For all you sports people, you know that we’re in between two major sporting events right now: The Australian Open and The Super Bowl. Both sports are complex- rich with strategy and tactical possibilities. To fully appreciate them you have to know their rules. And it can take years to learn and understand all of the rules. I am a die-hard tennis fan and I still have to explain to my own wife why tennis players get 15 points instead of 1, and as a European I’m meek to admit I still don’t fully understand American football. But what I do understand is that in the world of sports, rules are important. They’re important because they establish what is fair and when everybody knows the rules there is equal opportunity for all athletes to adjust their strategy, and win. But also, rules protect and promote the unique beauty of the sport- just as spelling and grammar rules protect and promote a language.
Try to tell a hardcore tennis fan that if a ball only catches a small part of the line it should be called out. Or try to crash a Superbowl party and tell the football fanatical attendees that fumbles aren’t fouls- a ball should count as a touchdown as long as the player that tries to catch it manages to grip it at all. Likely, these fans would be offended. Because you would be insulting the history, tradition, and sacred culture of their beloved sport- disrespecting the athletes and fans that carry its torch and cherish it.
Sports without clear rules are merely leisure activities.
Without a publicly accepted framework, Sunday’s Superbowl wouldn’t have its massive audience. I doubt that over 100 million Americans would watch 22 big guys randomly elbow jabbing each other for a ball for 3 hours if it were merely a recreational activity- a game all about a healthy dose of cardio and love for catching and throwing.
When I view marriage today I see an unraveling framework. Marriage has just as many definitions as there are couples in love. For many of my friends and acquaintances, I observe that they don’t care about marriage at all. I listen to my unmarried friends, who dismiss marriage as ‘just a piece of paper’ in the context of their own relationships, yet advocate ferociously for the right of same sex couples to marry. It’s difficult to square. Marriage is becoming a totally private matter for which people are making up their own rules. It is becoming purely recreational.
The other week I met a guy at my local watering hole and we started talking. He has been married for almost 10 years, which positively surprised me since we live in a fairly poor neighborhood with a lot of broken homes. I thought, Nice- a marriage fan, feeling the same way I feel when I meet a tennis enthusiast. We talked about our families back and forth for a while when he suddenly said “You know, a marriage always go up and down but sometimes all you need is a girlfriend to spice things up”. He then began to express how he and his wife separate sex from the love they have and that they sometimes are open with each other about having affairs on the side. The spell was broken. It was like finding out that he played tennis with 5 serves and 4 balls at the same time. To me, that is not tennis. This man criminally disrespected the rules of the sport.
In networks that strongly guard marriage as an institution of profound importance, indeed as a sacrament, there are priests and guardians acting as umpires to make sure that people know and embrace the rules, often before they ever start playing. There are communities full of linesmen, quick to declare faults if we recklessly play outside the court. Today, with marriage turning into a recreational activity, where anyone can make up their own rules, we are losing fans by the minute.
Every member of the winning team for this years Super Bowl will go home with a very special ring- a symbol of their virtues and ability to play by the rules to their fullest potential. You can’t buy the honor in a Super Bowl ring, you have to earn it through your actions.
So it should be for every man or woman’s wedding ring.
If we want marriage to flourish again we need to treat it like a formal sport- with clear rules, guarded by dedicated stewards.
Categories: Civil Society, Dating, Mating, Hooking Up, General, Marriage
Your analogy falls apart in that it recognizes that there are different rules for different sports, with the participants in any given sport (whether athletes, former athletes, coaches, umpires/officials, administrators, or spectators) all there voluntarily…..but you want marriage to have only One Form, with the same rules for everyone, everywhere, and not necessarily with voluntary participation. If it is wrong for marriage to adapt to the needs of the people in it, then it is also wrong for multiple sports to exist, no? All that is necessary is One Big Sport.
Your analogy is wonderful and is a great example of a young man engaging in deep thinking about marriage, using the metaphor he knows well and that resonates with him and his peers.
So, who sets the rules? Who are the referees/endorcers?
I’m not much of a sports person, but I am interested in the idea that society should set some rules for marriage.
My first thought is that one of the reasons people don’t like this idea is that there were problems with some of the rules for marriage in our recent past. The old model of marriage had men in charge and controlling the money. Women who wanted to work outside the home were criticized. Men weren’t supposed to have to help with housework or children when they got home. Housewives were often belittled or patronized. Women couldn’t leave really bad situations because they were financially dependent on men.
One reason we had so many divorces in the 1970s was that women wanted to change the rules to make them more fair, but many husbands did not change fast enough. (There were other reasons, too, but this was one factor.)
