what marriage is (blog post)
Jun. 28th, 2004 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keryxThis is what I wrote in my blog this weekend about Jon Rauch's "Gay Marriage" book.
Because I'm still confounded by the question of what marriage is (for me), I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I mean, I'd want to hear your thoughts, anyhow, but your thoughts have very real power to influence mine where marriage - for queer or straight folk - is concerned.
I was given Jon Rauch's Gay Marriage: Why it's good for gays, good for straights, and good for America by a pal who apparently wanted to make my head fold in upon itself.
We'll leave aside Jon's apparent distaste for all the things I think fondly of where gay culture is concerned, because there are many different queer cultures, and that's a nice thing. We'll leave aside his Log Cabin Republicanness, because the very fact of gay republicans is a testament to how far we've come - that gayness can be a personal identity and not a political one.
We'll just accept Jon for himself, and attack his ideas. Or rather, his ideas as I see them.
See, Jon has a very interesting concept about what marriage is for. His theory is two part. First, marriage is a social structure designed to make young people become "adult" - where "adult" is settled into a normal pattern of working and raising kids and building a little nuclear family. Second, marriage is a guarantee of caretaking for the aged and infirm. To expand Jon's definition, a family is a two-person structure, one that is fixed except for the addition or subtraction (in later life) of children should there be kids involved (kids are, I think rightly, not part of his definition). Only by having that family are people, especially men, officially part of normal, adult society. And only that family will commit to caring for you should you become broken in some way.
I have two problems with that.
No, I have three problems.
First, Jon's concept of adulthood. While he talks about monogamy as his key point about "settling down", there's a strong undercurrent of "be like me" in his notion of adult. Things I think Jon thinks are not adult include: not focusing on providing for a family, being non-monogamous, partying, participation in the wrong political organizations, living with someone, not having a "career", being single, wearing a neon pink muscle tee, voting Green, and having too much fun. Admittedly, I'm reading into things here, but Jon seems to buy into a relatively boring idea of what it means to be a grown up. Well, lots of people do that, and he is a Republican. I can hardly fault him for it.
Second, his assumptions about how family works. A marriage, given the failure rate of marriages these days, hardly looks like a guarantee for your future family. To go into marriage today starry-eyed and certain of growing old together is sweetly optimistic. To look with those starry eyes at marriage as a social institution is just silly.
But - siblings, close friends, roomates, parents, and the network of "urban family" that so many people have today are just as permanent as a spouse might be. The members of my urban family - my best friends, my partner's best friends, our parents, various other relationships - can be counted on to be there for either of us. And if we split up, my half of the family will always be there. They're part of the picture, no matter what. And if anything happens to them, we know we're responsible for helping out. This isn't a modern invention, either - whether family is biologically or legally related or not, extended family is the network people count on. A spouse or partner broadens that family but doesn't eliminate their responsibility for you.
There is a conceit that parents "give up" a child, particularly a daughter, to a new family, but that idea doesn't foot with the reality of urban family life. The things that have changed is biology - we used to have close proximity to our biological extended families, and now we choose family based on proximity (emotional and physical) - and legality - now the subunits of that family may be single, pairs, married folk and unmarried.
Wait, there are four. Four issues!
The third is his general bias against unmarried families ("marriage lite" he calls them) coupled with his insistence on reserving officially sanctioned unions for gay and straight couples. Polyamory he excludes on the grounds that, essentially, they're a very tiny minority of freaks. Why are they scary enough to exclude from marriage rights, if they're so tiny a minority? I felt pretty defensive of the polyamorous folk I know in reading his ready dismissal of the lifestyles they choose and the families they're painstakingly created. He returns to the old argument against polygamy as generally about some men taking up too many of the women, thereby creating a bunch of angry young men - and, oh yeah, polygamy too often occurs in weird religious orders where women are subjugated. The economic danger of men without potential for marriage seems much scarier to Jon (it certainly gets more space in the book) than the possibility that women might get beaten up, but then, I was pretty annoyed before I got to this part of the book. It's quite possible he's not the misogynist I found him to be.
