I was reading some of the posts and resulting blog conversations following the Institute for American Values’ Valentine’s Day Symposium on their New Conversation on marriage, when I noticed that many of the discussions were not new at all.
Today, I give my tongue-in-cheek contribution for your consideration, brought to you by jurist William Blackstone:
“By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture.
Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage. I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant any thing to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence; and to covenant with her, would be only to covenant with himself: and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage.
….
The husband (by the old law) might give his wife moderate correction. For, as he is to answer for her misbehavior, the law thought it reasonable to entrust him with this power of restraining her, by domestic chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his servants or children; for whom the master or parent is also liable in some cases to answer….
These are the chief legal effects of marriage during the coverture; upon which we may observe, that even the disabilities, which the wife lies under, are for the most part intended for her protection and benefit. So great a favorite is the female sex of the laws of England.”
To what extent should a married couple be considered one unit or one citizen?
Should a married couple get just one vote, or does each individual get their own vote?
What is the proper way for a husband to give his wife correction? Should he punish her exactly as he punishes his servants and children, or are more (or less) harsh measures necessary for her rehabilitation?
How might the diminishment of coverture in US law have led to a weakened marriage culture, a destabilization of society, and other social ills?
And finally, since coverture was “intended” to protect women as the “favorite” of English law, will men ever be able to overcome their long history of oppression at the hands of traditional marriage?
Okay, in all seriousness, I’ve been holding off sharing my thoughts about the IAV’s New Conversation on marriage. While I probably disagree with many signatories about the extent to which marriage can, should, or is a (or “the”) solution to a host of social problems, I do believe that the national conversation on same-sex marriage is oftentimes toxic, hurtful, and polarizing.
Even as I continue to support marriage equality, I am frustrated at the way mainstream LGBT organizations (which are largely dominated by gay men and, to a lesser extent, lesbians) seem to have a monomanic focus on marriage equality as though that’s the golden ticket to our full acceptance in society. To me, this focus parallels a conservative focus on marriage generally as a solution to many social problems, at the exclusion of contemplating issues at a more systematic, nuanced, and complex level.
Once marriage equality or a stronger marriage culture are achieved, I sometimes wonder where these well-funded liberal and conservative marriage movements will leave the more vulnerable and marginalized members of our community for whom marriage is not their most pressing issue, for whom marriage is not their “solution,” or who do not fit the model of Acceptable Real Family (in either its heteronormative or gay version).
LGBT people will continue to be marginalized, in ways less visible and obvious to the mainstream, after marriage equality is achieved, but marriage equality is largely perceived as being LGBT people’s Big Issue. So, when we “win,” will it no longer be convincing for LGBT people to claim that bigotry, harassment, or discrimination still exists- in the way that racism, to some, apparently no longer exists in the US because we have a black President? So, part of the New Conversation maybe involves some bridge-building, helped along with means of civility and understanding, where maybe the end goal isn’t to completely agree on everything, but to at least better understand one another.
Secondly, I am not sure at this point if discussing same-sex marriage is “off the table” in the IAV’s New Conversation. Jonathan Rauch suggested that the Institute is breaking new ground by being a pro-family organization “recognizing that gay marriage is here to stay as a permanent feature of the American family landscape.” Yet, from what I’ve seen so far, many posts about it seem to be a re-hashing of rather old conversations that existed prior to the same-sex marriage debate.
Heather MacDonald blames feminism. Maggie Gallagher tells us that “men and women are quite different.” Lawrence Mead favors restoring some of the stigma to divorce and unwed parenting.
These are not new arguments or discussions. They are also not accepted by many feminists as being true or convincing.
So, while Ron Haskins tells us “the pro-marriage argument is powerful and potentially persuasive to young adults,” a pro-marriage New Conversation comprised of these arguments, to many people (especially feminists and progressives) is going to appear as out of touch as re-considering the pros and cons of bringing coverture back.
