wade.
I am afraid that we are going to be driven to lodge the definition of marriage into the Constitution, in a fashion which will have the unfortunate effect of tying our hands in dealing with the legitimate concerns of our fellow (gay) citizens.
Posted by: harmon on April 2, 2005 10:30 PMA thought on the devaluation of heterosexual marriage --
It's my understanding that the 50% divorce rate is somewhat misleading. Fifty-percent of the number of marriages performed in a year end in divorce, so if 100 weddings are performed, there are 50 divorces. However, that number does not apply to total marriages. There may be 100 weddings and 50 divorces in a year (for that 50% rate), but that rate doesn't account for the 2000 existing marriages when the year began. I *think* that's how the divorce rate is calculated. And that number doesn't really reflect people who have multiple divorces. I remember reading that the actual adult population that have been divorced is only about 10-20%.
Also, married men's incomes are higher than non-married mens, and, despite more women working, there is still a definite gendered aspect to marriage. Who is more likely to take off work when a child is sick? Who does most of the cooking and cleaning? Who is more likely to put in overtime at the office? Women are still predominately homemakers, and men are still breadwinners.
The actual point of that is that marriage means something to the people who enter it. It certainly has meaning to the children involved. And, yes, it IS better for kids to have two miserably married parents (assuming there's no abuse or addiction) that two divorced parents who are "finding themselves." Why? Because then the parents are not the center of their world; the kids are. Kids need that stability of being loved first.
The first lesbian couple married in Mass. said they had an open marriage. What kind of stability would that give to them as partners? There is less freedom to be yourself in that and much, much less forgiveness in the failings of the other person. After all --there's always someone else. Without penalty or regret. And to any children they had or adopted? They couldn't depend on either, much less both, parents being there no matter what. And with the parents' focused on their own fulfillment primarily, they can't rest in the knowledge that their parents care for them most.
That philosophy of marriage, whether it's the no-fault divorce subset of het marriages or the open marriages that many SS couples have embraced, is only destabilizing, both to society and to the people involved. And, yes, welfare, easy divorce, and birth control all had a direct, causal effect on marriage because it mitigated the good effects of being married and lightened the bad effects of not being married. The 1920s were nearly as socially riotous as the the 1960s, but the social institutions themselves (marriage and parenthood) weren't altered despite the sex, drugs, divorce, and expansion of women's roles (i.e., voting and working). The strictures of social mores were, ultimately, still in place.
Posted by: Deon on April 2, 2005 10:37 PMHas anyone ever seen Jane and den Beste, together in one room? Just asking....
Posted by: Fred Drinkwater on April 2, 2005 10:45 PMThe biggest elephant in the room for both the right and the left of the gay marriage debate is polygamy.
On the right, you can't defend one man, one woman as cultural bedrock, when the historical record probably favors polygamy. I am not certain of the provenance of the judeo/christian bias toward monogamy, but I suspect the topic was hotly debated at some point.
On the left, you can't say gay marriage is some kind of foundational right of conscience, and not also support polygamy, incest, etc. This is so obvious to me that I am stunned no one has brought it up.
Now, I suspect that unleashing a raft of unmatched beta males on the world is not a good thing (hello, Jihadistan?). And I think you could probably argue that advanced societies have embraced monogamy.
This is an issue, therefore, where I trust the wisdom of democracy. If the people vote to make one man one woman the law of the land, then find. If they vote otherwise, that's fine with me too.
On the other hand, I am rabid in my belief that monomaniacal judges should NOT be making the decision.
Posted by: Kurtis Fechtmeyer on April 2, 2005 11:12 PMThe answer, from my libertarian perspective, is to separate the legal institution from the cultural/religious institution.
Anti-gay marriage types say that gay marriage destroys the meaning of marriage. This may be true to some degree, depending on your perspective, but gay couples certainly deserve equal rights with respect to taxes, next of kin issues, inheritance, etc. Civil unions accomplish this, if you give them all of the legal rights of marriage. How an anyone but the most right-wing bigot oppose that? You solve the whole problem by just not calling it "marriage."
Posted by: W.C. Varones on April 2, 2005 11:17 PMExcellent post, interesting and civil contra-arguments. Let me simply posit that an issue of this importance should be decided by the people (or, at the least, by their elected representatives). Same sex marriage? Sure. Anti-same sex marriage? No problem. But let the people decide and not 4 out of 7 state court judges.
