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William Saletan Thinks About The Definition of Marriage…
…for about five seconds. But you know, that’s something.
Over at Slate, Saletan kindly explains to us why Justice Alito and Charles Krauthammer (in an old column still making the rounds) are wrong to suppose that the arguments made in favor of same-sex marriage might also be used to justify polygamous marriage. What it boils down to is that there are basic, natural facts about human beings that make monogamy stable and salutary in a way that polygamy just isn’t. Basically, the problem is jealousy. When we give our lives to another person, we want that person to be equally devoted to us. If we invite threes and fours to the altar (or county clerk’s office, or whatever), that’s just not going to work out as happily for anyone.
Let me pause for a moment to bang my head against the wall a few times. Letting the ear-ringing die down now. OK, I’m back.
Is the state permitted to consider natural facts about human nature and relationship proclivities in deciding what to recognize as a marriage? Then there are some very powerful arguments for privileging male-female unions as the most stable, and the most suitable foundation for family. In particular, if you think that kind of evidence relevant, it is absurd to suppose that there could be a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. We can argue about whether or not same-sex relationships are similar enough to opposite-sex relationships to be appropriately regarded as “marriages.” But they aren’t obviously the same, and if that is indeed the sort of reasoning the Court should employ, then the matter should clearly be left to the states.
If, on the other hand, it’s not the state’s business who loves whom, or why, or for how long… then what’s jealousy got to do with it? If three men, or three women, or four men and five women, say that they care deeply about one another and wish to be married, then what difference does it make whether the odds are in their favor? That’s their business. It’s not the state’s job to tell us how to love.
I personally am very disappointed that Slate would publish someone with such an obvious grudge against polys.
Published in Culture, Law
I think there’s two separate issues here:
In the 1970s and 1980s, we had a huge crisis of divorce, but we’ve bounced back somewhat from it.
The main problem — as I see it — with marriage today is not the number of them that fail, but the number that never start. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that children of divorce do (statistically) better than children whose parents never married (though they, obviously, do worse than children of intact homes).
I’m glad I wrote it, then.
As I’ve said for years, Women’s Suffrage is the right model (attempt to pass an amendment in favor of the change). The SSM movement — to its shame — never adopted that.
It shouldn’t surprise you. I don’t believe the constitution has anything to say on the topic of marriage. Of course the government can use facts about human nature in relationships when regulating such relationships.
Personally, I don’t agree that same sex marriages will be damaging to the children raised in their households. That means I see no reason to exclude those relationships from government recognized marriage. I therefore have no problem with states voting to change their marriage laws.
I will avoid derailing this thread by arguing for my preferred solution of no longer having the government recognize marriages.
I don’t think anyone argues that SSM will damage the children within SSM (I certainly don’t). The question on the table is, will eliminating whatever residual connection currently exists between children and marriage weaken the institution of marriage, and what are the consequences of that. Pro-SSM people seem to all argue that no negative consequences can possibly result. That seems hopelessly naive to me, there are negative consequences to just about everything.
As the topic of the thread, I disagree with Tom that polygamy is harmful to society but SSM is universally salutary. I’ve started a response to his anti-polygamy thread, but haven’t finished it.
If you are OK with states voting, that implies that you are ok with states voting No. That is my position. This is a political question, not a rights question, and a political question that should be settled in this country democratically or legislatively, not judicially.
Merina So–I guess my point is that under certain circumstances these things kind of work.
First—congratulations! What a beautiful, bright daughter you have!
Second—yes, polygamy (and other arrangements) can work. In the aftermath of a war, where lots of men died, polygamy can provide for more women to have families and babies, which is why the prophet Mohammad (a warrior prophet, unfortunately) allowed for a maximum of four wives, provided each was equally cared for. Out of curiosity, was there any parallel in the Mormon experience?
Polyandry is very rare, understandably, but where it is practiced in any widespread way, it would surprise me if there wasn’t some underlying demographic problem. Keep an eye on India and China, where sex-selective abortion of girls has created a serious imbalance in the ratio of males to females. Even a 1 or 2 % change in the numbers of females relative to males (and I’ve seen guesses as high as 20%) will result in millions of permanently-unmarried males.
In the aftermath of WW1, Britain had a “spinster problem”—so many young men had died in Flanders that there were a lot of “surplus” women. They were the butt of jokes and turned up as warped, comic-tragic characters in plays and novels in the ’20s and ’30s, but unhappily unmarried females present, in general, less of a social problem than unmarried males. I think its possible that India and China may have a war to distract and (this sounds horrible) get rid of some of those extra guys. Not consciously, I mean, but a lot of angry, frustrated, resentful individuals might just translate into a couple of angry, frustrated, resentful, nuclear-armed nations…
I do think there is hope for saving marriage because the free-for-all option really doesn’t work.
