A common conservative critique of homosexual marriage is that it will threaten the institution of marriage. This is, in many respects an odd idea. It is not obvious why granting the right to marry to people who do not now have the right but seek it threatens the very institution of which these people want to be a part. Nor, given the mess that so many heterosexuals make of marriage is it all the plausible to blame gays and lesbians for threatening the institution.\u00a0But there is one argument that I have found carries a certain weight in anti-homosexual circles, the notion that accepting homosexual marriage will set us on a slippery slope to the widespread acceptance of polygamy. (The junior Senator in Pennsylvania evidently\u00a0thinks that it will also lead to inter-species marriage.) Since some people in Utah do seek the right to have polygamous marriages, conservatives ask us how we can legitimately deny them that right while accepting gay marriage.<\/p>\n
\nKnowing that very few people really want polygamous marriage, most liberals don\u2019t take this argument very seriously. I think it is useful to recognize the important difference in the status of gay marriage and polygamy for two reasons. First, it will, I think, help us recognize exactly why the demand for gay marriage is so powerful. And, second, it will help us see why certain arguments in contemporary liberal moral theory are somewhat problematic.<\/p>\n
Conservatives critical of gay marriage remind us that the kind of marriage found in the modern West is what the sociologists and historians call companionate marriage. In this kind of marriage, the partners choose each other on the basis of mutual attraction and romantic devotion. Monogamy is the ideal in companionate marriage, however much it is violated in practice. But wherever polygamy is accepted, and monogamy is not the rule, marriage is very different. In communities that allow polygamy, marriages are contracted by families on the basis of political and economic considerations. Romantic love\u2014if it even exists in such communities\u2014is largely found outside the marriage bond.<\/p>\n
The Slippery Slope<\/strong><\/p>\n The conservative argument is correct in its characterization of modern, Western marriage as companionate and monogamous. But what conservatives fail to see is that it is precisely because this is what marriage means to us that gay and lesbian marriage must be recognized by the state and polygamous marriages must be rejected.<\/p>\n The argument for gay marriage is not that people should be free to create whatever personal and sexual relationships they like. Of course, people should<\/em> be free to create whatever relationship they like. Their sexual lives should be free from state regulation. It is not the state\u2019s business to tell us to have sex on a regular basis with one, two, or many other people, or with none at all. Nor should the state tell us whether our sexual partners should be of any particular gender. But while state regulation of our sexual lives violates our rights, the state does have reason to give certain kinds of relationships the special recognition and practical benefits that come with marriage. The modern Western state grants those benefits to relationships that are based upon a special kind of love, one that unites two people in, as the song goes, body and soul.<\/p>\n Should the State Be Neutral about Marriage?<\/strong><\/p>\n Now why should the state encourage companionate marriage? Is this not a kind of discrimination? Should not people be allowed to create any kind of marriage they choose?<\/p>\n Certain kinds of liberals have adopted this line of thought and used it to justify marriage for gays and lesbians. They have held that marriage laws, like presumably other legitimate laws, must not express a preference for one vision of life or another. The law, these liberals say, must be neutral between different views of a good life. And thus, these neutral liberals have provided fodder for the conservatives who say that the arguments for homosexual marriage ultimately justify polygamy as well. Neutral liberals can either admit this or, like Michael Kinsley has recently done, say that the state should privatize marriage entirely.<\/p>\n The claims of neutral liberalism are wrong both in principle and in practice. While the liberal state should not prohibit people from choosing one way of life or another, it has always, and, in my view, should continue to encourage certain kinds of lives. In a liberal state people cannot be punished if they hold bigoted views, if they don\u2019t want to vote or take part in communal affairs, or get an education, or be productive. But it is legitimate for the liberal state to encourage people to become tolerant, public-spirited, educated, and productive citizens. And it is also proper for the liberal state to encourage people to enter into companionate marriages. To see why this is so is also to see why the liberal state should not sanction polygamous marriage.<\/p>\n What Marriage Means In Different Places<\/strong><\/p>\n Modern, Western marriage is not something that people make up just as they please. It is a certain kind of relationship that while conventional, has been created for good reason. Our kind of marriage is good for human beings who live the kind of lives we do. Polygamy makes sense, and indeed has certain advantages, in traditional communities in which everyone is born into a fixed and inherited political and social place; in which family and tribe is everything; and in which women are subordinate to men. In those times and places marriages are based not upon love but upon the political and economic requirements of familial and tribal success. But in a world characterized by the search for our own, individual way of life\u2014and especially in a world in which men and women are held to be equal\u2014companionate marriage is, for many of us, central to our happiness.<\/p>\n Marriage and Self-Definition in the Modern World<\/strong><\/p>\n It is partly through such marriages that we define ourselves. Our choices about where to live; how to balance our domestic and work lives; what religion to embrace; what family ties to sustain, what sexual practices to pursue, and how to raise our children are dramatically shaped by our choice of marriage partner and then by the working out of our lives with our husband and or wife. And it is through these choices that we define what equality between mariage partners means for us. These choices are always difficult. In the modern world our lives are always in flux. There are so many options open to us and so many new ones that arise throughout our lives. Yet a successful life\u2014one in which we see ourselves attaining certain goods over time\u2014requires us to create certain oases of stability amidst the endless flux. This kind of stability gives definition to our selves and shape to our lives.