Another factor that I think makes it hard to talk about rules and marriage is that marriage has been something that states control, not the federal government. This is generally a good thing. However, it means that the rules for marriage can be very different depending on where you live. In effect, you can enter into a contract in one place and be obliged to follow the rules of another state if your partner wants to end the contract. This is a huge issue for same sex couples right now.
In any case, it makes it harder to think of marriage as having a set of rules that we all agree to. For example, in many states, property acquired after the marriage is owned by both partners equally. That makes a difference in how you think about marriage.
States also differ in their laws on grounds for divorce, what kind of alimony to grant, who gets custody, etc.
Cohabiting couples actually face a similar issue – every state has different rules that might affect them.
Switching to the case for setting rules:
The truth is that society does set rules for marriage. The government has a few limits on who you can marry, but in general, it won’t get involved in your personal life unless you break up. Then the rules come into play.
The rules for marriage in our current system allow anyone to get a divorce if they want it, whether or not the other person wants one or is “at fault.” The rules determine who gets custody of the children and set rules for visitation and support. The rules determine who gets what property and if there will be spousal support or not.
The rules are set by state governments and the referees or enforcers are the divorce courts.
“Every member of the winning team for this years Super Bowl will go home with a very special ring….”
And every team member with a ring will also be a man
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
On a more serious note, I do agree with La Lubu’s sentiment that maybe it’s okay for marriage to adapt to new contexts and purposes. I am an athlete and a sports fan (and a Super Bowl watcher!), and I think you present kind of a romanticized picture of football much the way that some “marriage defenders” present a romanticized picture of “traditional marriage” that elides the way the institution has, for some people in some places at some times, been problematic and oppressive.
For instance, you reference the “unique beauty” of football, but missing from your portrait are its harms- concussions, brain damage, suicides, the glorification of aggression, and young men with the damaged bodies of elderly men brought about by the physical toll the sport takes on many of its athletes.
The creation of new rules, rules that make the sport (and by analogy, marriage) better, more adaptive, and more responsive to the health and well-being of those who engage in it, does not mean that we have to abandon all rules altogether.
I’m also still trying to better understand the impulse some people have to suggest that marriage must mean the same thing, with all the same rules, for all people (with those rules being defined by a small subset of Deciders or “referees”). The competing interests seem to be the notion that it devalues some people’s marriage when some people have different rules for their marriages versus the notion that Universal Rules For Marriage exclude some (many? most?) people.
Contra Elizabeth Marquardt, this is neither an example of deep thinking nor a very good analogy. In fact, it reeks of a high school-level assignment to use analogous rhetoric.
The elephant in the room, of course, is why would one allow RNewman to create the rules for one’s marriage? Or the Roman Catholic Church? Or anyone else? Forgive me, the usual suspects who would volunteer to be the enforcers are so corrupt that no one in their right mind would cede any authority to them.
Once again with a feeling: rules are created by human beings, to serve human beings—whether on the tennis court, gridiron, or marriage. The notion that because any given couple isn’t adhering to rules set by another person, couple, or institutional body that they themselves are not personally affiliated with, that they therefore must have no rules of their own, or worse, are against rules on principle, is mistaken.
Who sets the rules, indeed.
@LaLubu – “The notion that because any given couple isn’t adhering to rules set by another person, couple, or institutional body that they themselves are not personally affiliated with, that they therefore must have no rules of their own, or worse, are against rules on principle, is mistaken.”
That’s true. But when the government gets involved in a divorce, they go by the rules that society has set up for what they think is fair.
There are other rules that society sets up based on what we think is fair – things like you can visit in a hospital, you have the right to make medical decisions for your spouse if they are unable to, you can inherit money if they don’t leave a will, or you can get Social Security benefits related to them.
I would argue also that to the extent that the government and society give benefits and rights to married couples, government/society then has a right to make some of the rules.
I think there are some pretty simple ideas, and rules, for encouraging marriages that last a lifetime.
1. Maggie Gallagher wrote a marvelous article several years ago about the research that shows all the benefits of marriage. It was called, “Why Marriage is Good for You,” and here’s a link:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_4_why_marriage_is.html
Although is strikes me as bizarre that she is simultaneously aware of all these very tangible benefits, but insists gay and lesbian people be denied access to them, as well as their children, the article would be useful for all adults to read. It would make marriage seem very desirable. I marriage really does make you healthier and wealthier, why wouldn’t you want to marry?!
2. One to a customer: you get one marriage per lifetime. You can get divorced, but you can’t get remarried (sorry, Rush!). That would make people try harder to work things out. Although it might be cruel to stop someone who has divorced (widows and widowers may remarry) from remarrying, it seems no less cruel than denying gay and lesbian couples official sanction for their relationships. At least you got once chance to marry!
