I think one of the problems with the "received wisdom" mindset -- and it's a major problem -- is the idea that, if some authority figure says something, it's true. Now, if you're a regular reader here, you know how I'm going to react to something like that -- when I finally stop laughing.
Here is one of the most egregious essays pointing out the inevitable failure of same-sex marriage that I've ever seen, by one Sam Schulman, who seems to have no qualifications whatsoever to address this issue. I'm willing to be generous and ascribe Schulman's comments as an outgrowth of complete and stupefying ignorance rather than any nefarious purpose. (And in the pages of Weekly Standard, why am I not surprised?) I don't usually link to wasted space such as Weekly Standard -- you'll find more intellectual integrity from Dick Cheney -- but this is just too much to pass up.
The train-wreck starts here:
The relationship between a same-sex couple, though it involves the enviable joy of living forever with one's soulmate, loyalty, fidelity, warmth, a happy home, shopping, and parenting, is not the same as marriage between a man and a woman, though they enjoy exactly the same cozy virtues. These qualities are awfully nice, but they are emphatically not what marriage fosters, and, even when they do exist, are only a small part of why marriage evolved and what it does.
Well, no, to put it succinctly. Those qualities are exactly what marriage fosters, and the main reason most people get married.
The entity known as "gay marriage" only aspires to replicate a very limited, very modern, and very culture-bound version of marriage.
That's the only kind there is.
The fact is that marriage is part of a much larger institution, which defines the particular shape and character of marriage: the kinship system.
We'll come back to this one. He throws in a what looks like a series of digressions but is actually the foundation of his argument, which that need dismantling.
The first is the most important: It is that marriage is concerned above all with female sexuality. The very existence of kinship depends on the protection of females from rape, degradation, and concubinage. This is why marriage between men and women has been necessary in virtually every society ever known. Marriage, whatever its particular manifestation in a particular culture or epoch, is essentially about who may and who may not have sexual access to a woman when she becomes an adult, and is also about how her adulthood--and sexual accessibility--is defined. Again, until quite recently, the woman herself had little or nothing to say about this, while her parents and the community to which they answered had total control. The guardians of a female child or young woman had a duty to protect her virginity until the time came when marriage was permitted or, more frequently, insisted upon.
Let's go back to that "culture-bound" part. In this case, the Old Testament patriarchal culture -- or, actually, any patriarchy will do. This is a fairly shallow reading of what's going on in that aspect of so-called "traditional" marriage. (I almost used the German word "sogenannte," which has the proper disdainful ring to it.) It's about property, stupid. The only reason to safeguard a woman's virtue is not that there's anything intrinsically wonderful about virginity -- and there are any number of cultures in which virginity is no big deal in or outside of marriage -- but to insure that a man's own children are the ones to inherit his property.
Second, kinship modifies marriage by imposing a set of rules that determines not only whom one may marry (someone from the right clan or family, of the right age, with proper abilities, wealth, or an adjoining vineyard), but, more important, whom one may not marry. Incest prohibition and other kinship rules that dictate one's few permissible and many impermissible sweethearts are part of traditional marriage. Gay marriage is blissfully free of these constraints.
It's not, really. Incest prohibitions are rather more deep-seated than even hinted at here. There's a biological process called "exogamy" -- the imperiative to mate outside the group -- that exists in a much broader context than human marriage. There also seem to be psychological factors that stem from being raised together that work against seeing a sibling -- whether biological or adoptive -- as a prospective mate (romantic fantasies notwithstanding.) So far, he's batting zero. (Although I have to admit, I'm basing my comments here on observed reality, so they probably don't count.)
There is another factor here that I might as well mention now: implicit in the phenomena I mentioned above is the idea that a kinship system is not a purely biological thing. Keep that in mind.
Third, marriage changes the nature of sexual relations between a man and a woman. Sexual intercourse between a married couple is licit; sexual intercourse before marriage, or adulterous sex during marriage, is not. Illicit sex is not necessarily a crime, but licit sexual intercourse enjoys a sanction in the moral universe, however we understand it, from which premarital and extramarital copulation is excluded. More important, the illicit or licit nature of heterosexual copulation is transmitted to the child, who is deemed legitimate or illegitimate based on the metaphysical category of its parents' coition.
