Welcome to part five of my live-blog reading of David Blankenhorn’s The Future of Marriage (2007). You can read part one, part two, part three, and part four here. 

Having sorted out what marriage is in chapters 1-5, we move on in the second half of The Future of Marriage to consider what marriage might be in the future. Chapter six (which we will look at today) considers the relationship David B. perceives between supporters of same-sex marriage and those who hope for the demise of marriage as a privileged social institution. Chapter seven outlines Blankenhorn’s key theory about marriage, and same-sex marriage specifically, which is that choices about marriage are choices between two competing “good” options (in Blankenhorn’s mind, the “good” of marrige equality and the “good” of protecting a child’s right to be parented by their biological mother and father). Chapter eight is, then, a call to arms as we are asked to “determine marriage’s fate.” This final chapter is also followed up by a rather odd appendix on forms of kinship which — among other things — perpetuates stereotypes about promiscuous bisexuals. But! All in good time.

Today we’re going to talk about those eeeevil lefty academics — specifically lefty lady academics; more on that later — who are critics of marriage as it has been historically practiced, and yet support marriage equality for same-sex couples. David B. is deeply troubled by what he reads a a disingenuous position on marriage, suggesting that it has damning implications for those who argue that granting same-sex couples equal access to marriage is, in fact, a conservative or pro-marriage-as-institution position. He writes:

Here is my dilemma: With every fiber of my being, I want to affirm the equal dignity of all persons and push for equal treatment under the law. Yet I’m also  marriage nut. I’ve spent most of my professional life arguing that marriage is important and that children need mothers and fathers … I believe that my nightmare can…be expressed as a sociological principle: People who professionally dislike marriage almost always favor gay marriage, [and] ideas that have long been used to attack marriage are now commonly used to support same-sex marriage (128).

Basically, the short version of this chapter is: “While same-sex marriage, per se, is something I’d love to support when I look around at who’s supporting same-sex marriage rights, and their justifications for doing so, I strongly disagree with these individuals’ overall social goals. I suspect that they see same-sex marriage as a means to their nefarious ends — therefore I am deeply uncomfortable supporting marriage equality, though this conclusion makes me sad.”

sad like John Lithgow in Footloose is sad…

Once again, I feel like we’re having the cherry-picking problem. For all the fuss anti-same-sex-marriage folks make about “OMG I’m not bigoted!!” and “Being against same-sex marriage doesn’t mean I’m anti-gay!!” in many instances they seem very willing to paint the marriage equality folks with a massive Paintbrush of Indistinguishable Radical Threat-yness.  I mean, yeah, sure, you’re gonna find people on the marriage equality side who see same-sex marriage as either a band-aid fix (“as long as we privilege married couples, everyone should have equal access to that privilege”) or as a radical challenge to the heteronormative regime — a queering of marriage, as it were, that will hopefully drive a stake through the heart of Marriage of the kind defined by David B. in the previous chapter. As someone who, actually, appreciates both of these arguments, I’m totally willing to own those contingents as playing for my team.

However, I would not make the argument that they’re the only players. We also have Gene Robinson and Andy Sullivan, to take two examples, making much more culturally and theologically conservative arguments for same-sex marriage. It’s not some either-or situation where — gotcha! — the “real” agenda of the marriage equality folks is somehow exposed. We have a range of different motivations here, a range of different personal “lifestyle” choices and political agendas. That we’ve all come together to push for marriage equality doesn’t mean these differences disappear. It just coalition building. That’s how politics works.

David Blankenhorn seems particularly incensed by one specific person who “professionally [dislikes] marriage” while supporting marriage equality: sociology professor Judith Stacey, currently teaching at New York University. She is the author of Unhitched: Love, Marriage, and Family Values from West Hollywood to Western China (2011) and Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth-century America (1990; 1998). Her own ethnographic research has focused on, for example, kinship patterns among gay men in West Hollywood, and the socio-political relationship between gay rights and rights for polygamous households in the U.S. and South Africa. She earned her M.A. in History from the University of Illinois, her PhD in Sociology from Brandeis, and has taught at U.C. Davis and the University of Southern California.