Posted by: Jim, Mtn View, CA on April 2, 2005 11:33 PM"For some reason, marriage always and everywhere, in every culture we know about, is between a man and a woman; this seems to be an important feature of the institution."
Um NO, it isn't. Various cultures have endorsed polygamy throughout the ages. Until recently, and even now in some cultures, marriage is arranged by the parents - that's a feature almost no conservative Americans endorse, but it too is an enduring ancient feature of this institution.
I can't respect debates about this that disregard elementary facts for ideological reasons.
Posted by: Yehudit on April 2, 2005 11:56 PMMarriage is changing because everything else in our society is changing. We've gone from the industrial one-size-fits-all society to one where people disperse into an uncountable number of niches, each one developing its own subculture, support businesses, and political movement. Trying to keep marriage constant while the rest of society changes is hopeless. We need to figure out how to minimize the damage from the transition, and find a good solution to transition to.
(I discuss this at more length here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/selenite/33087.html)
Posted by: Karl Gallagher on April 3, 2005 12:07 AMSociety can attempt to define marriage however it likes...the haunting quandary, however, is that gay couples cannot create life, and can only create a family with the actions of outsiders. Even then, if the child chooses to emulate the parents, the same cycle repeats itself.
There can be no real equality. Gay marriage is dependent upon heterosexuality. Maybe that's why Jada Pinkett Smith talked the way she did at Harvard...
Posted by: Seminal Thoughts on April 3, 2005 12:44 AMI'd bet the initial marginal cases which could be affected by institutionalizing homosexual marriage will be between women who might otherwise marry males, out of convenience, but instead declare themselves as lesbians and marry like minded females in order to mutually provide for their existing children. A similar phenomena is evident in communities with prominent lesbian populations, where you'll have a previously heterosexual woman with children from a prior marriage declare herself a lesbian and marry a homosexual woman. I suspect that women will gradually optimize their status seeking behavior and marry primarly by this measure rather than simply sexual orientation. Women's sexual orientation seems quite fluid in this regard.
Posted by: max on April 3, 2005 1:03 AMYehudit:
Um NO, it isn't. Various cultures have endorsed polygamy throughout the ages.
And yet, even in a polygamous marriage, the marrying is between a man and a woman. In Jane's post, she puts no limitation on the man to limit that event to once-and-only-once. Even if she had, the post could easily be edited to make your point moot.
Deal with the main point of the post. Don't waste time making useless arguments and going away thinking you've had an effect.
And to Jane: Great post. Really, one of the better things I've read across the blogosphere. I was previously agnostic on this subject. You've definately made me rethink that position. Not only that, I can see this sort of logic leading me to rethink other, unrelated issues. It's a pretty good argument in favor of conservatism generally.
While this sentiment has often been expressed on this board, I think it's important to reiterate that even our Judeo-Christian marriage has not been a monolithic institution. In fact, our founding fathers would hardly consider today's definition of marriage as valid. Remember, until very recently (historically speaking) marriage relegated a woman to the status of property. She was considered among her husband's chattels and denied her own independent legal rights.
Under our Biblical model, a widow, upon her husband's death, should enter the household of her brother-in-law.
Is this the hallowed "prime social organizer" to which we'd like to return ? Enfranchising women legally has doubtlessly contributed to the rise in divorce rates and the decline in fertility. It seems that those opposed to gay marriage claim these potential side effects as too dangerous to allow gay marriages to proceed. Therefore, shouldn't they be clamoring for the disenfranchisement of women as another safeguard to the propogation of society? Despite the potential benefits of subjugating the female gender, society has sacrified those in its changing definition of marriage.
We, as a nation, have decided that individual rights are more important than the overall societal benefits of the "traditional" hierarchical definition of marriage. (True libertarians should note the totalitarian and undemocratic aspects of state engineering of interpersonal relationships for the good of society). It is misleading to allude to an eternal "man and woman" form of marriage, when the model most often recalled is anathema to our current understanding of marriage. In fact, if a man were to practice this model (with full legal ownership of his wife) then I'm sure even the staunchest "defenders of marriage" would call him barbaric.
It is erroneous to treat the marriages of today and the one recalled as an age-old backbone of Western Civilization as identical, especially when the latter is unacceptable to any democratic nation in the year 2005.