Indeed, the New Conversation has barely made ripples in the feminist blogosphere, perhaps owing to, as feminist Jill Filipovic demonstrates, its appearance as a conservative, outdated, and simplistic approach.
Categories: Civil Society, Marriage
Your voice is much needed! You’ve given me much to ponder as usual.
Re: These are not new arguments or discussions. They are also not accepted by many feminists as being true or convincing.
Sigh. And clearly, if feminists don’t accept them as true and convincing, that must mean that they *aren’t* in fact true. Because it isn’t conceivable that feminists could just be, you know, wrong, and wildly out to lunch on their basic premises.
I think I’ve pointed this out before, but it’s amazing to me how many feminists seem completely oblivious to the fact that so much evidence exists to contradict their woldview. It never seems to occur to them that their ‘gender rolls are socially constructed’ fandango might just be, um, wrong. In the same way that the flat-earth hypothesis is just wrong.
Re: pushing back against outdated, inaccurate notions of gender, sex, and gender roles.
Count me on the side of those folks who is going to push back against the feminists, and do my best to defend the best of Christian civilization- including the concept of complementery gender roles, which is evident not only from moral philosophy but from evolution- against the assaults of its enemies.
Hector,
Perhaps it has occurred to some of them that they might be wrong. And then they examined their beliefs and decided that they weren’t wrong.
I don’t think that this (the way you are engaging) is a fair way to engage with people. First of all, feminists are not monolithic. Second, you seem to be dismissing them out of hand without considering their evidence. Finally, following your own advice, have you considered that what you believe “could just be, you know, wrong, and wildly out to lunch on… basic premises.” I’m sure you have, but so have most feminists in my experience.
Another problem with interacting this way (besides its being unjust and not-following-the-golden-rule) is that it’s unlikely that a feminist will actually engage you in a real argument if you start the conversation like this. If you’re really serious about what you believe, you should be trying to bring out the best arguments in the people you disagree with… not making them not want to engage you.
Thanks Amy!
Hector,
Now, if I believed that all of my premises were 100% true and that I had nothing to learn from those I disagree with, I wouldn’t be interested in participating in these conversations at all.
I agree with Schroeder, who notes that your snarky approach is not a fair response. You haven’t even addressed my post or engaged with it on any level. You’re responding to this caricatured version of “the feminists” that you seem to think I, and perhaps all feminists, are.
I have to ask, are you trying to bait people into responding to you? Are you interested in seriously engaging these issues? Are you trying to silence me and other feminists by mocking us with your suggestions that our conclusions are self-evidently wrong and akin to the “flat-earth hypothesis”?
I ask because it’s genuinely not clear to me what your intentions are with respect to your comment. Feel free to clarify.
In any case, it’s pretty uncalled for and really condescending. I don’t have all the answers, especially when it comes to gender roles (or even “rolls”), sexuality, and family formation. Yet you suggest that it’s you, actually, who has these answers and that you will fight against people like me (or what you think people like me believe and are like).
This is supposed to be a new conversation and one that, from my understanding, prioritizes civility- as opposed to the same old polarizing “culture wars” conversations that see “enemies” at every turn.
Are you up to the challenge, Hector?
Do you know what you don’t know, or do you have everything, and especially the wrongness of feminism, all figured out?
@Fannie – I don’t find Filipovic’s argument convincing, at least not all of it.
First, I don’t think we have to set up an either-or choice between strengthening marriage and the family and providing social services that support families. Strengthening marriage itself could reduce the need for social services. It’s not something that should be ignored.
One argument that pushes me towards strengthening the family is that most people actually want to have a good marriage that lasts a lifetime.
I think the argument that we should help all families is right, but maybe not the point. I don’t think I’ve seen things in the reports here that call for policies that would actually hurt single parent families – but let me know if I’m wrong. (An example of a policy hurting single parent families would be giving TANF grants only to married couples – in fact, states are allowed to give TANF grants only to single parents, if they don’t want to pay for couples. An example of an incentive to not marry would be counting the income of married step-fathers but not boyfriends who live with you when you set benefits.)
