Ampersand’s first post as a guest blogger on this site was a good one — welcome, Amp! — arguing that the decline of separate spheres ideology means the “justified end” of one of the two “strongest arguments against same-sex marriage.” We are about to hit the comments ceiling on that post, and since (to me, anyway) the discussion of “separate spheres” is a good one that perhaps could be profitably continued, I’m going to revise and post here a couple of my comments, so the conversation can continue, for whoever is interested.
Amp: I accept, now that you make it so clear, that you aren’t talking about what opponents of SSM hold to be important. That’s a good clarification for me.
But the whole point you are making here still seems almost entirely – beside the point. For three reasons:
No. 1, as we now agree, for those who oppose SSM, this issue means nothing.
No. 2, if we are in fact searching for those recent historical changes in the marriage institution that make it today more possible to consider SSM, I don’t think that “the decline of separate spheres ideology” would even makes the top ten. I think nearly everyone’s top ten list, for example, would include: the divorce revolution; the out-of-wedlock childbearing revolution; and the general shift in society’s understanding of marriage, from a structured institution with defined public purposes to the name that we give to privately ordered love relationships.
In all of this, the decline of 1950s-style separate spheres is not much more than a footnote, at best, in my view. (Of course, from a purely polemical point of view, it’s much better for SSM advocates to single out and give exaggerated attention the decline of old-fashioned separate spheres ideology, which nearly everyone today (including those who oppose SSM) views as basically a good or at least benign development, while ignoring or de-emphasizing those other, much more causally important historical factors, which, it turns out, are much more ethically problematic and currently controversial, particularly as regards their now widely acknowledged hamful impact on children.)
No. 3, it seems to me that all this talk from SSM advocates regarding the decline of separate spheres, in today’s context of debating SSM, is at bottom just a fancy and not very clarifying way of alleging that men and women today are less different than they used to be. I promise, Barry, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, but honestly, wouldn’t it be better just to cut through all the thick sociologese and say: “Gay marriage makes sense today because men and women are less differen than they used to be”? For it seems to me that that’s really the point that you and others are making. And it’s a true enough point, in as far as it goes.
But it’s point to which I’d reply (if you’ll accept this reformulation of your thesis as non-hostile): — Yes, that is likely true. Men and women are less different today than they used to be. Yet: — The sex difference is “less important than it used to be” in pretty much the same sense that the weather is “less important than it used to be.” After all, if you were living in a sod hut in western Kansas in the 1870s, the weather was a pretty damn big deal! It could and often did mean life or death. Whereas in Russell, Kansas, today, the weather doesn’t weigh quite as heavily on one’s daily life and on one’s prospects for survival.
So, “weather is not as important as it used to be.” Of course, that’s not quite the same as implying that “weather doesn’t matter any more” or that “there is no reason for people in western Kansas to know or care what season it is.” That would certainly be taking the point to a rediculous extreme. And that’s why (to conclude the analogy), yes, men and women are less different in some respects than they used to be; but no, that does NOT mean that it doesn’t matter any more whether one is a man or a woman, or a husband or a wife, or a mother or a father.
So I am still scratching my head, wondering why I keep hearing so much historical esoterica about “the decline of separate spheres ideology,” since as best as I can determine, it has next to nothing to do with the actual core issues within the SSM debate.
P.S. Sorry, one more clarification. When I first said that I thought that this was basically a non-issue, your replied in your comment:
I wasn’t talking about what current opponents of SSM believe. I was talking about historic changes that had to occur in society before SSM could even be seriously discussed. One of those changes was the end (or at least, vast reduction) of separate spheres ideology. Obviously, most or all of that happened well before you started debating about SSM. So I’m not talking about the views that you, or other current-day SSM opponents, hold.
Well, all that may be, but you say in the very title of your post that separate spheres, in your view, is one of the two “strongest arguments against same-sex marriage.” But that can’t really be what you mean, can it?
How can it be accurate for an advocate of SSM to call X one the “strongest” arguments against SSM when, as we now seem to agree, the people who actually oppose SSM not only don’t view it as one of their “strongest” arguments, they don’t even view it as one of their arguments?