Thank you for your time.
re: lesbian marriages
I've seen the phenomena that you're describing. The thing is that these couples seem to almost always involve middle aged women. One big problem that lesbian couples frequently encounter, that makes marriage tricky, and is something that's not currently PC to discuss, is that their sex lives tend to be very short lived ( 2-3 yrs). This can put strains on the relationship, especially if one partner isn't really a lesbian. I have a close friend whose a lesbian and works as a counselor for lesbian couples. She'd explained to me that the 'sex thing' is a common problem and one of the more common reasons for break-ups. I don't think that this fact invalidates the legitimacy of lesbian marriages, but is something that will affect lesbian marriages over the long term.
Posted by: jim on April 3, 2005 1:26 AMI liked your essay. It made me think.
One premise, that underlies the argument about whether or not gay marriage will affect the institution of marriage, is that the institution is worth not changing.
Hello! Apparently for more than half of adults who enter this institution, it becomes worth changing. The divorce rate is around 55% nationally. Is an institution with less than 50% success worth being dogmatically opposed to changing?
Please don't understand me. I'm not discounting the value of GOOD marriage. I simply think that the resistance to gay marriage focuses on the wrong problem.
I'm married, and I know that marriage is not an easy thing to sustain without substantial sacrifice. I also know that the rewards are tremendous. BUT, when fewer than 1/2 survive, what is it that we are afraid of?
If gay marriages don't affect you or me, then who is it that we are concerned about? It's our kids. As the gay life style has come out of the closet in America, many parents are fearful that their kids/grandchildren might "become" gay. I understand that fear. As a hetero male, gay seems really weird to me, and I would hope that my 3 year old son will be hetero too. But I'll love him the same either way. Simply making it more painful to be gay won't make homosexuality go away. It just creates more pain. And I believe that at the core of every spiritual faith in the world is love.
Can marriage really get worse? I suppose so. But if it does, my guess is that it will have more to do with the "me, me" attitude of society than the gays who live next door.
Gays couples already share their lives together. And frankly I don't see the harm in letting them feel "official".
Religious folks shouldn't feel marginalized by gay marriage because clearly, to them, marriage is an institution from God, granted by God. For them, the state is not the operative authority on this issue.
The entire world would be a better place if we focused more on the underlying life themes of love, sacrifice and personal surrender than on gender.
Man I'm sounding more liberal all the time...
I'd be willing to compromise by recognizing civil unions...
I know I got a bit off spirit with the theme of your post, but I considered it nonetheless before these comments.
Posted by: Chris Edwards on April 3, 2005 1:40 AM"In the end, our judgement is all we have; everyone will have to rely on their judgement of whether gay marriage is, on net, a good or a bad idea."
We have judgement. If we're willing to be patient, we can also have experimental evidence. That's one of the nice things about Federalism.
What I would like to see happen is for gay marriage to be adopted by a small number of states, and for the rest to wait at least twenty years to see how things turn out, and the last holdouts to wait at least fifty. Yes, this is hard on gays who want to get maried, but on the other hand it's a big improvement over having no gay marriage anywhere.
So long as the Supreme Court doesn't go and stick its nose in, I think this is also what's most likely to happen.
Posted by: ralph phelan on April 3, 2005 1:47 AMI consider myself towards the liberal end of moderate (I read Instapundit - how I got here - but also Josh Marshall) and you have just convinced me. Brilliant.
Thank you.
Posted by: Joshua Conner on April 3, 2005 1:53 AMre: Yehudit's objection:
We can cover the common "multiple wives" case, and the less-common but known "multiple husbands" case, while preserving the logic of the argument, with thie following rephrasing:
"For some reason, marriage always and everywhere, in every culture we know about, is between one or more men and one or more women; this seems to be an important feature of the institution."
We
Posted by: Ralph Phelan on April 3, 2005 1:57 AMEarlier, cj wrote: "If we want to see what effects gay marriage will have on the institution of marriage, I suggest that we sit back and watch the countries that now allow it. Let's do lots of analysis over a 30 - 40 year time span and then make a rational, informed decision."
A group of social scientists in the Netherlands are already documenting unintended consequences. Here are English translations of comments these researchers made to Holland's Reformatorisch Dagblad newspaper:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/netherlandsmarriage.cfm
Also, polygamy simply cannot be denied if gay marriage legalized on privacy and due process grounds. By saying that widely held moral values cannot form the underpinnings for laws that prevent consensual relationships - as they seemed to in Lawrence vs. Texas - the judiciary strips out any argument against polygamous relationships. Given that thousands of people live today in underground polygamous relationships today (plus millions more in looser, de facto polygamous relationships), it seems that polygamy is the next stop on the marriage legal train, assuming that gay marriage proceeds.