Another thing I question about her article is something I see people from all viewpoints doing over and over:
Talking about the new increase in children born outside of marriage in the middle classes in terms what we know poor women do.
Right now I guess the only comprehensive research we have on why women would choose to have children outside of marriage is Promises I Can Keep. That is a book based on women without education or any hope for the future.
The group of women who are becoming mothers without husbands now is different. They have some education, some hope. Why not wait? What are their reasons for not marrying?
I think this is a key question for researchers, actually. What has changed? How much of it is due to economics? What about economics has changed – lack of jobs with a future? Debt? Something else?
And are there non-economic factors?
Are the problems their children face as severe?
How would you change things for them? Would these mothers benefit more from TANF or a tax break? Do they lack equal pay (something Filpovic pushes for)? Do they need to get out of the service sector? Do they want more men with jobs? Who is choosing not to marry – men or women or both? What is it they don’t like about marriage?
I just want to add my voice here as another queer person who, though I am a believe in the personal, religious, and social value of marriage for those who wish to enter into that type of relationship (such as myself and my wife!), I also want to stand firmly by those within the queer community who voice concerns about the way this single issue has come to dominate the mainstream vision of what LGBT concerns are and what LGBT “equality” looks like. As radical as the gay marriage issue may feel to some (particularly those opposed to the inclusion of same-sex couples within marriage), it is actually seen as a relatively “bourgeois” concern by many — gay rights “light” perhaps? as it merely asks for inclusion within existing frameworks of power and privilege, rather than the dismantling of that hierarchy.
Of course, for many here at the Family Scholars Blog, I imagine this is seen as a positive, rather than negative, aspect of same-sex marriage as an agenda item: in many ways, it’s a conservative request, to be allowed INTO rather than to dismantle, the structure.
There are reasons that gay marriage is a better “sell” to mainstream America than some of the more challenging aspects of queer inclusion (combating prejudice against trans* people, for example, or tackling the question of homelessness among LGBT youth).
I am religious enough, historically-minded enough, (and possibly bourgeois enough!), and stubborn enough that I do not wish — like some feminists and queer activists do — to see marriage rites and rituals (and even laws) go the way of the wind, irredeemably corrupted by The Patriarchy and Heteronormative Oppression. I am fiercely committed to my neo-traditional family unit. But I am mindful that my comfort and pride should not win out at the expense of others who continue to be marginalized for their less orthodox loves and life choices.
I wish we could stop looking at issues from just the selfish “I’m right and you’re wrong” point of view. And I really wish people could stop wanting the government to enforce their personal or religious views of what’s right or wrong.
We need a framework that maximizes happiness or minimizes misery for everyone, I think. And we also need a framework that gives us some principles for what the government can and cannot do, should and shouldn’t do, with regard to moral/religious/personal beliefs.
What I really hate, though, is the construct that says, “I’m right, therefore the government should enforce my view on everyone.” Why can’t you be satisfied that you’re “right,” regardless of what the government says or does?
Diane,
When Filipovic says:
“The conservative argument for marriage has it exactly wrong. Marriage isn’t a ticket to wealth or stability or education. Rather, it’s wealth, stability, and education that make marriage a more reasonable possibility, and help sustain marriages for the long haul.”
I would agree with you that I don’t think the answer is an “either/or” dilemma.
And, I would argue that the reality is more complicated and the solution isn’t a cookie cutter one-size-fits-all solution. For some people, marriage is likely a stabilizing force, for others it’s likely that wealth and stability has made marriage a more reasonable possibility.
It seems that blogging and punditry sort of favors people who make their statements with Absolute Certainty behind them, but I hope part of these new conversations will involve admitting and acknowledging what we know and don’t know, or at least will do a better job of separating what is opinion from what is fact.
