The Marital is Political, ctd.
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When I wrote this post, I forgot that I had linked earlier to a post from JL’s old blog that gives an especially compelling statement of the kind of point I was trying to make:
Marriage, as a political/societal tradition has at its core the truth that it is essential for society that family units be officially bonded and recognized, and that children, if at all possible, be brought up in families (death can be a circumstantial complication here, however). The form that the tradition stipulates is a man and a woman. Society, however, has moved away from that form, and – if divorce rates are to be allowed to speak their meaning – away from the idea of marriage in any form as much more than a legal contract. (My opinion of divorce is hardly Catholic, but when divorce rates are at 50%, it’s hard to make the case that marriage hasn’t been devalued somehow and that the stability of the nuclear family has been jeopardized.)
The move to make, such thinking would say, would be to alter the form to better preserve the underlying truth within society. That is to say, expand marriage to include same-sex couples, but make it clear in doing so that it is not because marriage and family mean whatever we want them to mean, but because of the importance of family in stable form to society.
And this all leads up to my objection to the idea of removing government from “marriage” altogether and calling everything a civil union. It defeats the purpose of expanding marriage to defend marriage and the nuclear family: in fact, it only devalues the idea of marriage by having the government declare that, for all political and society purposes, marriage is nothing more than a contract. Understanding marriage as something divorced from family (this should not be taken as saying that a valid marriage must produce children, or somesuch thing) is far more damaging to marriage, and certainly more against the tradition than altering the traditional form of marriage.
(Though note that JL, like me, is decidedly uncomfortable with that latter sort of alteration, too.)
Filed under: conservatism, family, marriage
I would just caution that the divorce rate as conventionally calculated is a deeply flawed statistic, and that the situation was never as bad as advertised and has been improving. Not that this undermines the rest of what’s said here.
So, we’re expanding the definition to maintain a government program that has a success rate of what? Would you accept the same rate of success for schools? any other governmental program? Prison reform perhaps.
If we allow for covenant marriages on one side, why not have civil unions on the other? I’m sure marital statistics would improve with people being able to self select.
(Watch the Blackmore polygamy case in Canada. It’s going to open up all the arguments (if it’s funded). The current lawyer (there’s been three) is impressive and the AG that brought the case lost his position in the last election. It should be a good show.
No, but my desired response to failing schools wouldn’t be to take them out of the public realm altogether – or at least, if I were to desire such a response it would only be because I’d been persuaded that it would, you know, strengthen the schools.
Not better education? Are we talking about the people (students/family members) or the health of an institution (schools/marriage)? Why don’t we want one-size-fits-all government regulated institutions for both?
No, that’s what I meant. I don’t want “one-size-fits-all government regulated institutions” for anything; the challenge is to arrive at the approach that best preserves the goods (stable families, an educated populace, etc.) in question, and it seems obvious to me that eliminating marriage as a legal classification would clearly be a bad way to do that.
But, we’re not eliminating marriage as a legal classification. We’re simply introducing alternatives. We’ve already agreed (as far as I’m concerned) that marriage should be a viable option. I simply argue that marriage, the sacrament as found in law, is under inclusive. It doesn’t have a very good track record for exactly the things you’re supporting and should be opened up to other alternatives to see if they improve the lives of at least some of those that would fail at “marriage”. It’s going to be hard to argue that two gay guys who exchanged power of attorney twenty five years ago have an inferior relationship to a het couple who have visited the Church of Elvis on a drunken weekend. At some point we”ll have to look at the numbers coming out of France and Quebec that factor in legitimate choices. Is it true, in fact, that ‘marriage’ is a more stable institution given what it advertises?
Well no, that’s not what JL’s post was about. But anyway.
That’s obviously a wrongheaded way to put it; it’s the sacrament of marriage that’s the religious appropriation of the common institution, not the other way around.
So you think that those “other alternatives” would do a better job than marriage at promoting, e.g., familial stability? That strikes me as laughable, but I’m certainly willing to look at the numbers coming out of France and Quebec and see how things turn out – just let those countries be the laboratories, not ours. Meanwhile, obviously people can already try to improve their lives by understanding their relationships in whatever alternative ways they want, and terming them however they choose to – the notion that, for each such idiosyncrasy, there should be a specially crafted legal category is, however, absurd.
I’m happy to look at the numbers coming out of France and Quebec and see how things turn out. But let those countries be the laboratories, not ours.
“That’s obviously a wrongheaded way to put it; it’s the sacrament of marriage that’s the religious appropriation of the common institution, not the other way around.”
