MARRIAGE AND BABIES: Maggie replies to Jonathan Rauch

I asked,

Gay marriage advocates can say either a) marriage used to be about this [procreation], but is no longer; or b) since we allow some couples who don't procreate to marry, we can allow same-sex couples to do so without interfering with marriage's role in managing procreation. The argument goes in different directions, depending on whether SSM advocates are asserting a or b. Which is it?

Jonathan responds: mostly b but a little bit a:

I think the correct answer is (b) inasmuch as marriage never has been reserved for procreative couples. Marriage has never used exclusivity as an incentive to cope with procreativity (no one said, "You'd better procreate, or else you won't be allowed to marry"). More like the opposite: society used marriage as a threat to cope with procreativity ("You'd better not get pregnant or make someone pregnant, because if you do you'll have to marry"). Marriage has always been about coping with procreation among other things, and in recent years the other things have become more important relative to procreation. That's the sense in which (a) is meaningful.

On the general relationship between sex, babies and marriage. I don't think of marriage as an incentive scheme for procreation. Nor do I really believe that the so-called legal "benefits" of marriage are incentives to marriage, since I think for most people they are marginal and are often negative to one or both parties.

The best way to express what I mean is: If sex between men and women did not make babies, marriage would not exist as a universal human institution. It is core to the project in this sense: it is the main social problem that marriage as a public and legal institution addresses.

The solution to the problem, in our culture, is to prefer that most men and women get married, because once they are in this kind of sexual union, you no longer have to worry about the fact that sex makes babies. It may or it may not, but it is no longer a social concern. (Other societies have adopted more brutal solutions for disfavored subgroups: marriage is for particular elites, the babies of peasants and slave girls can be disposed of and who cares?)

Jon is absolutely correct: "This kind of sexual union," a.k.a. marriage, includes other things besides procreation, or a commitment to care for any children you make together. It includes (necessarily if you are going to fulfil the former) a commitment to love and care for each other, a pledge of mutual sexual fidelity, an economic partnership. Marriage is "the kind of sexual union" that includes these goods.

So why can't same-sex couples be included in our definitions of marriage? This is becoming a very long post. Let me break here and get back in a seperate to the reasons why I think we do same-sex marriage, marriage can no longer effectively fulfil its core public purpose, as defined here.

posted by Eve at 1:48 PM | link

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