The problem of feminists purportedly never considering that we/they might be wrong (as Hector accuses), is not actually solely a feminist phenomenon (nor is it one that all feminists engage in). In my experience, it’s a pretty common approach engaged in by people of all political persuasions- certainly by many Christians and conservatives in the US!
I think, really, my hope here gets to some of David Blankenhorn’s recent posts on epistemology.
@fannie – “For some people, marriage is likely a stabilizing force, for others it’s likely that wealth and stability has made marriage a more reasonable possibility.”
I would say that in my case, marriage has been a stabilizing force, but that the stability we gained then made marriage easier to sustain. Anyhow, I think both factors can work in some people’s lives.
There’s also some kind of interaction with having kids. It probably pulls both ways, but having children can make people settle down and handle money differently – this might work differently if you are married or not. Of course, having children can also pull a couple apart from each other.
No kidding about blogging promoting definitive, even inflammatory statements. And there’s certainly people from all kinds of perspectives who don’t consider that they could be wrong.
It’s funny, but it reminds me of a recent up with Chris Hayes show with Gloria Steinem and Marlo Thomas talking about feminism and the movement back in the day. After awhile they added Melissa Haris-Perry to the panel and for the next hour she calmly and kindly punctured their self satisfied back patting with points about the feminist failure to reach or much impact poor and especially poor black women. And how feminism had to expand to address the needs of all women. She was so kind about it. Firm too, but not mean at all.
I hope Fannie can do the same here. Be firm and kind and absolutely committed. Because she is correct that people are going to be left behind when they shouldn’t be.
Not in the reports here, but in the pro-marriage movement generally, the main way of funding marriage programs has been by taking money from other programs to help poor people. In a very direct way, more marriage programs has meant that poor people – most of whom are single, many of whom have children – have less.
That’s not an inherent problem with the marriage movement; it’s just a problem with how they’ve funded their policy proposals so far. But it makes me hard to trust them entirely. I’m certain that hurting poor single people isn’t their goal, but it’s a means they’re willing to use to get to their ends.
@Barry – I agree, we need to get funds from someplace other than TANF.
Wait for what? The longer we wait, the smaller the pool of marriageable men. As a woman with some education, I’ve always thought that when it comes to love and marriage, I have far more in common with the women of “Promises I Can Keep” than I do with women with four-year degrees. Having “some” education doesn’t make you a marriageable woman—it puts you in a form of limbo, in that you have gotten your act together and are fighting for a better-than-minimum-wage life (and less indulgent of being with a partner who isn’t)…but you don’t have enough education to be seen as marriageable by a man with a four-year degree.
People who do marry in my demographic marry much younger. The women with the AA degrees have “waited” (mostly not consciously) and found much slimmer pickings available after getting their education and job. Which means that inevitably, you can’t afford to be too picky. And then when it comes down to the brass tacks—marriage—there’s a red flag that makes it more prudent to stay unmarried.
LaLubu – I find this very interesting “People who do marry in my demographic marry much younger. The women with the AA degrees have “waited” (mostly not consciously) and found much slimmer pickings available after getting their education and job.”
There’s been a lot of debate about women waiting to marry after establishing their professional careers and therefore not finding men. In practice, if everybody waits to marry, there are still men around. That seems to me to work for many people who go to four-year colleges, although many of them are in relationships before they finish their education, particularly if they go on past college.
Anyhow, I was thinking more about why not wait to have children. If having children earlier means you won’t finish your education and your job won’t be as good, it makes sense to wait. In Promises I Can Keep they talk about a study showing that for women without an education, having a baby early makes no difference to their lifetime earnings because they aren’t going to be able to get an education and a better job.
So I guess the question I have is as middle-class women are having more children without being married, how old are they when they have them?
I’m going to assume that by “middle-class” you actually mean “working class”. Anyway, there’s a growth in the number of women having children in their mid-to-late twenties without being married. If they “wait”, they won’t get a chance to have children. I don’t know how many times I have to keep saying this, but men with four year degrees don’t marry women without four-year degrees.
