What is Marriage? Part Five, What’s the Harm?

Changes in marriage norms causes harm

So, then, what is the harm? To pick up right where we left off, as a revisionist might put it, “how would gay marriage affect your lives, liberties, or opportunities, or your own marriages?” Remember that from the beginning I have said that this debate is not about homosexuality, but about marriage. I’ll show later how the conjugal view respects same-sex-attracted people’s equal dignity and basic needs. In this article it will be shown how the revisionist proposal would harm marriage and much else also. Our argument depends on three simple ideas:  law tends to shape beliefs; beliefs shape behavior; beliefs and behavior affect human interests and human well-being. If all can agree on these truths, it will be shown that an unsound law of marriage will breed mistaken ideas that will harm not just marriage but parenting, common moral and religious beliefs, and even friendship.

To begin, let’s discuss the harm to marriage and parenting. Remember the law affects our ideas of what is reasonable and appropriate. You might think more of cocaine use if it were allowed, state subsidies of heavy metal music promote a different view of musical merit than chamber music, and a school board curriculum of quack science and chauvinistic history impart a different message about knowledge than one with more rigorous standards.

Revisionists are on board with all of these ideas. Redefining marriage though, would change its meaning for everyone. Legally wedded opposite-sex unions would increasingly be defined by what they had in common with same-sex relationships. Marriage, the human good, would be harder to achieve; one can realize marriage only by choosing it, for which you need at least a rough idea of what it really is! As Oxford philosopher Joseph Raz (no friend of the conjugal view) puts it: “One thing can be said with certainty [about changes in marriage law]. They will not be confined to adding new options to the familiar heterosexual monogamous family. They will change the character of that family. If these changes take root in our culture then the familiar marriage relations will disappear.”

Obscuring the good of marriage to make it harder to live out is the first harm of redefinition:  other harms are the effects of misunderstanding, and failing to live out, true marriage. By warping people’s view of marriage, revisionist policy would make them less able to realize this basic way of thriving–much as a man confused about friendship will have trouble being a friend. As more people absorb the new law’s lesson that marriage is fundamentally about emotions, marriages will increasingly take on emotions’ instability. Since there is no reason that emotional unions should be permanent or limited to two, these norms of marriage would make less sense.

It might seem far-fetched to predict that values as cherished as permanence and exclusivity would wane, however even leading revisionists now agree that if sexual complementarity is optional, so are permanence and exclusivity. If marriage is primarily about emotional union, why privilege two-person unions, or permanently committed ones? Also, because children fare best when reared by their wedded biological parents, the same erosion of marital norms would adversely affect children’s health, education and general formation. Additionally the size of the state would balloon, adjudicating breakup and custody issues, meeting the needs of spouses and children affected by divorce, and attempting to contain and feebly correct the challenges these children face. Marriage policy could go bad, and already has in some ways, especially by the introduction of no-fault divorce laws which make marriage contracts easier to break than contracts of any other kind.

Conjugal marriage laws reinforce the idea that the union of husband and wife is the most appropriate environment for rearing children. Recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages would legally abolish that ideal. No civil institution would reinforce the notion that men and women typically have different strengths as parents, or that boys and girls tend to benefit from fathers and mothers in different ways. Revisionist marriage laws would diminish the social pressures and incentives for husbands to remain with their wives and children. Yet the resulting arrangements–parenting by divorced or single parents, or cohabiting couples–are proven to be worse for children, as has been shown in the previous two articles.

And mothers and fathers do both bring necessary strengths to the table for children. There is a preponderance of evidence for example, showing that girls are likelier to suffer sexual abuse and to have children as teenagers and out of wedlock if they do not grow up with their father. For their part, boys reared without their father tend to have much higher rates of aggression, delinquency, and incarceration.

Rutgers University sociologist David Popenoe states, “we should disavow the notion that mommies can make good daddies, just as we should disavow the popular notion…that daddies can make good mommies… The two sexes are different to the core and each is necessary–culturally and biologically–for the optimal development of a human being.” A University of Virginia sociologist found much the same:  “…the best psychological, sociological and biological research to date now suggests that–on average–men and women bring different gifts to the parenting enterprise, that children benefit from having parents with distinct parenting styles, and that family breakdown poses a serious threat to children and to the societies in which they live.”

