Marriage

The Supreme Court listened to arguments in a couple of cases about "gay marriage" last week.  One case had to do with the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act," the other with the validity of California Proposition 8, enactment of which was supposed to outlaw "gay marriage" in America's most populous state.  The Court will probably dispose of the California case with a procedural trick-- they'll simply discover that the people suing to reinstate Proposition 8 have no "standing" to bring the case, and avoid deciding the merits of it that way.  The Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law, may present a little tougher case, but the Court will probably find a way to punt there, too.  There was a lot of rigmarole about how it "might not be time yet" to decide the issue of "gay marriage" on its merits, because "it's such a recent phenomenon."

One can certainly understand why gay couples want the benefits of marriage extended to them, and why they don't want to be confirmed as second-class citizens by having it called something like a "civil union" instead.  Besides, I forget who it was who was supposed to have originated the saying, but "if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."  If you're going to treat people as married, they're married, and at that point it's pointless to try to make a distinction between different flavors of the same thing.

With apologies to whichever shepherd wrote the Book of Leviticus, I'd have to say it's a no-brainer that if you're going to have such a thing as marriage at all, it ought to apply to anyone who wants to assume its obligations and reap its benefits.  And let's not kid ourselves, this "one man, one woman" stuff is straight out of the Bible.  That's where all our "traditional values" come from in this country, whether it's politically correct to call attention to it or not.  Imagine how hard it was for those anti-gay lawyers at the Supreme Court to get through their arguments without using the "B-word." 

With all the furor over "gay marriage" it's easy to miss the big issue:  Is there a place in the modern world for the institution of "marriage" at all?  And if so, is it something that the government should encourage?

In those Supreme Court arguments, it's been hammered home again and again that there's no rationalization that provides a basis for extending special privileges to all those entering into the institution.  It used to be that marriage essentially involved the transfer of ownership of a woman from one man (her father) to another man (her husband-to-be.)  Women couldn't own property or even live alone, much less earn their own living (except as prostitutes or witches, and you know what the Bible had to say about them!)  So they had to have a man to take care of them (and to serve, while they were being taken care of.)  O.K., there's one of the big reasons that the institution of marriage was developed.

Another major justification for the institution, in addition to providing for the ownership, care and feeding of women, was to provide for the production, care and feeding of kids.  You weren't supposed to have kids outside of wedlock (Catchy word, wot?  Very descriptive.)  If they were born out of wedlock, those kids would be "bastards," and tainted for the rest of their lives.  Marriage, which was supposed to be "until  Death do us part," made sure that both parents would have to be around and be responsible for raising their kids, even if they no longer cared to be together.  So marriage was supposed to "promote the stability of the family." 

A third justification was to promote morality generally, the idea being that to have sex was bad, unless you had it for the purpose of procreation with someone to whom you had been bound for life.  If you wanted to have sex before marriage, or with someone other than your spouse after marriage, that was a sin.  And if you actually did it, you were run out of town on a rail or stoned or something.  And if you were a woman who did it, you were defiled for life, with one of the consequences being, ironically enough, that no "decent" man could ever marry you.  Sort of like a "one strike" law.  Conversely, if you were a married woman, it was your duty to have sex (and since contraception was also a sin, have children) whenever your "lawfully wedded spouse" felt like getting it on.  (Marriage was, historically, basically an "arrangement" negotiated between families, sometimes when the principals were still kids, and often before the bride and groom-to-be had even seen each other, so there was a lot of "duty" involved, and the idea of romantic "love" as a pre-requisite never came into it at all.

Nowadays, of course, we're confronted with a lot of new realities.  Women are supposed to have "equal rights," and they actually do, in many areas (although in many jurisdictions, like North Dakota, not with respect to having control over their own bodies.)  So they don't need a man to support them or rent an apartment or any of that stuff.

As was repeatedly pointed out in the Supreme Court arguments referenced above, there's no showing that kids raised by "one man, one woman" do any better than kids raised in "alternative" circumstances, such as by single or gay parents.  This is a good thing, because statistically the number of "traditional" single family households is shrinking (now fewer than half of all households, according to the Census), half of all first marriages end in divorce (the number rising to 80% for second and third marriages) and at least half of all the marriages that don't end in divorce really should (and would if the participants felt they could afford it.)  One third of kids are raised by single moms, or otherwise without a father in the home.

There are such things as reliable contraceptives now, by the way.  And the world has too many people, as it is.  And, as Hillary says, "it takes a village" to raise kids, anyway.  One way or the other, the "traditional institution of marriage" has got to go, and eventually will go, either by extending the status to any couple (or for that matter, why not any group) of adults that wants it, or by eliminating it entirely, at least as a civil institution.