Is what you’re really asking “why don’t these women get a four-year degree to improve their marriageability?” or are you really asking “why won’t more of them consider being single and childless as a life path?” or are you asking “why won’t more of these women consider marrying a man with less education, fewer working hours/sparse employment, and just make a househusband out of him?” Because I really can’t understand why you think getting older makes a woman more marriageable in the eyes of men, when they are already struggling with finding a partner with the same “striver” qualities they have.
Re: men with four year degrees don’t marry women without four-year degrees.
I’m trying to interpret this, and having trouble even making sense of it. No evidence has been offered for the claim, of course, but that aside, it’s difficult to even know what you mean.
Does it mean that no college-educated men marry women without degrees? Of course it doesn’t, since there are plenty of well educated men who marry women without college degrees. (My best friend, to use just one example, has a master’s degree and his wife never graduated high school).
Does it mean that college educated men are more likely to marry women with college degrees, relative to their fraction of the population? The issue there is that a null model would predict that would happen just by chance: those are the people who they’re most likely to encounter in day to day life. I wouldn’t be averse to dating or marrying someone who never went to a four year college, but those women make up a relatively small fraction of the women I know, so it’s statistically somewhat unlikely.
Is the issue, then, that college educated men have a *preference* for marrying women who have been to college? That’s probably true, but you’re resting a lot on the universality of that claim, so it’s important to know how strong the preference is. If it’s only a small preference, then there should still be a decent chance for a woman without a four year degree to find an educated partner. In general, men don’t value education or income in their partners to the same degree as women do. (For obvious evolutionary reasons- women are looking for a good provider and for social status, men aren’t).
I’m sure you’re right and there is *some* preference among educated men for college educated partners (probably largely the result of class snobbery) but I doubt it’s a very strong one. Men date down educationally or socially all the time.
I think Diane and others, have repeatedly emphasized that good marriages have a great degree of common interests, goals, shared ideals, employment opportunities. In my opinion, similar educational backgrounds plays into the idea of all the preceding.
Since marriage for some decades now is a commitment among equals, it is understandable, at least to me, that college graduates would look for other college graduates as partners.
Also, in my own experience, some men seem to need women to be inferior in intelligence to feel manly. I certainly remember growing up, the motherly advice of play down your intelligence if you want your date to like you.
Hector,
“For obvious evolutionary reasons”
Oh, I see. La Lubu’s claims have to be backed up. But your conclusions and thoughts on gender are so “obvious” that you can just make assertions without providing supporting evidence.
Got it.
Re: La Lubu’s claims have to be backed up.
Yes, they do have to be backed up, because she’s the one making the more unusual claim, and the one that goes against what we would expect from evolutionary theory.
I’m not aware that ‘women look for good providers/protection/social status in a partner, men look for fertility/caregiving ability/beauty’ etc. is controversial enough to need proof.
Re: Also, in my own experience, some men seem to need women to be inferior in intelligence to feel manly. I certainly remember growing up, the motherly advice of play down your intelligence if you want your date to like you.
Yea, that’s very true as well. I would suspect that men generally prefer to be in relationships with women less intelligent/educated than them, though it’s not necessarily a strong preference.
Hector,
“Yes, they do have to be backed up, because she’s the one making the more unusual claim, and the one that goes against what we would expect from evolutionary theory.”
LOL. Now that’s an interesting rule you’ve concocted regarding who does and doesn’t have to back up one’s claims on Internet.
I realize we’re not in a court of law, but I’m imagining a scenario:
“Only my adversary has to provide evidence, your Honor. ‘We’ all just know that what I say is true!”
Well, you’ve as usual failed to convince me of anything, but thanks at least for the chuckle today, Hector.
@Hector StClare -
People who study marriage have found that most people marry someone with a similar class background and similar level of education.
I will back up LaLubu and say that I know many men with college degrees and they are married to women with college degrees. Men with even more education (doctors, lawyers, academics) tend to be married to women with more than a college degree.