I've heard arguments that sound a lot like the unwise social observers in this article - "Don't be ridiculous! Americans would never accept legalized polygamy. It's an outrage to even suggest it!" - but I've never heard an argument that explains how gay marriage could be found constitutional without such protections equally applying to polygamous petitioners.
Posted by: kamatoa on April 3, 2005 2:43 AMYou know I think you are right. Changing things often makes them worse.
It is unbelievalble the amount of damage done by letting those without property vote.
And extending the franchise to blacks? Look what that has done to our system.
I do believe you are right. Letting gay people marry will only encourage gay people to marry. Marriage will lose its sactity and divorce will run rampant.
We could wind up with a divorce rate around 50% if this change is allowed.
On the margins it could mean a guy who would otherwise marry a woman will now marry a man. Or a woman might not marry a man in favor of another woman. It would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
And what about prohibition laws. Every country in the world has them. Is it wise to even contemplate change? Think of all the additional drug use.
Posted by: M. Simon on April 3, 2005 4:02 AMkamatoa,
I agree that regularizing polygamous relationships would be a disaster. Let those who want to live that way remain hidden. We need to keep them from flaunting it.
There was a day when whites and blacks could not openly marry each other. Then the damn liberals got a holt of the issue and see what it has gotten us?
We need to have strict rules - only hippies and Mormons should be allowed polyamy and they had better keep it to themselves.
Posted by: M. Simon on April 3, 2005 4:12 AM An excellent post. It is one of the only a very few thoughtful pieces I have seen on the subject. Most are more of the rant type and generally don’t use any logic in advancing their points. Having said that, I would offer a few more thoughts on the subject.
I’m not convinced that the change in the laws is solely responsible for the rise in divorce rates. Yes there are many good points made in your article but I think there is more to the situation than mentioned. I would submit that the change in economic conditions allowed women to embrace divorce. When it became possible for Rosie the riveter to earn a living that consisted of more than bare sustenance, she was able to entertain the possibility of divorce and, with the change in the economic conditions, the laws were changed to reflect it. Being able to survive financially made it possible for her to escape from a bad marriage. Of course industry embraced women in the work force because in many cases they could hire them for less than they could men. Understand that is a general observation and there were many who tried to keep women in the home. Still, a cheap labor force encouraged companies to hire women for many low paying positions, an attitude which I think still exists. One has only to look at relative pay scales to confirm that.
Of course what started as a trickle soon turned into a flood as laws were changed and society added services to reflect the change in the economics in that society. Perhaps that flood could have been slowed had society not passed many of the laws it did and set up the many social programs it did. Still, I think that would have only slowed the march to our present state of affairs.
Of course one might go further back and say that when women achieved the right to vote, society was headed in the present direction.
In the end I suppose you would have to put me down as a somewhat reluctant supporter of gay marriage. There is no denying that gays are discriminated against by many and perhaps gay marriage is a step towards changing perceptions about the gay community and eventually bringing about a lessening of that discrimination. Still I worry about many of the things you mentioned. Any change in society always has unintended consequences. I just wish I knew what the consequences of this would be
A number of libertarians are, as I predicted, making the "Why don't we just privatise marriage?" argument. I don't find that useful in the context of the debate about gay marriage in America, where marriage is simply not going to be privatised in any foreseeable near-term future. I wrote an immediate follow up saying just that, but of course, I got a lot of readers from an Instalanche, which I didn't expect (no one expects an Instalanche!), and they just read the one post. So the second post is here; if you are thinking of making the argument that we should just get the state out of the marriage business, please read it.
Also, a lot of readers are saying that I'm wrong about marriage always being between a man and a woman, citing polygamy. I have been told this is a "basic factual error."
No, it's not. Polygamous societies do not (at least in any society I have ever heard about) have group marriages. Men with more than one wife have multiple marriages with multiple women, not a single marriage with several wives. In fact, they generally take pains to separate the women, preferably in different houses. Whether or not you allow men to contract for more than one marriage (and for all sorts of reasons, this seems to me to be a bad idea unless you're in an era of permanent war), each marriage remains the union of a man and a woman.