I am a big believer of Liberty and Freedom. While I would never have the type of marriage described it is really none of my business what “rules” other couples operate under. There is a difference between my moral disapproval of the behavior of others, and my forcing my morals onto them via Civil Law. I highly highly value Liberty and Freedom and I am not willing to make up Civil Marriage Rules that everyone is required to live under.
I picked Illinois since it is in the middle of the country. Here is there Marriage Laws, and they seem just fine to me.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=075000050HPt%2E+I&ActID=2086&ChapterID=59&SeqStart=100000&SeqEnd=900000
I think it’s a pretty decent analogy.
In both marriage and the NFL’s case, we have lots of people who are claiming that the sky will fall and the thing will cease to be recognizably itself if the rules are ever changed.
And in both marriage and the NFL’s case, it’s an undeniable fact that the rules have changed lots of times, without destroying the game.
In fact, it takes almost no time at all, after a rule change is accepted, for most folks to forget that it had ever been different.
The biggest argument over marriage law in British history isn’t the current fight over SSM; it’s the historic fight over whether or not a widower could legally marry the sister of his deceased wife. They argued about this, with passion, in the legislature year after year, decade after decade. People got into fistfights over it; families were split; friendships ended.
Some folks back then claimed that if this one rule changed, that would be the end of marriage, for its heart would have been ripped out forever. But nowadays, no one thinks back on widowers marrying the sister of a late wife and says “yeah, marriage hasn’t meant a thing since then.”
For the most part, people are amazed and bewildered that this was once such a huge fight.
Which is how people will think back on the fight for legal same-sex marriage in fifty years.
(P.S. I’m ignoring, for the purpose of argument, that football is a horrible, brutal game in which disproportionately black and of lower-income-background players smash their heads over and over again, taking a risk of permanent, hideous brain damage so that wealthy team owners can become even wealthier. Those players think they’re getting rich, too, but because they’re completely unprepared to manage money, many will be broke just a few years after the end of their professional working lives as NFL players. Frankly, if football – along with boxing – were eliminated entirely tomorrow, the world would be better for it. I realize that sport fan communities add value to society, but I’m sure fans could form new communities around other sports. Such as soccer, aka “real football.”)
I don’t agree with your friends that “it’s just a piece of paper.” But logically, their position is not difficult to square. They believe in equality of access, regardless of if the institution being accessed is one they personally want to be part of.
Back when Jews were routinely excluded from country clubs, someone could quite sensibly say “I think those clubs are ridiculous, and they shouldn’t be excluding Jews.” Just because I think a club is ridiculous doesn’t mean that the principle of equal treatment shouldn’t apply to it.
RE another analogy with Barry’s reminder of the bitter “historic fight over whether or not a widower could legally marry the sister of his deceased wife”: in that debate both sides routinely cited the Bible to buttress their position.
In fact, there is a biblical passage, the exact one I can’t remember but perhaps the more biblically informed among us can find it, that explicitly commands a single man to marry the widow of his deceased brother’s wife.
And on and on with one biblical injunction trumping another.
Billy,
You’re thinking of Deuteronomy 25:5:
Marriage is becoming a totally private matter for which people are making up their own rules. It is becoming purely recreational.
On what do you base this belief, other than a single friend wanting an open marriage and other friends living together without marrying? This is 2013. Open marriages and “shacking up” were not invented yesterday, or even a year ago.
It’s also dishonest in that it ignores that we do have referees enforcing strict rules for marriage. In the developing world, these referees are called “laws”.
Mythago,
Yes, but the legal requirements surrounding marriage are pretty lax. It’s certainly not illegal to have an open marriage of the kind that the guy in the post has.
Hector, I am GLAD the legal rules surrounding Civil MRriage are pretty lax. Whereas you use the word “lax” I would say that citizens are enjoying personal Liberty and Freedom.
Barry, you are a wealth of information and always deeply add to the discussion. I have learned a lot from you. As a matter of fact I really should create a file and copy some of your comments into a file. The other day when we were discussing the point of (if) only a small percentage of sexual minorities actually participate in Civil Marriage when permitted, is it worth it to change laws for this “tiny minority”. Your comment about the suffragette movement and how after women were granted the right to vote how initially so few of them did.
You really deeply add to the conversation, and you are able to communicate in a way that we all would agree is most, “Civil”. Often times it is hard to maintain that certain “air” politeness when passions run deep. You consistently are able to do that and are a voice for those who have been banned, have been silenced.
Hector, laxity is in the eye of the beholder. The law may be much stricter about such things as the minimum age for marriage, for example, than many religious authorities are.