I don’t think her claim is at all surprising. People have always tended to marry people from similar backgrounds.
“they do have to be backed up, because she’s the one making the more unusual claim, and the one that goes against what we would expect from evolutionary theory.”
This is one of the flaws with basing ideas about society on evolutionary theory. Sometimes you have to look at what is really out there. That trumps what you think should be out there.
A lot of theories connecting evolution and human society are very speculative. They can be argued against based on theories – but in the end, they are generally about how we think things should work or worked, not actual observations.
Nevertheless, I will offer some evolutionary arguments against your idea that “women look for good providers/protection/social status in a partner, men look for fertility/caregiving ability/beauty” and therefore men should be willing to marry women who aren’t as educated as they are.
First, part of caregiving ability is the woman’s social status and smarts. If you look at chimps the males prefer older females as mates. The theory is that the older females have more power and street smarts (except they’re actually in trees) and so their/your children are more likely to survive.
For human males, your mate’s ability to raise your children well is related to her social connections. We are very social animals. So it would actually make perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view for a man to look for social status in his mate.
In addition, in a hunter-gatherer society, as I’m sure you know, women provide a lot of the calories with the food they gather. Women are actually part of what will help you provide for your children. So it would make sense from a man to look for a woman who will be a good provider, too, not just a pretty face.
In our society, an educated wife is going to have more social capital for your children. She may help you in your career more. And, as Teresa says, you may find it gives you things in common – you might want to think pretty seriously about that.
(And for the second part of the theory, please remember that women need mates who are healthy, strong, and fertile, too.)
fannie, I would like to go back to another aspect of your column.
I think marriage will help LBGT rights somewhat, if it makes people more accepting of LBGT people as “normal.” However, I agree that it would probably not end all discrimination.
So what would be the ways to do more against discrimination and violence against LBGT people? What laws are lacking?
I’m older, so I tend to look out at the world and say, WOW, things are better than they used to be. I don’t want to push aside problems, but my general feeling is one of grateful amazement most of the time.
Anyhow, how would things look different if people weren’t pushing for marriage? Can more than one fight happen at once? Are there even possibly some things that people who disagree on marriage could agree about?
And if you don’t mind, could either you or annajcooke say more about the problem of homeless teenagers. That seems like a particularly difficult one to solve – sending them home may not be great and shelters for teens might not be welcoming. What should churches be doing? Can there be special shelters for LBGT kids?
Hector, your anecdote about your best friend with a masters degree marrying someone without a high school diploma is not proof that there is a norm for men marrying women with less education. Your friend is a statistical outlier. The norm is that men with college degrees marry women with college degrees. It is quite rare in the United States for an educated man to marry an uneducated woman (and yes—that is exactly how education is framed and spoken of).
This isn’t new. What is relatively new is that people without college educations have a very difficult time finding and keeping the type of employment that allows one to raise a family. Not just in terms of pay and benefits (the more obvious terms), but also in terms of stability of working hours and regular scheduling. The move from manufacturing to service work wasn’t just a move from good middle-class income to poverty income, but also a move from relatively family-friendly to family-hostile working terms.
@LaLubu – going back a bit in the thread, I’m using “middle class” to refer to the group the report here talks about. They have a high school education and may have some college, but not a four year degree. They are 60% of the population, so I think it’s fair to call them “middle class.”
Whatever you call people, there has been a change in terms of marriage and having kids after marriage.
When I was talking about waiting, I was thinking of waiting to have children. One of the things that is true about women with four-year degrees is that they marry later, but they also don’t have kids.
There are a lot of economic drawbacks to having children on your own or with someone who is not going to stay with you. So why not wait?