Why am I playing “who the fuck are you” here? Well, because David B. seems bent on discrediting Stacey through casting doubt upon her professional credentials — and by building her up as some radical feminist marriage-breaker — rather than taking on her critiques of marriage and grappling with them with any seriousness. “Search through all of her writings,” he scorns, “and you’ll find that she never met a divorce (or a divorce rate) she didn’t like” (131). He scoffs at the fact that her chaired position in contemporary gender studies at USC was endowed by Barbra Streisand (“I’m not making that up”!) — or perhaps disapproves of gender studies altogether, it’s unclear. Stacey, we’re told dismissively, “is an activist as well as an intellectual,” who seeks to “combine socialism with women’s liberation” (the horror!), and who in 1979 had an article published that “[cast] a friendly eye toward Communist China” (131). Judith Stacey’s vision of a more pluralistic future — one in which many forms of kinship are honored and included in the fabric of our society, rather than marginalized in favor of what historian Nancy Cott calls “monogamy on a Christian model” — is, indeed, Blankenhorn’s nightmare. One that he fears so much he actually calls it “Staceyan”!

When a feminist academic has a future anti-marriage regime named after her by a self-identified “marriage nut,” she must know she’s arrived.

Eclectic further thoughts on chapter six from my notes:

• David B. outlines fifteen arguments in favor of same-sex marriage, one of which is that “marriage removes the stigma of non-marriage” (140). I don’t have any major point to make here, I only want to point out that the fact that non-marriage is seen as a “stigma” in our society is one of the key reasons people like Stacey seek to deinstitutionalize (i.e. de-privilege) marriage as a state of being. David B., to my mind, never satisfactorily addresses the question of why marriage should be privileged over other forms of family formation. He just assumes it should be (and thus, “naturally,” always has been).
• He uses the word intrinsic a lot, as in supporters of same-sex marriage “say that some things that formerly were intrinsic parts of marriage no longer are” (140). Also the word natural, as in “Marriage as a man-woman bond is fundamentally a natural and social [not religious] institution” (159). Words like “intrinsic” and “natural” are red flags to me, falling into the pattern of thinking some historians term “common sense” thinking — that is, something that is so widely assumed in given culture that it doesn’t require explanation or justification, it’s just “common sense.” When David B. points out that “marriage is [no longer] intrinsically connected to sex,” (a debatable point, but for the sake of argument), what I see as an historian is a shift from one “common sense” paradigm to another — not some threat to a previously stable notion. By ascribing naturalness to his preferred way of understanding a phenomenon like marriage, he avoids having to explain or justify his beliefs — they simply are.
• He brings up the way some people seek to refine notions of monogamy and sexual exclusivity, so that perhaps one can be monogamous (“committed to one person”) while not necessarily being exclusive (“have sex only with that one person”). He terms this a radical disconnection, complaining that “until a moment ago, we had one idea … then we decided to split that idea into a sex part and a commitment part, separate and distinct … Over here is being committed. Over there is being exclusive. What’ll it be for us, honey?” (150). What strikes me is that to Blankenhorn this refining process is a distressing one (he actually uses the word “distressing” here). Whereas I think of such conversations as illuminating and important: what does a word like “monogamous” mean to each person or within each relationship? Isn’t it better to have those “What’ll it be for us, honey?” conversations than not have them? I, at least, feel like the fewer assumptions we make about how another person thinks — even someone we believe we know intimately — the better. I wonder why an activity which I greet with enthusiasm is one which David B. has such a negative reaction to?
• Returning to the subject of marriage definitions, this one rears its head again and again: “Marriage’s main purpose is to make sure that any child born has two responsible parents…” (153). If only he’d revise this to “[One of] marriage’s main purpose[s] is to make sure…” Then I’d totally be willing to co-sign the sentiment! The historical record shows, I’d agree, that marriage has functioned as a way to formalize parenting responsibilities (and thus children’s responsibilities, I might add) and inheritance rights across generations. But it is neither the only way human beings have enforced parental responsibility, nor the only functional purpose of marriage. The harder he pushes this as the central tenet of marriage, the weaker his pro-marriage case becomes.
• He derides the notion of separating civil marriage from religious marriage rites, asking rhetorically, “I don’t believe…that marriage will be improved by getting rid of any traces of religious influence, do you?” (161). This profoundly over-simplifies the case that the marriage equality folks are making to separate religious and civil marriage practices. In fact, teasing out civil from religious marriage would act to protect religious diversity in a pluralistic society. Currently, pro-same-sex marriage traditions (to name one pertinent example) are held hostage by civil marriage law that, in turn, was deeply shaped by a specific Christian notion of what marriage is and should be. To loosen this stranglehold of Christian conservatism from civil marriage law would be to protect the religious liberties of those of us whose faith does not, in fact, proscribe same-sex unions out of marriage’s bounds. 
• “Call me overly sensitive,” he writes, “but I am bothered by the fact that public arguments in favor of gay marriage almost always include a dismissive denunciation of the entire history of marriage as a human institution” (161-162). Well, I’m not going to call him “overly sensitive,” I’m just gonna call him “factually wrong.” Unless by “almost always …a dismissive denunciation” he actually means, “some of the time, in certain situations, some scholars point to the inequalities of marriage as practiced historically in order to call for greater inclusiveness moving forward.” Am I critical of marriage as it was historically practiced? Well, yeah. I’m critical of a lot of history. Human beings have been pretty crap at lovingkindness toward one another. We are past (and often present) masters at the art of being violent, exclusionary assholes. I think he’s confusing “critical of the way human beings have practiced marriage in the past” with wholesale rejection. Again, you can surely find people who believe marriage as a social institution is beyond repair. You can also find many people within that camp who support same-sex marriage rights, as both a stop-gap measure in an imperfect world and as a step toward changing or dismantling a social institution they believe has been damaging to many lives. Their arguments are worth more than derisive rejection. They are also far from representative of people who believe same-sex couples should have the right to marry, and they are surely even further from representative of same-sex couples who are married. Since I venture to guess that — unless you’ve got some weird destroy-from-within guerrilla attack planned — most of us who get gayly married see the socio-cultural tradition of marriage as redeemable, as meaningful. We’ve chosen to marry precisely because marriage as an idea and practice is meaningful to us. So much so that we’ve gone to all of the trouble and expense of … marrying. 