It is entirely possible that the poly families I've encountered are by far the rarity, and that there's a larger group of cultists who would use the legalization of multi-partner marriage to accumulate harems, but I'd like to think that think that people are more sane than that. I think it's highly unlikely that, given as much as feminism and other equality movements have achieved, we're going to see a dramatic swing towards harem-accumulation as a status symbol for anyone other than Trump and Hefner. There's a whole other discussion about polyamory vs. our traditional view of polygamy in this, but suffice to say that I don't think we need to avoid legalizing one thing just because it's sometimes associated with something else that's bad and - by the way - also illegal.
"Marriage lite" he dismisses because... well, just because it's not marriage. It's not. It's also nicely divorced from all the weight that marriage carries - that weight including not only whatever personal meaning you attach to marriage itself, but the traditions of a wife "belonging" to a husband, of obedience, of relatively narrow gender roles that have relatively recently begun to change. As a feminist, marriage's history makes me uncomfortable entering into it. I don't think you can completely disengage marriage from the history of women's oppression, which is precisely why my longstanding cohabitation has remained just that.
To someone denied marriage, it doubtless looks like a more compelling social contract. But in many ways, marriage has been a burden to women for centuries. Other options aren't necessarily "marriage lite" so much as they're simply not marriage.
Which brings me to what bothers me most about Jon's theories - the way he reduces marriage itself.
The reasons people get married and their expectations of marriage are personal, and as numerous as married couples themselves. A thoughtful marriage is a unique contract between people for the way they plan to live their lives. For many people, there's a very specific religious reason. For others, it's about parenting. For others, it's about love (twue wove). Establishing marriage as the "gold standard" of normal adult family, as Jon would have it, reduces it to just a thing you're supposed to do after you grow up.
I know some people think that way today, but I find that really sad. I certainly don't want to be married, if that's what it means.
I think that modern marriage, apart from its history, is about formalizing your family creation, whatever that means to you (and whatever additionally you may think marriage is). I do think that it should be open to any family who wants to do that. And honestly, I'd rather see civil marriage (or civil contracts, unions, whatever) separated entirely from "marriage", with its various religious meanings and history of gender inequity, than see Jon's vision of marriage be a reality.
Because I'm still confounded by the question of what marriage is (for me), I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I mean, I'd want to hear your thoughts, anyhow, but your thoughts have very real power to influence mine where marriage - for queer or straight folk - is concerned.
I was given Jon Rauch's Gay Marriage: Why it's good for gays, good for straights, and good for America by a pal who apparently wanted to make my head fold in upon itself.
We'll leave aside Jon's apparent distaste for all the things I think fondly of where gay culture is concerned, because there are many different queer cultures, and that's a nice thing. We'll leave aside his Log Cabin Republicanness, because the very fact of gay republicans is a testament to how far we've come - that gayness can be a personal identity and not a political one.
We'll just accept Jon for himself, and attack his ideas. Or rather, his ideas as I see them.
See, Jon has a very interesting concept about what marriage is for. His theory is two part. First, marriage is a social structure designed to make young people become "adult" - where "adult" is settled into a normal pattern of working and raising kids and building a little nuclear family. Second, marriage is a guarantee of caretaking for the aged and infirm. To expand Jon's definition, a family is a two-person structure, one that is fixed except for the addition or subtraction (in later life) of children should there be kids involved (kids are, I think rightly, not part of his definition). Only by having that family are people, especially men, officially part of normal, adult society. And only that family will commit to caring for you should you become broken in some way.
I have two problems with that.
No, I have three problems.
First, Jon's concept of adulthood. While he talks about monogamy as his key point about "settling down", there's a strong undercurrent of "be like me" in his notion of adult. Things I think Jon thinks are not adult include: not focusing on providing for a family, being non-monogamous, partying, participation in the wrong political organizations, living with someone, not having a "career", being single, wearing a neon pink muscle tee, voting Green, and having too much fun. Admittedly, I'm reading into things here, but Jon seems to buy into a relatively boring idea of what it means to be a grown up. Well, lots of people do that, and he is a Republican. I can hardly fault him for it.
Second, his assumptions about how family works. A marriage, given the failure rate of marriages these days, hardly looks like a guarantee for your future family. To go into marriage today starry-eyed and certain of growing old together is sweetly optimistic. To look with those starry eyes at marriage as a social institution is just silly.