Diane asked about homeless LGBT youth; here is a story at Think Progress about the reasons LGBT youth are homeless, and make up 40 percent of the homeless youth population (hugely disproportionate numbers compared to the percentage of queer folk in the general population. The study they link to, out of the Williams Institute, can be read here in PDF form. Pages 13-14 offer conclusions and observations on what is needed. The final paragraph reads:
There are already organizations out there working specifically with LGBT youth. Church support, if queer friendly would obviously be a benefit, particularly for youth with religious backgrounds who seek to integrate their faith with their queerness. But such an approach would also need to be mindful of the abuse many LGBT children and youth have suffered at the hands of parents and others who claim to speak in the name of God. Religious institutions are, therefore, often justifiably regarded with suspicion within the LGBT population.
Diane M., the overwhelming majority of women with four-year degrees not only get married, they also have children. The media imagery is that these women are childless, but the statistics show them as mothers.
What I’m trying to say is that women without college degrees are positioned similarly to the women in “Promises I Can Keep” in that statistically, there is no advantage to them “waiting” to have children. Just like the women in “Promises I Can Keep”, the pool of marriageable men does not grow larger the longer one waits—it grows smaller. College-educated men and women have a marriageability pool that is much closer to 1:1. Those of us without college educations don’t—-and for the higher-earning blue collar men (police, firefighters, the mechanical trades, etc.) we are still competing against college-educated women (those guys have a preference for college-educated wives).
La Lubu,
College educated women have about 1-1.5 child on average, iirc, while non college educated women have 2.5 to 3. It’s quite correct that educated women are having *much* fewer children than other women, as well as fewer than they themselves would like.
Diane,
“So what would be the ways to do more against discrimination and violence against LBGT people? What laws are lacking?”
I think laws, such as anti-discrimination laws, can help, but I would argue that not all solution to these problems can be resolved by passing laws.
In an ideal world, groups that oppose homosexuality, LGBT rights, and same-sex marriage would tone down their rhetoric, as opposed to say, their not-uncommon approach of claiming to hold the absolute truth about the alleged immorality of homosexuality and, in some cases, suggesting that gay people or gay parents deserve to be put to death from a Biblical standpoint.
In the US, the First Amendment protects such speech, enabling anti-gay groups (and pro-gay groups, to be fair) to be rhetorically reckless. I don’t support censorship, but many LGBT people and allies, including me, believe that such rhetoric does lead to violence, discrimination, harassment, and other real-world harms to LGBT people. So, I support engaging in dialogue with such people, when it’s healthy and safe for LGBT people and allies to do so, because I think that can sometimes lead to understanding and, sometimes, changed minds.
For those who are not reasonable and who continue to be problematic, I support calling out speech as uncivil and hateful (where appropriate), and seeking to marginalize it, as opposed to coddling such speech as “just another point of view that must be respected.” I also think it’s fair to use boycotts and other means of non-violent resistance, as political strategies.
In addition to the issue of teen homelessness that Anna has addressed, members of the transgender community are disproportionately impacted by violence, homelessness, unemployment, and poverty. If you look at the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (2011), this report details the experiences of transgender people being discriminated and stigmatized in nearly every aspect of life- employment, housing, medical care, social services, and public accommodations- which poses a significant challenge in stabilizing their lives.
I don’t think there are easy answers to these problems, even though it seems like many people are looking for an answer like, “Just get married,” or “Just pass a law.” Individual and systemic solutions are needed to address many of these issues- such as programs to help people get housed and back on their feet, in addition to trainings that help people be more respectful of LGBT people (programs which, unfortunately, are often derided as PC Gone Awry!)
You know, it seems reasonable that people of good will could maybe agree that these problems should be addressed, despite any disagreements about marriage equality. But, I will also add that some conservative/anti-LGBT groups oppose, and oppose government funding for, programs that specifically serve LGBT populations that address some of these issues.
My point here is that a monomanic focus on marriage as a sort of panacea kind of elides how complicated reality is. Just as we need to move away from the cookie-cutter notions of marriage and family, we need to move away from cookie-cutter solutions.
Hector, I don’t know where you’re getting your statistics.