There is lots of research out there and not much of it is top-notch. Top-notch research contains large, random and representative samples observed over time. Not one study of same-sex parenting meets this standard of research. By contrast, a 2012 study by Mark Regnerus was completed that was based on a large, random and nationally representative sample regarding outcomes in adulthood of various family structures. Compared to children of parents at least one of whom had had a gay or lesbian relationship, those reared by their married biological parents were found to have fared better on dozens of indicators, and worse on none. Ultimately, we have two reasons to expect that same-sex parenting is generally less effective:  first, every alternative to married biological parenting that has been examined in high-quality studies has consistently been shown less effective, and second, reliable studies suggest that mothers and fathers foster–and their absences impede–child development in different ways.

In short:  redefining marriage might make it more socially acceptable for fathers to leave their families, for unmarried parents to put off firmer public commitment, or for children to be created for a household without a mother or father. There will be a cost to depriving children of the love and knowledge of their married mother and father. Please understand, none of these points implies that men and women in same-sex relationships have weaker devotion, or less capacity for love and affection. It is no insult to heroic single parents to point to data showing that mother and father together is more effective. What are compared in all cases are the outcomes of various parenting combinations, not individual parents. The next article will cover the consequences to moral and religious beliefs, and friendship.

                      Part Four                                                                       Part Six

What is Marriage? Part Four, Marriage isn’t Malleable

Marriage’s terms are not infinitely negotiable

This is part four of my series on marriage. This article will focus on the second argument of some who think that marriage is changeable to no end, which is one of the main assumptions by those who want to change marriage laws today. They say “marriage has no distinctive public value, and this being the case the state can remake the definition of marriage to fit whatever our preferences are.” In this case there is no “right answer” for the state’s marriage policy any more than for the national bird, it’s a matter of what folks agree on. There are several problems associated with this:  first, it’s often motivated by the fallacy that because social practices are partly constructed they must be entirely constructed. Second, it can make no sense of major philosophical and legal traditions. Third, it contradicts the spirit of most revisionist arguments, implying the revisionists’ view is as unjust as they consider the conjugal position to be. Finally, even if this view were true, it would provide no good basis for the revisionist view.

Point one. Marriage is a basic aspect of human well-being, valuable in and of itself, and in a way that other goods cannot substitute for. Consider the contrast between marriage and friendship. Marriage and friendship have taken different forms across history, but no one is fooled into thinking that they do not have a basic core quality. True friendship requires mutual good will and cooperation; without this quality, one does not have friendship. Marriage too has a core, fixed by our nature as sexually reproductive beings. To deviate from it is to miss a crucial part of this basic human good.

What is considered most basic to marriage–things like bodily union and connection to family life–are nearly universal in marriage practice. So marriage is partly constructed by the culture it is in, but it’s also constructed by our biology and the basic good of family life. This is not the same thing as saying that marriage is entirely constructed by society, as if biology and a connection to family could be ignored. Saying that some of the details of marriage can be determined by culture (British roya wedding vs a Navajo one) is totally different from saying that the basic foundations of marriage is subject to a vote. Marriage is marriage with the accompanying goods if these foundations are present, and is not marriage if they are absent.

Point two. The conjugal view has been developing for as long as humans have been around. Important philosophical and legal traditions have long distinguished friendships of all kinds from marriage. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and many others defended the conjugal view, even amid highly homoerotic cultures (e.g. Greeks and Romans). Plutarch affirmed that intercourse with an infertile spouse realizes the good of marriage, something other ancient thinkers took for granted even as they denied other sexual acts could do the same. To repeat, for hundreds of years, while infertility was no ground for declaring a marriage void, only intercourse between a man and a woman was recognized as consummating (or completing) a marriage.

Points three and four. If marriage were a fiction designed to promote a social function, there would be no natural right to marriage. If this view were true, it would be unjust not to recognize polyamorous couples (such as polygamy) as marriages. However both of these results are repugnant to most revisionists, and in fact are contradicted by their own arguments (that marriage can be anything we decide). Also, if (as I show in part 5) abolishing the conjugal view of marriage undermined the stability that makes marriage good for children, then traditional marriage law would promise great social usefulness.

The strong links between stable marriage and children’s welfare, and between children’s welfare and every dimension of the common good give the state strong reasons to recognize marriage. But more liberal critics are also mistaken to think of marriage as merely some tradition of our law and culture. It is a fundamental human good with a fixed core that we are equally wise to recognize and unable to reshape. Those that ask “what’s the harm if we did?” is what part five of this series will address.

