As the propaganda machine – a union of state and infotainment media – presses forward with its campaign to compel acceptance of the equality of homosexuality with marriage, it may be worthwhile to point out how modern confusion about the nature of marriage has made this campaign possible. In my previous remarks on this issue, I noted that there is no historical or anthropological basis for the recent invention of equating same-sex unions with marriage. This is why all anthropological texts and dictionaries, until very recently, recognized that marriage was essentially a union between a man and a woman. Yet the anthropological purpose of this union has been gradually obscured over the last century and a half.
In every culture ever known, there has been some form of marital union entailing that the progeny of a given woman pertain to the man who marries her. Marriage, in its essence, is intrinsically “sexist” or sex-based, and ordered to at least the potential, if not the actuality, of having children. Since the producing and rearing of children is of interest to society, marriage has always been socially regulated. It is not a purely private act between two individuals. The interests of families, clans, and even nations could be at stake, so these played a prominent role in marital arrangements. In fact, arranged marriage was the dominant norm throughout the world until the nineteenth century.
With liberal democratic emphasis on individual freedom, there came an undermining of patriarchal family authority, and spouses came to be chosen more or less autonomously. With the disintegration of extended family authority into what were later called “nuclear” families, there was little basis for choosing a spouse other than romantic affection. Thus arose the idea that romantic love is the primary motivation for marriage.
Once we accept the idea that marriage is primarily about two people who love each other, marriage begins to lose some of its special character. There is already a term for two people who love each other: friendship. While it may not be obvious in English that friends are lovers, this is explicit in Latin (amicus) and modern Romance languages (ami, amigo, amico).
Still, modern marriage retained a unique character as long as the love between spouses was a special kind, oriented to raising children in a family. Yet the rise of contraception, sterilization, and in vitro fertilization have enabled us to separate procreation from marriage. If this is no longer essential to what we call marriage, all we are left with is friendship by another name.
If it is said that modern marriage is still distinct from friendship by virtue of carnal intimacy, I would respond that such intimacy is no basis for making marriage more exalted than friendship, much less something requiring special state sanction. In fact, the Greeks and Romans regarded friendship as a greater love than that between spouses, since it was based more on admiration of character than love of physical beauty. Plato and Aristotle thought it shameful debauchery for friends to indulge in such intimacy, since it cheapened a noble love.
Once we fully accept the error that marriage is just “love between two people,” there is no basis for making a distinction between heterosexual and homosexual unions. To any thoughtful liberal, it will seem cruel and arbitrary to deny equal status to both kinds. The sincerity of homosexual love will persuade him that there is a real parity with marriage.
Yet the liberal who reasons thus has lost sight of an important implication: if marriage is nothing more than love, then there is no reason for the state to be involved in sanctioning such a union. The state takes the role of some gossipy busybody, who keeps track of who’s in love with whom. For what reason?
We cannot claim the state regulates marriage in the interest of limiting sexually-transmitted disease, since we freely allow extra-marital liaisons, and impose no penalty for adultery. The ease of divorce makes marriage scarcely distinguishable from more casual romantic attachments.
Perhaps the state still regulates marriage in the interests of child rearing. Yet the liberal state goes to great lengths to facilitate single-parent families, and the propaganda machine is more concerned with validating its a priori conviction in “marriage equality” than with following hard sociological data suggesting that same-sex unions have poorer outcomes for adopted children. Thus the liberal state’s interest in marriage is emphatically oriented not toward the child, but toward the desires of the spouses.
In marriage as in other matters, liberalism succeeds only to the extent that it fails. That is, marriage remains a successful institution only insofar as the liberal conception of marriage has not fully overtaken society. Most couples do care about having children, and most feel duty-bound to remain married, notwithstanding the ease of legal divorce. Most people recognize that it is highly important for children to have both male and female authority figures. We even recognize that fathers and mothers have intrinsically different roles in the family.
If the liberal conception of marriage were to be taken seriously, we should acknowledge that it is arbitrary and senseless to give special sanction to this form of love, while denying similar benefits to good friends or long-term roommates. It is not at all surprising, but eminently logical, that the dynamic of social liberalism should lead to the complete deregulation of the family. The family, being the font of patriarchal authority, communitarianism, and social inequality, represents all that is abhorred by our libertine tendencies. Yet the family is far more formidable than the liberals have reckoned. Even if it is legislated out of existence, it will persist, and will continue to be a dominating social force. This is because its structure is inscribed in human nature, making it a more venerable and lasting institution than that god of clay, the state.