To all, the following link is extremely enlightening, from the WSJ of February 12, 2013:
Note the fertility rate for all of America:
Can a FS Blogger do a Post on this article? This speaks in every way to the New Conversation on Marriage.
Teresa,
Here’s a link to the GSS data.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/09/a-college-degree-as-contraceptive/
Women with less than a high school education have around 2.4 kids, women with graduate degrees have about 0.8.
Re: I will back up LaLubu and say that I know many men with college degrees and they are married to women with college degrees. Men with even more education (doctors, lawyers, academics) tend to be married to women with more than a college degree.
In the majority, yes. Though there are plenty of exceptions. I guess my criticisms of La Lubu’s point are that: 1) there are plenty of individual men who do marry ‘down’ educationally, even if the majority don’t, so it’s not impossible to find a more educated spouse 2) the preference for an educated partner is lower among men than among women, for evolutionary reasons, and 3) to the extent that men are preferring more educated partners, this is a *new* thing, not something natural, and I’d argue it’s the result of capitalist and feminist ideology.
As a normative matter, I’d have to say that I’m highly critical of men who are only looking to marry within their class, and I morally disapprove of them.
Hector,
Regarding your claim:
“I’m not aware that ‘women look for good providers/protection/social status in a partner, men look for fertility/caregiving ability/beauty’ etc. is controversial enough to need proof.”
Your mostly unsupported recitation of data and norms is not what I find to be controversial. What is hardly settled is your assumption that these phenomena can be explained by evolutionary theory/biology/psychology.
Like I said, reality is complex. It’s not difficult to come up with after-the-fact “theories” to explain phenomena and to then suggest that these theories are so “obvious” and self-evident that they don’t require proof or further elaboration, and that feminists who disagree with you are “completely oblivious” to your purported “reality.”
I strongly question whether your approach sheds much light on reality.
There’s an important distinction between feminists being “oblivious” to what you think is reality versus feminists disagreeing with you because we think reality is more complicated than some evolutionary theories.
I hope one day you can try to understand that, rather than being so dismissive of views that counter your own.
Going back to some of fannie’s earlier comments,
Perhaps, just as people are working together to support marriage without agreeing about same-sex marriage, people could work together to fight discrimination without agreeing about same-sex marriage.
And do you or annajcooke have any ideas on how churches could help?
fannie, you post is not “tongue in cheek”, it is an absolutely clear description of what – until a few decades ago – “traditional marriage” meant. Blackstone was not a reactionary; he was quite accurately describing what society and law saw as the proper form of marriage. Those who call themselves advocates of traditional marriage like to pretend this is no longer the case because it’s politically unpopular now to argue that the law should make wives subordinate to their husbands.
“Those who call themselves advocates of traditional marriage….”
I think it’s been noted before, and is perhaps taken as a given at this point, that those who oppose legal same-sex marriage use the word “traditional” as a rhetorical weapon, not as a word that describes their actual policy position.
It has a warm and fuzzy feel to it, and something has to fill the void left by the lack of a substantive argument.
Yeah, “traditional marriage” is one of those phrases like “PC gone too far” that, outside of insular groups who use these phrases, does not provide meaningful or accurate information to outsiders about what is actually meant by it.
Diane,
You ask what churches can do to help…. I think that really depends on the church, and I would really have to think about that for awhile.
In my involvement with agencies serving high numbers of LGBT people on issues like homelessness, discrimination, HIV, medical care, and other non-marriage-equality-related issues, these agencies have not tended to have significant ties to or partnerships with churches or religious groups in general. I’ve always gotten the sense that that’s largely due to some mutual mistrust stemming from: the way that LGBT rights and religious freedom are largely portrayed as being incompatible, some religious groups’ anti-gay advocacy and beliefs, and many LGBT people’s past negative experiences with religion.
I know that many LGBT people are Christian specifically, and religious more generally, and that some religious groups are affirming of LGBT people, but the people I know working on the front lines serving some of the most vulnerable LGBT people largely think that many religious groups are either irrelevant or a part of the problem.