                   Part Three                                                                      Part Five

What is Marriage? Part Three, Marriage Has Public Value

Marriage and the State

This and the following article will focus more on marriage’s relationship with the state. The conjugal view better describes what distinguishes marriage from other human goods, something that the revisionist view is helpless to do. Like friendship, marriage is a bond, but marriage is a bond of a special kind. We’ve discussed some of these differences in the previous two blog entries. Spouses vow their whole selves for their whole lives. This comprehensiveness puts the value of marriage in a class apart from the value of other relationships. Some say that marriage has no public value, and call for the state to get out of the marriage business altogether. Others say that marriage has no distinctive public value, and this being the case the state can remake the definition of marriage to fit whatever our preferences are. This article will deal primarily with the first fallacy, and the next article will deal with the second.

To the point that supposedly “marriage has no public value.” To recap a bit, the law does not set terms for friendships or allow us to sue over their neglect, and there are no civil ceremonies to forming friendships or legal obstacles to ending them. Why is marriage different? Because friendship does not affect the common good in ways that warrant legal recognition; marriage does. This is really the only way to account for the fact that virtually all cultures in the history of the world have regulated male-female sexual relationships. Only these relationships produce new human beings. Children need a long and delicate process of ongoing care and supervision, one to which men and women typically bring different strengths, and for which they are better suited the more closely related they are to their children.

Unless children mature they will never become healthy, upright, productive members of society. The fact is, the state of our entire civilization depends on healthy, upright, productive citizens. As nationally syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher puts it, “The critical public or ‘civil’ task of marriage is to regulate sexual relationships between men and women in order to reduce the likelihood that children will face the burdens of fatherlessness, and increase the likelihood that there will be a next generation that will be raised by their mothers and fathers in one family, where both parents are committed to each other and to their children.”

This is not just a conservative viewpoint either. David Blankenhorn, a liberal Democrat says that anthropologists and other experts all report a cluster of related facts:  “Humans are social; they live in groups. They strongly seek to reproduce themselves. They are sexually embodied. They carry out sexual reproduction. And they have devised an institution to bridge the sexual divide, facilitate group living, and carry out reproduction. All human societies have this institution. They call it ‘marriage.'”

Marriage is costly and fragile, so people tend to require social encouragement to get and stay married, namely a strong marriage culture. The late eminent sociologist James Q. Wilson wrote, “Marriage is a socially arranged solution for the problem of getting people to stay together and care for children that the mere desire for children, and the sex that makes children, does not solve.” The universal social need presented by relationships that can produce children explains why every society in history has recognized marriage. Marriage law sends a strong public message about what it takes to make a marriage–what marriage is. This affects people’s beliefs, and therefore their expectations and choices, about their own marriages.

The mutual influence of law and culture has been confirmed by the evidence from the effects of no-fault divorce laws. A no-fault divorce is a divorce in which the breaking up of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party. Douglas Allen and Maggie Gallagher did a review of all research since 1995 on no-fault divorce laws to see if they affected the divorce rate. They found that no-fault divorce did increase the divorce rate by at least 10% (one estimate has it at an 88% increase), but this wasn’t the only effect: as a result of the law, more couples have either delayed marriage or chose not to marry at all, and no-fault divorce has likely resulted in a permanent increase in divorce risk. The state’s influence on marriage is extensive.

Civil marriage is here to stay, attempting to abolish it would be practically impossible. Even if the word “marriage” was stricken from law the state will still license, and attach dues and benefits to, certain bonds. Abolish these forms of regulation and they will only be replaced by messier, retroactive regulation:  disputes over property, custody, visitation and child support. So the state can only decide if it will discharge these tasks either more or less efficiently, it can’t escape them. This is because the public functions of marriage–both to require and to empower parents (especially fathers) to care for their children and each other–require society-wide coordination. It’s inescapable. No private organization can regulate this, because they can bind only their own.