Thank you, Shroeder, for finding the appropriate Biblical citation. I hope that my point is clear that relying on the Bible for “rules” about marriage often leads to pretty bizarre results. Thanks to Barry to pointing out the bitter 19th-century battle over marriage rules.
I was under the impression that the post was referring less to formal rules (laws) and more to a greater cohesion on informal (not legally-enforceable) rules. Rnewman appears to be chafing under the way a pluralistic society manages rule-making.
At last, a chance to talk about something I care deeply about: tennis!
Seriously, the analogy seems to me misbegotten in that sports are deliberately created as simple, clear escapes and distractions from real life, in all its messy complexities. I love the fact that tennis has to take place in a rectangle (I don’t even like doubles — smaller rectangles, please!), where almost everything is clear;especially, perhaps the winner and the, um, runner-up. Yet even there, we change the rules when better alternatives come along. Thus, the human calling of the lines has been replaced, at the top level of the game at least, by technology that can get the answer right to within one mm. Similarly, what if we found out (empirically) that at least some marriages did better, in the long run, when there was some “breathing room” for dalliances? What should we do with the violation of the fidelity rule in such a case?
Stated differently, is the normative judgment that infidelity is always wrong meant to stand on its own footing, or is it in service of a better “result” (however defined)? And if it’s meant to stand on its own, then why is it different from other “rules” that we now see, with hindsight, were anachronistic? (Husbands could legally rape their wives; women disappeared as legal persons when they married, and so on). Maybe to RNewman, these changes would make the “sport” not “tennis” either.
I’m not saying that the fidelity norm isn’t important. In fact, I participated in one of those “Room for Debate” things in the NY Times where I argued that, for many, it IS important (perhaps essential). But I don’t see any argument for that position here. And dragging in priests and sacraments sure doesn’t help this reader.
Thank you all for your comments. I was aware of the risk of getting stuck in the old apple vs orange, let’s dissect fruits-discussion, when making an analogy like this.
To clarify my point – sports have a framework that is universally understood and largely accepted. What I’m interested in is what marriage is becoming when it’s defined differently by everyone and when many just think it’s a romantic relationship that comes with a piece of paper and a tax cut. I think we need a more helpful, largely understood, definition of marriage for it to be attractive for people in general.
If marriage, for example, isn’t seen as a way of regulating sexuality of men and women to prevent us from hurting each other and/or our children, and to connect mothers and fathers to their children – why would I recommend it to my daughter when she becomes older?
So feel free to chip in on the million dollar question – what should a marriage be about?
First, let’s be clear: “everyone” doesn’t have their own personal definition of what marriage is. They have their own personal idea of the characteristics they regard as necessary and/or desireable in any marriage they would enter, as well as characteristics they would regard as dealbreakers. Beyond the legal requirements for marriage, what people regard as a “proper” marriage (broadly speaking) isn’t really idiosyncratic—it follows along with other group identifiers.
Rickard, you seem to place a great deal of faith in authority, and in the authority of the institution of marriage to shape a person’s behavior above and beyond what an individual person would choose for him- or herself absent that institution.
I hold no such faith. At all. You mention marriage as a means of creating parental bonds. That just floors me—I couldn’t imagine having a parental bond so weak that without some form of outside authority it would fall apart. I remain unmarried, yet totally committed as a parent. I have no faith that marriage makes an uncommitted parent a committed one (“got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack….” are lyrics for a reason).
I don’t know what you mean by regulating sexual behavior. Not being catty or cagey here; I really do not understand. I think most people regulate their sexual behavior just fine; the few that do not (objective definition: cannot manage their own life effectively and/or have significant difficulty meeting basic life needs because of their sexual issues) have issues far beyond the sexual that need addressing.
Going back to the sports metaphor, I think I want my religious community to act as a coach, not a referee or umpire. I’d rather have guidance on how to make a successful marriage with encouragement along the way. Then applying time outs and penalties could be left up to the government when needed.
(The sports metaphor falls apart a little because marriage isn’t supposed to be a competition.)
In terms of the situation the blogger talks about, I think it’s appropriate for churches or faith communities to say either 1) we don’t think allowing each other to have affairs works well in marriage or 2) we think it is wrong to do this.
I don’t want referees or umpires running around imposing penalties on couples who choose to not be faithful, but I think there is a value to having a common understanding that marriage should be monogamous. It’s easier if we don’t all have to start from scratch figuring out how to do marriage.
It also takes some pressure off of couples who want monogamy. Jealousy and the desire for a monogamous partner are part of human nature. I worry that young people will feel pressured to go along with things they don’t like. A common social understanding can help people say no to unreasonable demands by a partner. Non-monogamy has the potential to cause a lot of pain and suffering.