But - siblings, close friends, roomates, parents, and the network of "urban family" that so many people have today are just as permanent as a spouse might be. The members of my urban family - my best friends, my partner's best friends, our parents, various other relationships - can be counted on to be there for either of us. And if we split up, my half of the family will always be there. They're part of the picture, no matter what. And if anything happens to them, we know we're responsible for helping out. This isn't a modern invention, either - whether family is biologically or legally related or not, extended family is the network people count on. A spouse or partner broadens that family but doesn't eliminate their responsibility for you.
There is a conceit that parents "give up" a child, particularly a daughter, to a new family, but that idea doesn't foot with the reality of urban family life. The things that have changed is biology - we used to have close proximity to our biological extended families, and now we choose family based on proximity (emotional and physical) - and legality - now the subunits of that family may be single, pairs, married folk and unmarried.
Wait, there are four. Four issues!
The third is his general bias against unmarried families ("marriage lite" he calls them) coupled with his insistence on reserving officially sanctioned unions for gay and straight couples. Polyamory he excludes on the grounds that, essentially, they're a very tiny minority of freaks. Why are they scary enough to exclude from marriage rights, if they're so tiny a minority? I felt pretty defensive of the polyamorous folk I know in reading his ready dismissal of the lifestyles they choose and the families they're painstakingly created. He returns to the old argument against polygamy as generally about some men taking up too many of the women, thereby creating a bunch of angry young men - and, oh yeah, polygamy too often occurs in weird religious orders where women are subjugated. The economic danger of men without potential for marriage seems much scarier to Jon (it certainly gets more space in the book) than the possibility that women might get beaten up, but then, I was pretty annoyed before I got to this part of the book. It's quite possible he's not the misogynist I found him to be.
It is entirely possible that the poly families I've encountered are by far the rarity, and that there's a larger group of cultists who would use the legalization of multi-partner marriage to accumulate harems, but I'd like to think that think that people are more sane than that. I think it's highly unlikely that, given as much as feminism and other equality movements have achieved, we're going to see a dramatic swing towards harem-accumulation as a status symbol for anyone other than Trump and Hefner. There's a whole other discussion about polyamory vs. our traditional view of polygamy in this, but suffice to say that I don't think we need to avoid legalizing one thing just because it's sometimes associated with something else that's bad and - by the way - also illegal.
"Marriage lite" he dismisses because... well, just because it's not marriage. It's not. It's also nicely divorced from all the weight that marriage carries - that weight including not only whatever personal meaning you attach to marriage itself, but the traditions of a wife "belonging" to a husband, of obedience, of relatively narrow gender roles that have relatively recently begun to change. As a feminist, marriage's history makes me uncomfortable entering into it. I don't think you can completely disengage marriage from the history of women's oppression, which is precisely why my longstanding cohabitation has remained just that.
To someone denied marriage, it doubtless looks like a more compelling social contract. But in many ways, marriage has been a burden to women for centuries. Other options aren't necessarily "marriage lite" so much as they're simply not marriage.
Which brings me to what bothers me most about Jon's theories - the way he reduces marriage itself.
The reasons people get married and their expectations of marriage are personal, and as numerous as married couples themselves. A thoughtful marriage is a unique contract between people for the way they plan to live their lives. For many people, there's a very specific religious reason. For others, it's about parenting. For others, it's about love (twue wove). Establishing marriage as the "gold standard" of normal adult family, as Jon would have it, reduces it to just a thing you're supposed to do after you grow up.
I know some people think that way today, but I find that really sad. I certainly don't want to be married, if that's what it means.
I think that modern marriage, apart from its history, is about formalizing your family creation, whatever that means to you (and whatever additionally you may think marriage is). I do think that it should be open to any family who wants to do that. And honestly, I'd rather see civil marriage (or civil contracts, unions, whatever) separated entirely from "marriage", with its various religious meanings and history of gender inequity, than see Jon's vision of marriage be a reality.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-28 03:48 pm (UTC)I agree with you about rejecting the religious elements of marriage. I also object to the concept of a civil marriage being 'officially recognised' by the Government. The Uk governement doesn't even recognise a lot of religious marriages, outside the mainstream Christian faiths, and demands that they too have a civil ceremony to be legally recognised.