The reader who suggested that I don't know about causation: yes I do. These are all well established social science facts at this point: easing the divorce laws created more divorce, easing the ability to get benefits for illegitimate children increased illegitimacy, failing to cap the income tax allowed FDR to raise it to breathtaking levels without a constitutional referendum. The first easing of divorce laws took place well before women moved into the workforce in any numbers; the right to vote does not incur substantial economic benefits that might replace marriage.
Finally, to all the people who are pointing out that change is sometimes good: duh! I'm not swayed by the choosing of examples with high positive emotional indices; it was also a big change when the Nazis got made laws enabling them to herd homosexuals and jews into camps, and that doesn't make gay marriage wrong any more than it makes it right.
Furthermore, almost all of the examples that you've chosen were things where we understood the institution very well before we initiated the change; knew where it had come from, why it had arisen, and had ample historical examples to show us approximately what it would look like when it disappeared. This was not true of easy divorce, welfare benefits to the unwed, or the income tax, and it is not true of gay marriage. It's hard to call property requirements for voting an *institution*; they were, in the United States at least, extremely short lived. And does anyone doubt that female enfranchisement has had enormous unintended consequences, not all of them positive? A really fun experiment is to get a bunch of libertarian women around a table, point out that the women's vote is probably what ushered in the welfare state, and ask them whether or not they'd surrender their franchise to get a more personally pleasing result.
But I wasn't writing a brief about gay marriage. I was writing a brief against assuming that you, because you are so brilliant, already have all the answers. To my mind, most people on the "pro" side are summarily dismissing the idea that gay marriage might have large and unpleasant consequences; to my mind, that's a state of mind that many of my interlocutors here are trying to preserve with their comments. It is not ridiculous to think that a fundamental change in the character of a fundamental institution would have big effects. Acting as if it were is anti-intellectual.
(I've no doubt that most of the people against gay marriage are equally knee-jerk. But I'm a libertarian journalist living in Manhattan; I don't meet those people.)
Posted by: Jane Galt on April 3, 2005 4:31 AMJane, an absolutely amazing article. I'm in awe of your skill. One way that gay marriage effects hetrosexual marriage, and the most important in my opinion, is that it says a mother and a father do not count. That a child doesn't need a female parent, or a male parent. Two males can be just as good or two females. And marginalized men and women are going to believe that it's okay to produce children without being married. Because having a father isn't essential to raising a child. And too much of that mindset is happening already, condeming thousands of children to poverty.
Children, for optimal development, need both a biological mother and father in the household.
I grew up in the repressive fifties, and I welcomed the freedom of the sexual revolution. But then, I went to work for an East coast Department of Social Services, and I saw first hand the human destruction caused by that change in our social culture.
Society has a vested interest in preserving and encouraging marriage between a male and a female. That is why the practice of giving extra benefits to married couples has evolved. It is one act among many, to encourage men and women to marry. After all, it is easier to not marry and to not have children. Staying married and raising children is hard to do.
Has anyone ever seen Jane and den Beste, together in one room? Just asking....
Fred Drinkwater: SDB is just the one to do it, too. But Megan McArdle is real, and brilliant also.
Jane Galt: Stupendous, a real tour de force. I think there is a grand unifying theory underlying your 3 examples, which is why I've given up libertarianism-so I didn't need much convincing. Nevertheless, this is the best argument, pro or con, that I've ever seen.
When I was a Manhattanite, back in the late Cretaceous, I don't think I could have seen things that clearly. Something in the water...
Posted by: Jim Noble on April 3, 2005 6:28 AMYou've written the definitive argument on the subject, regardless of the fact that you do not feel you've supported on side or the other.
Posted by: Sean on April 3, 2005 7:01 AM"For almost all of Western history, and perhaps human history, marriage has been defined as the union of a man and a woman of the same religion."
Man and woman, yes. The same religion? Not so much.
A. Shariah contains explicit provisions for Muslim men marrying infidel women, at least Christian/Jewish ones.
B. St Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians has guidelines for interfaith marriages:
[7.12 - 7.16] But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.
C. And of course, varied Old testament prophets were continuily inveighing against Jews taking foreign brides. The fact that they kept having to do it suggests that this was not an especially uncommon practice. Sometimes these marriages are mentioned without being condemned -- Ruth and Mahlon, Ruth and Boaz, and Esther and Ahasuerus.
Sincerely yours,
Jeffrey Boulier
A great post that goes way beyond the stated topic and lots of great comments.
