Freedom to Marry
Saturday February 17, 2007
See also: Loving v. Virginia (1967)
From February 11th through today, the National Organization for Women (NOW) has celebrated Freedom to Marry Week. The focus of NOW's marriage equality activism this year is on same-sex marriage, but this is only the most recent step in a very long and frustratingly slow movement to acknowledge marriage as a basic civil right.
This concept of marriage as a civil right would have been unthinkable until the relatively recent past, and it is still unthinkable for many people today. Feminist writer Emma Goldman's sardonic description of marriage, from 1917, was meant to be radical at the time but would have probably been accepted at face value by most intellectuals had it been written a century or two earlier:
This is not to say that marriage has never been about love, and there are tales of loving marriages that stretch back as far as the Book of Ruth. But generally speaking, marriage has served a more pragmatic purpose than that: It allows a man to work without having to concern himself with household matters or the raising of offspring, and it allows a woman to keep a household and raise offspring without having to worry about her or her children's financial security. It should come as no surprise that, as women achieve more social power, the concept of marriage is changing.
When the blushing bride and dashing groom are both too wealthy or too powerful to worry about economic survival or basic household needs, marriage serves as a means of establishing a connection between powerful families and producing suitable heirs to institutional family power.
On December 10th, 1936, King Edward VIII abdicated the British throne so that he could marry Wallis Simpson, a divorced American. By contemporary standards, this might be seen as a "traditional marriage"--but in 1936, it was an outrageous scandal. The fact that they were one man and one woman of the same race was meaningless. What mattered was that he was heir to the throne of England, and he wanted to marry a divorced commoner. This defeated the entire social purpose of getting married, if one was a king. It made no sense.
This concept of marriage as a caste-preserving institution has never been limited to the idle rich. As long as we're waxing biblical, let's look at a verse that doesn't get much airplay. I'm talking about the Book of Numbers, chapter 12, verse 1:
The Loving ruling is significant because it put an end to laws banning interracial marriage, but in so doing it also fundamentally changed the way the Court sees marriage. Take a look at the ruling's conclusion, for example:
People ridicule the free love movement of the sixties, and with good reason, but at its core was a valid question: Is marriage worth having anymore? If marriage is about ownership--about my power over a woman, and a woman's decision to "graciously submit" to me--do I really want it? If marriage is about preserving a social caste system that I believe is fundamentally evil, do I really want it? If marriage is about rewarding monogamous heterosexuals and punishing everybody else, do I really want it? Is "traditional marriage"--with its oppression of women and its abject submission to the social caste system--still viable for every couple today?
These are valid questions. When Loving reflected the principle we have come to accept, namely that marriage is a fundamental right, it concretized a new definition of marriage--one that not only logically demands that same-sex marriage be legalized but also one that grants validity to Edward VIII's decision to abdicate the throne.
If marriage is ultimately a choice, if it is no longer strictly necessary, then there is absolutely nothing that can be done to "protect" it. It will either survive, or not survive, on its own merits. If sexism, archaism, and bigotry make it an unappealing choice, then it will fade from history--and rightly so. "Protecting" marriage, by using it as a means of enforcing old prejudices, is probably the most effective way to destroy it.
The Supreme Court on the Right to Marry:Same-Sex Marriage and the Future of Marriage:
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This concept of marriage as a civil right would have been unthinkable until the relatively recent past, and it is still unthinkable for many people today. Feminist writer Emma Goldman's sardonic description of marriage, from 1917, was meant to be radical at the time but would have probably been accepted at face value by most intellectuals had it been written a century or two earlier:
Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. It differs from the ordinary life insurance agreement only in that it is more binding, more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly small compared with the investments.When socially conservative pundits talk about how society as we know it has been built on the institution of traditional marriage, they are technically telling the truth. It has been, and for thousands of years. Look, for example, at the biblical Book of Ruth and you will find a story centering on marriage that is not a story of love, but rather a story of economic survival. Ruth knew that, as a widow, she would condemn both herself and her mother-in-law Naomi to a life of poverty if she did not find a new husband. When she found a new potential husband, Boaz, his wealth and his kindness were praised but there was no suggestion of any particularly deep relationship between the two. The Book of Ruth's great statement of love and fidelity that is so often quoted at weddings--"whither thou goest I will go, and whither thou lodgest I will lodge" (1:16)--is actually spoken by Ruth to Naomi, not to Boaz. It has nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with compassion and solidarity.
In taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however, woman's premium is her husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, "until death doth part."
Moreover, the marriage insurance condemns her to life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness, individual as well as social. Man, too, pays his toll, but as his sphere is wider, marriage does not limit him as much as woman. He feels his chains more in an economic sense.
This is not to say that marriage has never been about love, and there are tales of loving marriages that stretch back as far as the Book of Ruth. But generally speaking, marriage has served a more pragmatic purpose than that: It allows a man to work without having to concern himself with household matters or the raising of offspring, and it allows a woman to keep a household and raise offspring without having to worry about her or her children's financial security. It should come as no surprise that, as women achieve more social power, the concept of marriage is changing.