I have to admit, my first reaction to this paragraph was, again, laughter. Let's reprise the "culture-bound" mantra, shall we? Whether sex is licit or illicit is purely a social construct, and whether a child is legitimate or illegitimate depends entirely on the parents laying claim to the child. Lordy! I mean, really -- "metaphysical category of its parents' coition"? Can this man be serious? (Please note that this is a purely religious argument, no more and no less, whether Schulman admits it or not. Outside of dogma, the licit nature of a relationship of any kind is purely dependent on whatever criteria we establish as a group. Actually, that holds true of religious dogma as well. To point to a somewhat wobbly status quo as an eternal verity is more than a little ludicrous.)
Fourth, marriage defines the end of childhood, sets a boundary between generations within the same family and between families, and establishes the rules in any given society for crossing those boundaries. Marriage usually takes place at the beginning of adulthood; it changes the status of bride and groom from child in the birth family to adult in a new family.
Tell this to any Jewish boy who's ever had a bar mitzvah. This paragraph is total bullshit, and there's not a psychologist, sociologist, or anthropologist who can call him- or herself such who would go along with it. I mean, this is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Check any source you like, and you'll discover that the beginning of adulthood, in almost every culture known, is quite separate from marriage. Both are life stages, both mark the assumption of a new role and status in the group, but they are not the same role or the same status.
Marriage is also an initiation rite. Before World War II, high school graduation was accompanied by a burst of engagements; nowadays college graduation begins a season of weddings that go on every weekend for some years. In contrast, gay weddings are rather middle-aged affairs. My impression is borne out by the one available statistic, from the province of British Columbia, showing that the participants in first-time same-sex weddings are 13 years older, on average, then first-time brides-and-grooms.
Considering that same-sex marriage has only been legal anywhere for less than ten years, this hardly bears comment. What one needs to look at here is not how old the participants in first-time same-sex marriages have been since such were legalized, but how long they had been together before they were able to marry -- in some cases it's forty years or more. And there is also the fact that it's only with the upcoming generation that marriage is on the table -- none of us before now has been able to even contemplate the possibility as any sort of potential reality. Talk to me again in a generation, and see how the statistics break down -- I can easily envision a pair of high-school boys getting engaged at their senior prom.
And can we point out that straight couples are tending to marry later now? Particularly among professionals and others intent on pursuing careers. Schulman's point here is completely meaningless.
Gay marriage may reside outside the kinship system, but it has all the wedding-planning, nest-building fun of marriage but none of its rules or obligations (except the duties that all lovers have toward one another). Gay spouses have none of our guilt about sex-before-marriage. They have no tedious obligations towards in-laws, need never worry about Oedipus or Electra, won't have to face a menacing set of brothers or aunts should they betray their spouse. But without these obligations--why marry? Gay marriage is as good as no marriage at all.
This is simply not true. Let's talk first about biologically based kinship systems. On that score Schulman is totally off base: people have parents. Many of us have brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins (I've got so many cousins I can't keep track of them, and I keep finding new ones). So I have to ask, just what is this mythical "kinship system" composed of? Schulman is at pains never to describe it in any detail, except to point out what gay couples don't have -- except that they do. (You'd better believe that if I ever find a suitable husband, he's going to be saddled with my outrageous and delightful father, my equally delightful step-mother, and my loosey-goosey sister -- and that's just for starters. Remember all those cousins? On the downside, I fully expect to have a mother-in-law.)
And regarding kinship as a non-biological construct, there is a facet of gay culture of which Schulman seems to be completely unaware (make that "another facet" -- the man doesn't seem to know anything at all about gays): we have a history of building our own families. It's not as prevalent now, when being gay is a little less likely to get you cut off from your biological family, but it is still a major factor in our lives. Any husband of mine is also going to wind up having to deal with my friends. (And the term "friends" among gays has a very special and profound meaning.)
If that's not a kinship system, I don't know what is.
The rest of Schulman's essay is drivel, based on the drivel I've commented on here. What matters is that the core of his argument is garbage. The rest is a castle in the air built of -- garbage.
Thanks (I think) to Chris Bodenner at the Daily Dish. Bodenner also cites a take-down by Isaac Chotiner which is worth reading, as are the comments there.
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