Approaching issues with humility, which is the point of the post, is a character trait with huge positive externalities.
But if there are few humble individuals, can their be a humble polity?
What possessed our founding fathers that allowed the creation, at least temporarily, of a republic that attempted to institutionalize humility?
Is there any hope for us unless we are possessed with a spirit of humility?
Realistically, where on the continuum of arrogance to humility do each of us and the collective polity stand? Is there a relationship between our standing in liberty and our standing in collective humility?
Posted by: TJT on April 3, 2005 7:55 AMGreetings---I find myself instalaunched into a really stimulating discussion and may I add a short comment. That whilst the status of marriage for heterosexuals has been downgraded at present but may become "fashionable" again, I think it would be wise not damage that special status that has evolved over the years. More sensible to just issue a "cohabitating certificate" that incorporates suitable legal rights for "same sex marriages" Then all will be happy. Also, apart from the legal aspects why do people who want "same sex marriage" wish go into an "institution" founded by heterosexuals. Why can't they do their "own thing". Why are they so limited-- "We want to get married"----PATHETIC!
Posted by: Julian on April 3, 2005 8:18 AMOne thing that was brushed against but not developed: gays can already get married. Just find a willing, unmarried person of sound mind and legal age, not too closely related to you, and of the opposite sex, and any unmarried person can get married.
What? You say gays don't want to marry people of the opposite sex? Well, if you don't want to marry, don't. There's no law requiring you to.
What this debate is really about is taking the word "marriage," which has always and everywhere referred to 'a union between a man and a woman,' and throwing away the definition, and then applying the same word to a new definition, 'a union between two people of any sex.'
The purpose of doing this, when you get down to bedrock, is to change the way people feel about homosexuality. We're supposed to regard a male-male couple as being the same as a female-female couple, and both as being the same as a male-female couple.
As a matter of fact and real existance, it doesn't look as if any two of these three kinds of couples is the same as one of the others. Therefore, talk about whether 'gay marriage' will have an effect on marriage as an institution can therefore be answered, without conjecture, as 'Yes. Their extent isn't known, but the changes will be large.
In the novel Courtship Rite, a conservative politician says 'Tradition is what you call the solution to a problem, after you've forgotten what the problem is. Take away the solution, and the problem comes back.' That isn't always true, because sometimes the problem has gone away for other reasons. And it isn't always a good reason to keep the tradition as sometimes, the benefits of getting rid of the tradition outweigh the costs of the problem, and sometimes if the problem comes back, you can find a better solution.
But sometimes, you end up wishing you'd left well enough alone. I strongly suspect 'gay marriage will be one of those times.' If we must do this, let it be done in a few states, and let those who are skeptical watch from a distance.
By the way, this discussion also shows why so few people are libertarian. The desire of a large majority of the population to live in a society in which they can refuse to regard gay couples as being identical with straight couples is to be disregarded. 'You can live the way I find it acceptable.' Some liberty.
THE SAUDS MUST BE DESTROYED!
Posted by: Stephen M. St. Onge on April 3, 2005 8:53 AMBest wave-off title ever. Saved me the trouble of reading it. Thanks!
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! on April 3, 2005 9:04 AMBrittain33, you know nothing about me or my beliefs about homosexuality;
Of course I don't, but my comment was about millions of people who feel they have a conservative impulse to ban gay marriage, not about you. Just as you may care deeply about gay people, my marriage may be the one that makes the world a better place, but then we're both arguing from anecdote, aren't we?
Posted by: brittain33 on April 3, 2005 9:12 AMExcellent post, but I also find several excellent comments in disagreement.
The decay of the inner cities in the 60s and 70s I believe was an unintended consequence of desegregation and the incredibly stupid practices of "urban renewal". Real communities were systematically destroyed and disbursed by bulldozer and the wrecking ball. I believe the rising divorce rates were a consequence of that, rather than a cause. But even there, I think the overall change in the culture and changing attitudes on the rights of women had a stronger effect on divorce.
Aaron's post is right, but perhaps paints an overly bleak picture. Even as a gay man, I now live far from my partner and my 3 nearly-grown sons. The job does not necessarily demand it, but it is more efficient this way. It is tough for families of all types, and again - IMHO - is a consequence of the Corporatization of America, and the push in the last two decades to restore competitiveness to American business.