Welcome to part four of my live-blog reading of David Blankenhorn’s The Future of Marriage (2007). You can read part one, part two and part three here. 

We began The Future of Marriage by asking “What is marriage?” Despite acknowledging that “there is no single, universally accepted definition of marriage” (11; emphasis his), David B. seems hellbent on coming up with just such a definition. Without one, he seems to feel, all of our discussions about marriage law — and particularly the desire to be more inclusive in American society regarding what forms marriage and family might legitimately take — are specious.

So in chapter five, after our exploration of definitions he feels are too vague or over-inclusive, our romp through prehistory, and our case-study exploration of Mesopotamia and the Trobriand islands, we circle back around to the question of defining marriage. But this time rather than posing a question, David B. is offering and answer: the chapter title is “What Marriage Is.”

The chapter opens:

In all or nearly all human societies, marriage is socially approved sexual intercourse between a woman and a man, conceived as both a personal relationship and as an institution, primarily such that any children resulting from the union are — and are understood by society to be — emotionally, morally, practically, and legally affiliated with both of the parents (92). 

This is David’s working definition of what marriage is. He goes on to argue that it is “a way of living rooted in the fundamental physiological and biochemical adaptation of our species … constantly evolving … [yet it] also reflects one idea that does not change: For every child, a mother and a father” (92).