<\/p>\n For most of us, this kind of stability is created in and through love and marriage, on the one hand, and work, on the other. And while marriage is not the only way to create it–and we must recognize that there are other ways–for those who do marry, it is often more important than work. It is in large part by making choices about how to express and define ourselves that we create the romantic love that binds us to our husbands and wives: To be one kind of person or another is to attract, and be attracted by, certain other people and not others. (We all know people who were made better people\u2013or worse people\u2013by their choice of marriage partner.) And, it is precisely because self-definition is so hard and uncertain that the emotional support we receive from our partners is so vital to us. Romantic love is both discovery and invention. To find \/ create a romantic relationship is to both reveal and create oneself. It is, at once, to make oneself vulnerable while finding new sources of strength. And, once we find \/ create it, romantic love is the central force that defines us as individuals\u2014and keeps couples together when the inevitable tensions between two self-defined individuals arise. Given the importance to us of finding our own way and place in the world, and the centrality of marriage in this struggle, state support of marriage is justified.<\/p>\n It is, at first look, perhaps odd to think of companionate marriage as important to us because it gives us an opportunity to define ourselves. We don\u2019t pursue love and marriage in order to find out who we are or create some kind of stable identity. But, like many important goods\u2014like\u00a0happiness itself\u2014self-definition is something important to us that is best pursued indirectly. And, if we ask ourselves why romantic love and marriage is such a transcendentally important good to us, we begin to see that the individuality of modern life demands so much more in the way of self-definition than earlier forms of life. Few of us inherit a name that defines us, or a career, a home or even a school from our parents. Instead we make our own way in the world. We have, or make our own name, carve our own careers, create our own homes, and establish friendships and the relationships that are so important to us. At each step of the way we make choices that determine who we are and what we will be.<\/p>\n This is something difficult to do. We are all familiar with the phenomena of identity crises or mid-life crises. But these are distinctly modern situation. One would only find a medieval serf having an identity crisis only in a Monty Python movie.<\/p>\n Thus the important relationships we create do define us. And they provide the emotional sustenance we need as we try to become the people we wish to be\u2014or discover that we are uncertain or have changed our minds about who we wish to be. For most of us, a marriage based on romantic love is the critical relationship that serves this purpose.<\/p>\n One can, of course, define oneself and seek emotional sustenance today in a polygamous marriage, Indeed, in our world, that very choice would, by its radical nature, would be a dramatic kind of self-definition. Of course, most of us can\u2019t really choose to have a traditional polygamous marriage\u2014there is no family and tribe ready to marry us off. In the communities of the past in which polygamy was is a lve possibility for most people, they couldn\u2019t really choose polygamy\u2014or their husband or wife. We can, I suppose, try to invent a new kind of polygamous marriage\u2014as the remaining polygamous Mormons are doing. But, I do not think that a polygamous marriage can serve the same role that companionate marriage does in defining ourselves.<\/p>\n Marriage between two people is difficult enough. We all know that marriage often requires compromise. And some marriages collapse because too much compromise is required and one or both marriage partners feel that their identity is stifled in the marriage. Marriage only serves as a way to create our identity when two people find enough common ground to make their relationship one that more often realizes rather than limits their sense of themselves as individuals. And what makes that possible is the identity of interest that is much easier for two than three or more people to create and the romantic love that binds people to one another. That kind of relationship is incompatible, in both principle and practice, with polygamy. In principle, a love that is shared among more than two people is not a love in which another person becomes the center of our lives. And thus the identity of interest that makes marriage something that creates more possibilities than limitations on our individual lives is very hard to create. In practice, the jealousy that is deeply rooted in our human nature makes it impossible for the kind of love that characterizes companionate marriage to be parceled out among three (or more) people.<\/p>\n And thus polygamous marriage can not play the same role that romantic, companionate marriage does in defining ourselves or in providing the emotional support we need. Indeed, Polygamous marriage is thus not a means by which to solve one of the central problems of modern life, to find support for the way we define our selves and our place in the world.<\/p>\n Polygamy vs Feminism<\/strong><\/p>\n A polygamous marriage cannot help create a modern sense of identity for a second reason: it is inherently inegalitarian. The modern sense of identity repudiates differences in power and position that are not the product of our accomplishments and the consent of others. And so, over time, it has called into question all hierarchies that are rooted in unquestioned claims to natural superiority. From its beginning companionate marriage whittled away at patriarchal claims: romantic love is practically impossible when men and women see themselves as fundamentally different kinds of creatures. Romantic love tends to elevate men and women in each other\u2019s eyes. In particular, being loved by a woman is only valuable when men respect the sentiments and opinions of women.<\/p>\n In the last half of the twentieth century companionate marriage and modern egalitarianism lead to an upsurge of feminism that radically recast relationships between men and women. Polygamy is radically incompatible with sexual equality. This is most obviously true for women in plural marriages\u2014or potentially plural marriages. The capacity of wives to stand as equals to their husbands is undermined not only by the reality or possibility of a man taking a second or third wife but also by the diminishing force of romantic love in binding husbands and wives to one another. And, inequality between men is also exacerbated by polygamy. If some men take more than one wife, others are left with none.