I’m assuming the free-for-all option doesn’t work. That is, I’m assuming it isn’t an unconscious? attempt to adjust to realities I’m not aware of, and is rather just the usual problem of free people doing silly things with their freedom.
This argument is made often, and has been made in the comments of this post.
Yes—me too! (and given that, it’s pretty darn fine…) (Having had two really excellent husbands, it would sound ungrateful not to mention that traditional marriage has been, all things considered, reasonably good to me!)
I’m not sure anything is “universally salutary,” but I think SSM is — on the margins — a slight improvement for society. I look forward to the piece and please PM me when it’s ready.
I wouldn’t put it quite that way. Women’s suffrage was a rights question but was — correctly — one settled through constitutional, democratic means.
We’re agreed on the particulars of this case, however.
Asquared, I begin to think you never have read anything I’ve written. I’ve argued this over and over and over. When children are raised in same sex homes, they have been deliberately deprived of one of their parents. In third party reproduction cases, they have been created with the intention of removing them from their parents. Sad stories about these cases are everywhere. I believe it is deeply damaging to children.
I went back through this thread and didn’t see anyone make that argument in this thread. Jennifer argued it would be harmful for children broadly, but I interpret her argument that weakening the definition of marriage would be harmful to children of heterosexual couples that see no reason to get married or wind up in heterosexual marriages entered into for the economic benefit of the adults, not that SSM would harm children raised by SS couples.
Thanks, Kate, I do have a wonderful daughter–two of them in fact! I’m very blessed.
The free-for-all option might in a sense “work” in a society composed of only adults. When children are in the mix, it is a disaster as we daily see. Baltimore anyone? I believe the free-for-all is terrible for adults too, but at least when only adults are involved, children are not collateral damage. It’s kind of stupid of recent generations to throw away millennia of evidence about family in favor of the current free-for-all, but then we live in a profoundly stupid age.
Clearly this is an argument for SSM. They can marry each other! Problem solved!!
I think the ideas are interrelated. SSM does indeed eliminate the idea that children are connected to marriage. Naturally, this will be harmful as were all the other policies that weakened children’s connections to marriage. SSM finishes the job.
Once SSM is the law of the land, we will have no formal institutional structure for children. Except maybe welfare.
Perhaps, but I think we are discussing two different things. I’m starting with the assumption that SS couples will continue to raise children, and many of the kids they adopt would otherwise be raised in orphanage or foster homes.
We can debate whether that is preferable to a child being raised by their biological parents (I don’t think many people deny that, but I’m sure some do), but the question I’m responding to is different. Does allowing a SS couple to marry harm the children they are already raising? I don’t think it does.
Agreed. I don’t think it’s a good idea to adopt SSM*, but I can accept it if it’s the result of the democratic process – and if it can be changed back too as the result of the democratic process.
* Though, Herbert tells me that SSM was always legal until 40 years ago when conservatives began trying to restrict marriage to opposite sex couples. Not sure if that is a popular argument anywhere, but I think it’s illustrative of the extent any of us might go to justify our preferred positions. Do I have these kinds of blind spots? Very possibly. I’d hope someone would call me out on them if I do.
I think it does. For one thing, it gaslights them.
Even those that go through the ceremony don’t do so with the traditional sense of the institution in their hearts and minds. They’ve already eliminated permanence as a factor. “Till death do us part” is just a cute saying these days. No one says it and means “though it kills me I shall never give up on us.” If the only difference between having the ceremony and not having it is legal liability, then no [expletive] wonder people (men especially) aren’t doing it.
OK. I disagree, but that’s fine.
Obviously, I have to retract my statement that no one has made that argument in this thread, but I still don’t believe that.
I’m with you—I was just trying to think of a reason why “whatever” could conceivably be “adaptive” to anything that must be adapted to because it can’t be changed (e.g. a demographic problem like “too many women” vs. welfare benefits that punish marriage).
Incidentally, “whatever” is what Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell had, and what Jennifer argues against. I may not agree with JJ’s whole position, but I think she is right in pointing out that there are many powerful forces in play that are weakening the institution of marriage. I’m just inclined to agree with Tom that SSM may represent a marginal improvement, rather than the nail in the coffin.
And that this would be better accomplished by votes than by judicial decisions—we extract more wisdom and thus consensus from a state-by-state democratic process than we will from a SCOTUS fait acompli, even if one happened to agree with the reasoning behind the latter. (I don’t know enough to be able to parse the constitutional issues, so I’m just talking about how it plays out on the ground).
It probably helps a little that the court ruling is coming now than two years ago, or five years ago—people have been given more time to talk and think about it, and extract some wisdom (one hopes) from that?
Having known quite a few children reared in SSMs, I don’t believe it hurts them either, in and of itself. I do have big reservations about third party reproduction no matter who is doing it. (I believe that to be a separate issue).