This definition of marriage has obvious implications for the legitimacy of marriage in the lives of couples like myself and my wife: how does it include marriages within which no children are biologically procreated between the two spouses? how does it include marriages with children wherein the parents are of the same sex and/or gender? However, before we get to that part of David B.’s thought process (he does address those issues later in the chapter), I’d like to point out a few things about this definition qua definition.

• To claim that in all times and in all places there is one idea about marriage that does not change is an awfully big claim. Certainly, scholars are fond of grand claims; that doesn’t mean we aren’t also vulnerable to having our grand claims deflated when those claims rest upon a shaky scaffolding of evidence. And in this instance, the scaffolding isn’t a whole lot: a survey of contentious evopsych literature and two geo-temporal locations in which marriage was practiced in two very different ways, but both included childcare on some level.
• Following from the broad scope of the claim comes the fairly random/convenient selection of child-rearing as the core concept behind marriage. Based on Blankenhorn’s own examples,we could just as easily make the argument that the core concept of marriage was to regulate sexual activity, to formalize extended family relationships into the next generation, or celebrate the pair-bond of a couple by the larger community. All of these features were present in both cases, so why pick the mother-father-childcare option? To my understanding, most historians exploring the history of marriage and family life would identify a cluster of concepts and behaviors around which marriage circles, some aspects rising to the fore in certain eras or cultures, others in a different period among another group of people. I don’t think anyone (well, probably someone, but certainly not any mainstream theorist) would deny that for most cultures throughout history the provision of care for the young (and the elderly!) is an important feature of family life. And marriage has often been a vehicle for securing familial structures for the following generation(s). It doesn’t follow, however, that we can therefore reduce the meaning of marriage to parent-provision. We actually provide parents (and other care-givers) for children in multiple ways, only some of which involve marriage. Adoption, fostering, recognition of bastards, even prison, all have served to provide children with some sort of care (however lacking) until they are old enough to start earning their own keep.
• Finally, I just want to note this question of providing children with both “a mother and a father.” David B. clearly believes that children have a right not only to know their biological origins — that is, which two persons (and probably under what circumstances) provided the sperm and egg from which the child was formed — but also to be raised by both biological parents. This is a multi-level claim that I am uncertain can be adequately dealt with in the context of a conversation about marriage, since it raises issues that are not contingent upon marriage. 
• We certainly have, in modern America since the 1970s, a strong tradition of privileging the right of a birth parent(s) with presumptive legal rights: unless a birth mother specifically surrenders her parental rights, and often the biological father a well, they are — barring proven abuse — the adults responsible for the welfare of the child. This is irrespective of any marital relationship between the two parents. So independent of marriage a child is entitled to their biological parents unless other provisions for parentage have been made. And even then, there is a strong movement toward ensuring a child access to the information surrounding their biological origins in instances where they are not raised by their biological parents. 
• But David B. is going beyond the right of a child to know; he’s making the argument that children have a right to be functionally parented by both biological parents — and that marriage between the two bio parents is both the primary and the best vehicle for such an activity. I won’t argue with him that, in modern America at least, this is the dominant model for parenting. Statistically speaking, it appears that the majority of children are growing up in households in which the primary care-giving adults are also their biological and legal parents. Arguing that this is the best model, in a universal sense — the model most likely to result in child well-being — is a much more complicated discussion. Blankenhorn has, thus far in The Future of Marriage, not made a convincing case (or, really, any case at all) for the married bio-parent model being superior to all other models, and explained on what grounds such an argument might rest.

What are the implications of this definition of marriage for same-sex couples who are (or desire to be) married? And where does such a definition leave couples who are not planning (or are unable) to procreate and/or parent? Blankenhorn ignores the demographic of female-male couples who are not directly procreating (they still fit within his model of male-female parents in type if not in functional fact) and focuses on the case for same-sex couple inclusion within this definition of marriage. I’m not going to tackle every point he makes inthis chapter, but two facets of his argument struck me:

• He argues that “the leading proponents of same-sex marriage in the United States today … studiously avoid any implication that marriage is connected to sex. Instead, they insist that marriage is an abstract and radically non-physical ‘relationship’ that is separate and apart from, you know, what people do in the bedroom” (92). Ahem. Well, first of all, I gotta say my wife and I don’t always do it in the bedroom, but … wait, what? Did he actually just make the argument that LGBT rights activists have separated sex from marriage?? …. o_O. I think this is an example of fairly serious mis-interpretation if not intentional mis-construction of the pro-marriage equality case. Here are a few observations that spring to mind:
• Most egregiously, the charge that LGBT folks avoid speaking about sex in the context of their primary intimate relationships ignores the context of virulent and systemic discrimination we’ve experienced, historically, when we dare to speak about same-sex sexuality in public. I’m going to repeat that: Arguing that it is lesbian and gay couples and their allies who are primarily responsible for erasing “the bedroom” from definitions of marriage is an argument born of heteronormative privilege. 
• How often do heterosexual couples talk about their sex lives in the context of public marriage-related proceedings? I recently came across a reference in another book on marriage to a (heterosexual) couple whose marriage vows had included the promise to be one another’s “lovers” — wording that many wedding guests had felt inappropriate to the occasion. I rather suspect this is a situation wherein David B. is holding such conversations to a double-standard of sexual transparency, suspicious that same-sex relationships are not sufficiently sexual to be considered marriages (which I have to say has got to be a first in terms of charges leveled at the queer community!) and thus we need to prove our sexual credentials in order to truly belong. While straight sex is just assumed.
• Wait … who exactly is making these arguments? I want names, dates, quotations, and citations. More than cherry-picked courtroom definitions (which are often designed to be flexible and contextual, because that’s how our legal system works), I want evidence that there’s some sort of systematic campaign on the part of same-sex marriage proponents to de-couple sexual intimacy from marriage.
• Finally, a word in support of my asexual friends and others for whom sexual intimacy is actually not a central component of their marriage relationship(s): Arguing that not all marriages include sexual intimacy is not equal to claiming that sexual intimacy is outside the bounds of marriage, or somehow not central to most marital relationships. For many, I daresay most, married people, sexual intimacy is (or has been, or will be) a component of married life. But that’s not the same as requiring sexual intimacy to be a part of married life. Just like procreation and/or parenting is a part of married life for many people (I think I saw a number recently that claimed about 80% of all married couples raise children together?) but isn’t a requirement to marriage. We don’t ask couples seeking a marriage license whether they are sexually active together and/or whether they intend to procreate. People who argue that sexual activity with one’s partner is not an essential part of marriage are likely arguing simply that: sex is not a required component of marriage. That is not the same as removing sexual intimacy from our cultural understanding of what many or most marriages encompass.
• Why all the angst over a “big umbrella” definition of marriage that can encompass many more (religiously- or subculturally- or even individually-specific) definitions within it? Because David believes that in order for marriage to be viable it must be a strong social institution with a widely agreed upon meaning. He writes: “I can never assume that another person shares my view … [a clear, centralized definition of marriage] establishes an ‘ought’ not just for me alone, but for everyone who is or wants to be part of the institution, including (I have good reason to believe) the person I will marry” (98). Excuse me while I get out the sad trombone … because this particular concern that we have definitions we can count on meaning the same thing to all people without actually clarifying with the people in question in so many words strikes me as a profoundly majority-culture presumption. Maybe it’s because I grew up in many ways a minority within a majority culture. My immediate family (and later myself, as an individual) differed in our values in many ways from the families and institutions around us. I never got to assume people held the same values I did. I always had to clarify, converse, ask. Communication is a good thing, and should be happening between partners as they decide whether or not to marry. To take David B.’s example (97-98), if “fidelity” to one person means only ever having sex with your marital partner, and to the other person it means the spouse being your primary relationship but includes sexual experiences with others — well, then you’ve got to discuss that and decide how to come to a meeting of minds and hearts on the subject (or go your separate ways). David B. seems to be rather appalled by this diversity in human relationship organization; I just see it as an opportunity for important clarifying conversation.