CyberSurfer asks for more perspective? Here is one. My partner of 9 years was diagnosed with cancer last September. In Houston, where he lives, the good folks at MD Anderson treated me as they would any member of the family - because my partner had signed a piece of paper telling them it was OK. Would I have gotten he same treatement in an emergency room in say, Vidor, Texas? I don't know, and hope never to have to find out.
If allowed to marry tomorrow, would we? No. The tax consequences would be highly un-favorable, community property laws would require a complete re-structuring of our wills, etc., etc. I think of that Joni Mitchell Song - My Old Man - "We don't need a piece of paper from the City Hall, keeping us tied and true." I seem to remember the words going....
Posted by: j3sdad on April 3, 2005 9:13 AM(I've no doubt that most of the people against gay marriage are equally knee-jerk. But I'm a libertarian journalist living in Manhattan; I don't meet those people.)
Do you not come across these people in the conservative blogosphere and on your own comment threads? These people are more likely to read your blog than the liberals you are challenging, in fact, especially with the Instapundit link.
If you want to argue against the minority liberal opinion, you don't have to rationalize it, you can just do it. In the meantime, the majority of American opinion is on the other side--people who reject gay marriage without seriously or honestly weighing the potential benefits and disadvantages of the change.
Keep on fighting the good fight against the .3% of Americans living below 96th Street. When you're done, there are two ZIP codes in Cambridge you can work on.
Posted by: Brittain33 on April 3, 2005 9:22 AMJane, I loved the articulation of your ideas. I agree with your thoughtful analysis that large institutions do get harmed by those that refuse to acknowledge that harm is possible.
If no possible consequences can come from allowing gay marriage, than why do it? That might be one of the primary questions. Why do it?
Yes, yes, I've heard all the arguments in favor of it because people can't visit in the hospital. Horse pucky! Hospitals were the ones that coined the phrased 'significant other'. Hospitals will be the first to tell you that the bodies are on loan and not exclusive properties of themselves. Do we have armed guards in hospitals checking ID's and DNA to verify familial facts? And hospitals recognize legal guardianship and limited power of attorney in making medically urgent choices. So it is a terrible lie to use that as a smoke screen.
In truth, gay marriage carries some financial benefits that could be covered by civil unions and law markers could equalize them as such. Insurance companies recognize the non-working partner as being in need of health insurance so spouse and families come under their umbrella. It would be a simple task to legislate that civil unions are entitled to equal recognition of benefits. Our federal government takes big chunks of our money for our retirements and deems our spouses as beneficiaries. These are excellent reasons to defend gay unions. But by what logic does a judge have to rule against civil union in favor of gay marriage? Does that not legislate unnecessarily on the Holiness of Matrimony?
The question here shouldn't be why not gay marriage by WHY gay marriage.
I saw the destruction of the "free money" in the lower classes by welfare. Have a baby out of wedlock and you too can receive a check in the mail. Ludicrous to choose that life, but what about those whose choices are so very limited to begin with? Should a woman go work at a terrible, dirty, low paying job when the government offers her motherhood and stay-at-home for free? All she needs to do is that which she would do anyway. It removes the shot-gun wedding as a necessity, because big government will take care of her instead of the father of the child. The question here shouldn't be why not gay marriage by WHY gay marriage.
I hear the argument that encouraging marriage in the lower classes forces women to remain victims of wife beating red necks who get drunk and thrash them about. Really? All men are snakes who treat their wives as punching bags and it is only the government that saves them from that fate? So are we not taking weak, less financially viable gays and forcing them into marriage?????? Who speaks for them?
I am pro civil union because it does give individuals the opportunity to equalize benefits and have a voice in their money distribution. In fact, it might even encourage some to create a union so that both have mutual benefits in the same way that some marry so that one might, say, become a citizen of the USA or obtain a green card. If a stronger individual chooses to protect a weak individual by placing them under their umbrella of benefits in exchange for housekeeping services and loyalty, why not? But to legislate it as “marriage” is not required. If two same sex people are alone and struggling but not homosexual, they could benefit from sharing their lives and ultimately their meager combined assets by extending their insurance coverage and property rights and social security checks by a civil ceremony. So must they be homosexual? And wouldn’t that be better for society, if we then have less poverty stricken elders to have to support?
Again, I have not heard great arguments weighted for marriage as opposed to civil unions. Perhaps an articulate person could enlighten me as to why marriage is a must.
Thank you for your post. I enjoyed the arguments in the comments almost as much as your presentation of logic.