Remember, a major function of marriage law is to bind all third parties (schools, adoption agencies, summer camps, hospitals, friends, relatives, strangers, etc) to treat a man as father of his wife’s children, husbands and wives to certain privileges, sexually off-limits, etc. Only the state can regulate this with any consistency. In fact it’s best if the state does, which is proven by a simple example:  why don’t even extreme libertarians object to traffic laws? Because of the great trouble traffic laws prevent, and their universal acknowledgement is key to their being obeyed. This is a good comparison with civil marriage laws. Marriage is not just about private problems and rewards; at stake are rights, and costs and benefits for all society. Here is a link briefly summarizing the large amount of research documenting the benefits of marriage. Marriage benefits children, benefits spouses, helps create wealth, helps the poor especially, and checks state power. Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

First, marriage benefits children. The best available social science suggests that children tend to do best when reared by their married mother and father. Studies that control for other factors, including poverty and even genetics, suggest that children reared in intact homes do best in all of the following:  educational achievement, emotional health, familial and sexual development, and their overall behavior as a child and an adult (including rates of aggression, attention deficit disorder, delinquency and incarceration). According to a left-leaning institution, Child Trends, “Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage… It is not simply the presence of two parents…but that presence of two biological parents that seems to support children’s development.”

According to another study in the Journal of Marriage and Family, “the advantage of marriage appears to exist primarily when the child is the biological offspring of both parents.” Recent literature reviews by the Brookings Institution, Princeton University, the Center for Law and Social Policy and the Institute for American Values all corroborate these findings. Single-motherhood, cohabitation (“living together”), joint custody after divorce, and step-parenting have all been reliably studied, and the result is clear:  children tend to fare worse under every one of these alternatives to married biological parenting.

Note the link between marriage and children:  just as it provides a powerful reason to hold the conjugal view of marriage, it also provides the central reason to make marriage a matter of public concern. Virtually every Supreme Court case recognizing as fundamental the right to marry indicates as the basis for the conclusion “the first purpose of matrimony, by the laws of nature and society, is procreation.” In fact, “marriage exists as a protected legal institution primarily because of societal values associated with the propagation of the human race.”

Second, marriage tends to help spouses financially, emotionally, physically and socially. It’s not that people who are better off tend to marry, but that marriage makes people better off. Thus men, after their wedding, tend to spend more time at work, less time at bars, more time at religious gatherings, less time in jail, and more time with family according to the late U of Virginia sociologist Steven Nock. Marriage doesn’t just signal maturity, it can promote it. Permanently committed to the marriage relationship, husbands and wives gain emotional insurance against life’s temporary setbacks. They leave the sexual marketplace and escape its heightened risks. They enjoy the benefits of a sharpened sense of purpose, dedicated to their children and each other. Working more robustly, they reap more abundantly these fruits as well.

Third, the fact the marriage creates wealth is supported by a study by Professor Wilcox at U of Virginia who concluded, “The core message…is that the wealth of nations depends in no small part of the health of the family.”  This study suggests that marriage and fertility trends “play an underappreciated and important role in fostering long-term economic growth, the viability of the welfare state, the size and quality of the workforce, and the health of large sectors of the modern economy.” If anything interests the state, surely these things must; so too then, does marriage.

Fourth, given its economic benefits it is no surprise that the decline of marriage most hurts the least well-off. Kay Hymowitz argues in her book Marriage and Caste in America that the decline of marriage culture has hurt lower-income communities and African-Americans the most. It seems a leading factor of whether someone will know poverty or prosperity is whether she knew the love and security of her married mother and father growing up.

Finally, since a strong marriage culture is good for all these things, it also serves the cause of limited government. Where marriages break down or never form, the state expands due to lawsuits to determine paternity, visitation rights, child support and alimony. As absentee fathers and out-of-wedlock births become common, a train of social pathologies follows, and with it greater demand for policing and state-provided social services. Two sociologists studied marriage culture in the Scandinavian countries and showed that the further marriage culture declined, the more the size and scope of state power and spending grew. A study by the left-leaning Brookings Institution found $229 billion in welfare money from 1970 – 1996 that can be directly attributed to the breakdown of the marriage culture and the resulting increase in teen pregnancy, poverty, crime, drug abuse and health problems. A 2008 study found that divorce and unwed childbearing cost taxpayers $112 billion each year!

In spite of those that say marriage has no public value and the state should get out of the business of regulating marriage at all, privatizing marriage would be a catastrophe. Almost every human interest that might justify state action, such as health, security, educational development, and social order would also justify legally regulating marriage. So much for that argument.

                   Part Two                                                                                  Part Four