Probably no one thought about trying it before because sexual complementarity was assumed in the definition.
I did.
I’ve posted this before on ricochet, but I can’t find it through the search bar (may have been on Rico1.0)
On another forum, a strong SSM supporter offered up this order of preference for raising children in order of importance/preference/value to children and society:
1) 1 man, 1 woman, loving lifelong relationship
2) SSM, loving lifelong relationship
3) 1 man, 1 woman, eventual divorce
4) SSM, eventual divorce
5) Single parent
6) Polygamy, marriage for convenience, abusive, etc.
I tend to agree with that ranking (though I’m a bit less critical of polygamy than he is). So, the way I think about the question is, will widespread SSM move more children from categories 4-6 to 2 than the number of children that will fall from category 1 to categories 4-6. You can argue the number that will fall in category / be harmed will be smaller than the number will rise / be helped, but I don’t think you can successfully argue the number of children that will fall / be harmed is zero. And given the biologies involved, there will always be VASTLY more children created in heterosexual relationships than homosexual ones, so it doesn’t take much of an impact on the institution of marriage for the net consequences to society to be net negative.
FWIW, the beauty of the federalist solution (let the states experiment) is, it allows us to experiment and find what works best.
Yes. Getting us into the discussions about institutions being based on averages and using proxies, and legitimately so.
A2, I also agree with you that responding to a situation that’s already failed by allowing adoption (even by singles and same sex households) is different. However, I think Tom and Frank would respond: wouldn’t NOT allowing SSM end up hurting kids who are in those situations already?
Otherwise, my argument has always been that we have an interest in procreation happening and we have an interest in the biological parents being responsible for their offspring (and by extension each other). We do not have an interest in maximizing outcomes for individuals or even on average. After all, if studies found the best outcomes came from Chinese boarding school, would we then have an interest in seeing that happen for all?
Many adults in my life thought I did not suffer at all from all the chaos I lived under. I was very good at hiding the pain, plus I had no language or support to express myself about it. After all, I did well in school (for the most part), participated in competitive activities and did well, and was generally a quiet and well mannered individual. So the adults naturally assumed the cultural narrative was true, “The kids will be fine if the adults are happy.”
I am profoundly skeptical of both parent and child testimonials in same sex households. In no instance is a child there the result of the loving conjugal union of the two adults. This means that in every instance, there is some kind of break with the genetic family. The kids have zero incentive to say that anything is painful or difficult, and lots of incentives to show approval. My goodness! It is so highly politicized, how in the world can somebody speak out without fear of opprobrium?
Oh wait… the kids who speak out about it DO face opprobrium…
@Kate Braestrup- “And then we will have polyandry.
Frankly, I don’t think it’s likely. If you read the Bible, you’ll see that polygamous relationships cause unhappiness and they are also socially destabilizing, which is why most cultures (including our own) are far more likely in practice to go with serial monogamy. But it could happen. Anything could happen. Substitute “dog-marrier” or “toaster-wedder” for “polyamorist” in the above paragraph. Still worried? Want to start an “SSM-Si! Pero Nada Mas” movement?'”
On this issue your view strikes me as uninformed and naive. A few months ago a feminist on Slate said she though polygamy should be a question of ‘choices’ for women. A year or so ago a poll asked young people if they’d consider being one of many spouses of a billionaire. 10% of young men said they would; 70% of young women said they would. Libertarians like Karen Straughan have noted women’s hypergamous tendencies. So I think the odds of our ever more relativist post-Christian culture embracing polygamy are very high, as most arguments for SSM marriage apply to polygamy.
Agreed. I think the response to that, though, is that it wasn’t tried only because of the existence of illegal (or perhaps immoral, or both) discrimination and persecution.
Even kids of divorce face opprobrium, as evidenced on one of my recent threads that got so out of hand it was nearly shut down. It was actually pretty funny when some then blamed me for the ad homimens they used! Incredible!
Let’s face it: adults practically worship their sexual freedom and they are willing to go to great lengths to silence dissenters.
Some of us still do, but culturally it’s not really a thing we promote, unless one counts the brutal punishment of men in divorce and custody hearings as promotion of permanence. But, that only serves to further dissuade men from getting married.
In general I see a great deal of hope for marriage, but I attribute that to the miraculous rather than to anything we’ve done as a society. In an odd way the raging debate over SSM might actually help marriage because those of us who believe in traditional marriage are forced to confront our hypocrisy in kicking one leg out from under the stool.
Having written that I may just turn libertarian on the thing and say no government involvement in marriage. Government is never going to be all in on the three part definition, so it certainly can’t help the institution.
Communes are the way of the future. Seriously.
They solve everyone’s problems.
Including and especially taxpayers. They will love the idea.