My best friend (who's not gay) is planning to go to Cuba to marry her partner, specifically because Cuban marriages AREN'T legally recognised by the government here. She wants the wedding, and the ceremony , and the frock and all the trimmings, but she doesn't want to be officially sanctioned by Mr Blair or the Queen or anyone. She wants the ritual significance of the wedding as the public sign and celebration of her relationship, although even she admits that as they already have two children, they've already made a huge and enormous committment to eachother.
I've gone off the point slightly, but never mind.
I never used to be 'into' marriage at all. I thought it was bad for all the reasons that you- and my best friend Becky!- suggest. I've raised my son as a single parent for the past ten-plus years, and was well aware of the strength and autonomy that gave me, in ways that I would give up or compromise if I was married. I was happily single and proud and independent and all the rest of it.
Since I met Leila, my thoughts have changed, though. I guess that before I identified as queer marriage was a choice that i actively rejected. Now I'm established in a relationship with a woman, I feel bereft that the choice has been removed. My partner and I are lucky in that both our families are cool with our sexulaity- there would be no problems for us re hospital visiting or other next-of-kin issues, but even so, I think there's a part of me that would be able to legally refer to her as 'my wife', simply because 'girlfriend' doesn't (to me, at least) doesn't sound as permanant or as serious or as committed. 'Partner' suffices, but only just.
I agree with the points you make about the history of gender inequality in marriage, but I also think that perhaps by 'taking back' marriage in the same way as we take back 'queer' and 'cunt' and all those other misused and maligned concepts and words, maybe the gay community can help give the concept a more positive meaning?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-29 02:56 pm (UTC)I think he's right on a couple of points. Like, I do think that liberal folk in domestic partnerships - queer and straight - have made our idea of family more fluid and less formal. I just don't think that's a bad thing, and I hope gay marriage doesn't take that fluidity away.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-28 10:08 pm (UTC)Of course, marriages don't work reliably in those ways in our current culture, and also, there's nothing sacred about "two opposite-sex people" that makes marriages work. Three or more people, or two same-sex people, can use a family-type commitment to try to ensure their stability just as two opposite-sex people can. It's somewhat more difficult because there's not an entire culture and legal system set up to support it, but there are subcultures that do a pretty good job of supporting it, if you can find them and if you get along with the people in those subcultures.
There's also nothing about sexual monogamy that makes marriages more stable, in my opinion. Sexual monogamy simplifies matters for people who haven't made a transition to a poly mindset (which transition can be quite difficult), and again, there are cultural supports for it (but they aren't very good, really - the cultural supports are really for one officially monogamous marriage plus cheating, and in my opinion cheating destabilizes relationships much more easily than open polyamory does).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-29 03:00 pm (UTC)You have made me think about the economic support definition of family, though - not only is it not a reliable model because of divorce, but it's only reliable in the first place under good economic circumstances. If you can't live on one income and can't accumulate retirement funds, the economic stewardship factor is kinda pointless. It's an idea of marriage that only works for the middle class, or in the 50s.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-29 03:12 pm (UTC)Hm. I don't entirely agree with the "one income" part - I think spouses can benefit financially from marriage ties even if they both work, in ways that not-legally-married people can't (but NLMP can also benefit in ways married people can, such as economies of scale).
As for retirement, widow/ers have access to their deceased spouses' social security money. But social security depends on the government, so any social contract that didn't include some government aid (which is what the conservatives want) wouldn't be particularly relevant there.
Yes, it does only work for the middle class (or, well, people who make enough...the middle class isn't, these days). I suspect some conservatives think that if they force all this on the country, then everyone who isn't middle class heterosexual marriage-minded will magically go away or turn into the kind of person they want.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-29 09:34 pm (UTC)Your comment caused me to think of one way the conservative folk might actually be MORE friendly to NLMP (I like that designation, btw) than liberals - if their ideas about cutting taxes so everyone [er, where everyone is the middle class and above] has more money to invest in private retirement savings, for which you can designate anyone as the beneficiary, then they're actually subverting marriage by giving NLMP marriage benefits. Ha! Proof that Republicans love queer folk! ;)