Really?
“the commonplace institution of civil unions (or whatever they might be called) would undermine the significance of the religious institution of “capital-M Marriage” to a point where it would make very little difference whether one entered into it at all.”
Let’s be honest.
“So you think that those “other alternatives” would do a better job than marriage at promoting, e.g., familial stability?”
I don’t think the flavor of the paper makes a difference.
“let those countries be the laboratories, not ours.”
?? Marriage is State right? I’m not from New Jersey.
You’re blatantly misreading that sentence, which was premised on considering a counterfactual circumstance in which the institution of civil marriage had been abolished altogether. In such a case, yes, the only thing left would be the sacrament, but thankfully that’s not where we are.
And I’m sure that marginal tax rates don’t make any difference to how hard people work, either …
I’m not trying to misread you. How does a civil institution undermine a sacrament? Are the sacraments indeed derived from the civil vs. God? Are God’s laws so contingent and fragile that without the State they aren’t worth bothering with?
“And I’m sure that marginal tax rates don’t make any difference to how hard people work, either …”
I hope you don’t expect to have the same earning power as a graduate student in Chemistry or Law. Does that mean you don’t work as hard? You don’t expect as much from yourself as students in other disciplines?
I think where we’re having a disconnect is on our understanding of civil unions. You, and JL to some extent, seem to be assuming that people would choose a civil union because they are less serious about their commitments, either to each other or to the family that they may or may not create. I view civil unions as a way to support families that do not involve a marriage in any way (caring for a disabled child would be an example) or for families that have different traditions than the majority, FDL, Wiccan, or atheists for example. It would be a mistake to assume that people that don’t want the government or the church providing the meaning of their relationships want a relationship with no meaning.
I feel like I’m repeating myself. If the institution of civil marriage were abolished and the sacramental institution were all that remained, marriage would inevitably – or at least, very, very likely – come to be viewed in the public eye as a peculiar sort of thing that only religious people go in for. As a consequence it’s the institution of marriage simpliciter, in both its sacramental and (now nonexistent) civil versions, that would be undermined.
No, we don’t. We just think that a change in attitudes toward spouses and children would be among the likely consequences of a change in what marriages are called.
But how is insisting on being called a “civil union” rather than a marriage anything other than a reflection of the desire to have the government (help to) provide the meaning of one’s relationship?!
“marriage would inevitably – or at least, very, very likely – come to be viewed in the public eye as a peculiar sort of thing that only religious people go in for.”
The culture wars have certainly lead to my frustration with the term. I’m married but feel the term is tainted from the politicization. I’m ready to leave the term at the door of the church. For me, the sacramental institution has already killed the civil one. However, I believe that families are simply something people do. We’re hard wired to create them and will continue to do so regardless of the label we slap on them.
Marriage as a tradition needs to be able to stand on its own. I don’t think little girls are in danger of not dreaming of beautiful dresses and fancy cakes any time soon. Suggesting that marriage, as something other than a religious institution, can’t survive without overt governmental support undercuts the argument for it in the first place. How great of an institution can it be if it has to be forced? If marriage is superior and the other forms fail at providing stable families won’t people freely choose marriage?
Forced?! This is getting a bit ridiculous, don’t you think? Humans are social animals, and as such the ways we understand ourselves and our relationships are essentially bound up with our politics (in the modern sense). Eliminating marriage as a legal classification would therefore have drastic effects on how we live our lives, and I’m willing to bet that those effects would be by and large negative. That’s elementary political science, really.
Yes, forced. When marriage is the only option on the table for creating families, free will isn’t exactly at play.
Yes, we are political animals and linguistic animals and a number of other things. Here, marriage is being used as a linguistic Trojan horse, a way for the sacramental to insinuate itself into the secular.
It’s apparent that the language we use fails to sufficiently distinguish the two institutions. Refusing to clarify the language seems like an insistence on being able to control the content of the other.
I’m sure you believe that decreasing the role of religion, maybe even Catholicism, in peoples lives is going to be “by and large negative”. However, a lot of other folks are going to experience it differently, look at the Quiet Revolution.
Sorry, but what the heck does that mean? People can “create families” however they want; the question is what the government should call them. Does the fact that the feds characterize me as a “taxpayer” rather than a “schmaxpayer” somehow impinge on my freedom? Nonsense.
Again: nonsense, and I’ve already explained why.
I don’t think Winston Blackmore would buy that argument. Then again, he’s looking at a million dollar plus legal bill.