<\/p>\n So, companionate and romantic marriage is, in its very essence, a marriage between two people. Not that modern men and women are always monogamous. But our ideal of marriage presupposes a fundamental commitment of one person to another. This is true even when sexual fidelity is seen as dispensable to marriage. Defenders of what are today called polyamorous relationships\u2014the old term was open marriage\u2014typically insist that the pursuit of sexual or even emotional variety should not and need not threaten the marriage bond between two people.<\/p>\n Companionate Marriage and Communal Support<\/strong><\/p>\n Companionate marriage is not only desired as a means of defining our lives through romantic love and the creation of a family. It is also in companionate marriages that we create the kinds of emotional and practical support that helps us overcome the inevitable setbacks in life: economic hardship, illness, and catastrophic losses of all kinds. Most of us don\u2019t have extended families to help us deal with these difficulties. When larger family ties are made uncertain by geographic and social mobility individuals can only turn to their life partners or the state in times of distress. The state is a necessary backup for families in the worst circumstance. But no one with any sense wants to be dependent on the state alone. It cannot provide the individual, devoted, and loving care that we need in times of crisis. The best and most important social welfare program is companionate marriage.<\/p>\n Polygamous marriage can, of course, also be a source support in troubled times. Indeed, some defenders of polygamy see it as a step back to a life within an extended family that provides a great deal of support in troubled times. This is precisely how we should see polygamous marriage, as a practice that only makes sense when it is embedded in a hierarchical and unchanging extended family that is tied in turn to a hierarchical and unchanging tribe. And that is also why polygamy makes no sense for modern men and women who eagerly move\u2014and sometimes run\u2014away from whatever extended families and tribes remain. In polygamous communities, emotional and practical support is provided not just by husband and wife but by a broad range of familial relationships. We have no such relationships today, mostly do not want them, and certainly cannot sustain them. (Can you imagine a commuter polygamous marriage?) We depend on our circle of friends and, when we our lucky, our parents, children and siblings. But mostly we depend upon our spouses in a way that is impossible to imagine in marriages that are not the product of an intense bond that can only exist when one other person is central to our lives.<\/p>\n Companionate Marriage and Children in the Modern World<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, companionate marriage is the only means we know of reproducing children who can become the strong, confident, and independent individuals capable of succeeding, not least in self-definition. Love of children has always existed. But the extended period of parental care that characterizes modern life\u2014in which children rely on their parents for emotional and financial support well into their twenties\u2014is a relatively new and modern phenomena. So is the extended freedom from the responsibilities of adulthood that characterize modern adolescence, which is a late 19th century invention. This extended period of care and freedom from responsibility creates problems for us. But it is necessary if our children are to have the time and space in which to develop the practical and intellectual skills they need to take their place in a world of self-defining individuals. So, too, is the kind of intense love for children that respects and thus fosters their individuality. The parental devotion that gives our children the space and love they need is most easily provided when the intense devotion of two parents for each other as individuals spills over onto their, relatively few, children. Polygamous marriages, which typically produce many children, and in which multiple wives struggle on behalf of themselves and their children for the attention and care of their husband, simply can not create children who can live up to the practical and emotional demands of modern life.<\/p>\n Modern, Western, companionate marriage, then, is something good for us, good for our children, and thus good for our larger community. The larger community certainly has an interest in helping individuals define themselves in marriage; find the support they need from their marriage partners; and devote extraordinary amounts of love, attention, and money to their children.<\/p>\n So the conservative argument that homosexual marriage will inevitably lead to the acceptance of polygamy is doubly wrong. Gay and lesbian marriage is\u2014like all modern, Western, companionate marriage\u2014utterly incompatible with the acceptance of polygamy. And the argument for homosexual marriage is that marriage is good for gays and lesbians\u2014and thus for the children of gays and lesbians and for the rest of us as well\u2014for the very same reasons that it is good for straights. Gays and lesbians deserve, then, not the right to form any kind of relationships they choose. They more or less have that right now. They deserve the right not to be discriminated against in forming the kind of relationship that the modern, Western state has long supported because of its centrality to our individual and communal well being. They deserve the right to marry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A common conservative critique of homosexual marriage is that it will threaten the institution of marriage. This is, in many respects an odd idea. It is not obvious why granting the right to marry to people who do not now have the right but seek it threatens the very institution of which these people want to be a part. Nor, given the mess that so many heterosexuals make of marriage is it all the plausible to blame gays and lesbians for threatening the institution.\u00a0But there is one argument that I have found carries a certain weight in anti-homosexual circles, the notion that accepting homosexual marriage will set us on a slippery slope to the widespread acceptance of polygamy. (The junior Senator in Pennsylvania evidently\u00a0thinks that it will also lead to inter-species marriage.) Since some people in Utah do seek the right to have polygamous marriages, conservatives ask us how we\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6280,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/6280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}