When the blushing bride and dashing groom are both too wealthy or too powerful to worry about economic survival or basic household needs, marriage serves as a means of establishing a connection between powerful families and producing suitable heirs to institutional family power.
On December 10th, 1936, King Edward VIII abdicated the British throne so that he could marry Wallis Simpson, a divorced American. By contemporary standards, this might be seen as a "traditional marriage"--but in 1936, it was an outrageous scandal. The fact that they were one man and one woman of the same race was meaningless. What mattered was that he was heir to the throne of England, and he wanted to marry a divorced commoner. This defeated the entire social purpose of getting married, if one was a king. It made no sense.
This concept of marriage as a caste-preserving institution has never been limited to the idle rich. As long as we're waxing biblical, let's look at a verse that doesn't get much airplay. I'm talking about the Book of Numbers, chapter 12, verse 1:
And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.In verse 12:8, "the anger of the Lord is kindled against [Miriam and Aaron]" for their objection to what was at the time a socially unacceptable marriage between a black African and an Egyptian-born Jew. Thousands of years later, in Pace v. Alabama (1883), the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold the State of Alabama's right to impose that objection. The ruling would stand for 84 years, until it was finally overturned in Loving v. Virginia (1967).
The Loving ruling is significant because it put an end to laws banning interracial marriage, but in so doing it also fundamentally changed the way the Court sees marriage. Take a look at the ruling's conclusion, for example:
The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.Before Loving, marriage was a social institution. Now it is a fundamental right. The Loving ruling itself was of course not the reason for this change--it only reflected a far slower, more gradual change in societal priorities--but it set out a future-oriented definition of marriage, one we're still working to actualize.
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival ... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
People ridicule the free love movement of the sixties, and with good reason, but at its core was a valid question: Is marriage worth having anymore? If marriage is about ownership--about my power over a woman, and a woman's decision to "graciously submit" to me--do I really want it? If marriage is about preserving a social caste system that I believe is fundamentally evil, do I really want it? If marriage is about rewarding monogamous heterosexuals and punishing everybody else, do I really want it? Is "traditional marriage"--with its oppression of women and its abject submission to the social caste system--still viable for every couple today?
These are valid questions. When Loving reflected the principle we have come to accept, namely that marriage is a fundamental right, it concretized a new definition of marriage--one that not only logically demands that same-sex marriage be legalized but also one that grants validity to Edward VIII's decision to abdicate the throne.
If marriage is ultimately a choice, if it is no longer strictly necessary, then there is absolutely nothing that can be done to "protect" it. It will either survive, or not survive, on its own merits. If sexism, archaism, and bigotry make it an unappealing choice, then it will fade from history--and rightly so. "Protecting" marriage, by using it as a means of enforcing old prejudices, is probably the most effective way to destroy it.
The Supreme Court on the Right to Marry:Same-Sex Marriage and the Future of Marriage:
Comments
It perplexes me why organizations such as NOW — whose mission I perhaps misunderstand as being for all women — take up a marginal cause such as this. Don’t get me wrong: I believe gay marriage should be legal. But I don’t understand why an organization dedicated to gay marriage isn’t in the forefront. There are enough issues that affect all women for NOW to concern itself with rather than expend limited resources on this. That is why I am haven’t renewed my NOW membership.
(Full disclosure: Although I’m not speaking in any official capacity here, I do happen to be a NOW officer.)
NOW has always had an extremely broad mandate. When it was originally founded, its platform included antiracism, disability rights, and economic justice. Those are not issues that people think of as feminist issues, as narrowly defined, but in effect they basically are. The social caste system that perpetuates racism and discrimination against people with disabilities is very much grounded in a sexist and hierarchical “bootstrap” mentality. It is almost impossible to fight sexism without also fighting racism and without also fighting discrimination against people with disabilities, because in the final analysis it’s all one problem. This has become explicit with third-wave feminism and the concept of intersectionality that is so central to it–that a real feminism is also antiracist, is also anti-ageist, is also anti-ableist, is also anti-heterosexist.
But in the early years, this expanding definition of feminism didn’t always include lesbians and gay men. Betty Friedan, in her infamous “lavender menace” speech of 1968, suggested that if NOW took a stand on homophobia, it would lose credibility and become thought of as a lesbian separatist organization–and lose no small number of members in the process. This changed during the 1970s and 1980s, and even Friedan ultimately apologized for her remarks and became a strong advocate for LGBT rights.
When you think about it, gay rights has in many respects been a feminist issue all along, even more so than antiracism and disability rights, because lesbians and gay men encounter stigma primarily because of their decision to reject traditional gender roles, which is exactly what feminism is all about. Men should not lie with each other, Leviticus tells us, “as they would with a woman.” Why not? Because it’s supposed to be degrading, abominable, and so forth. Well, what does this say about the women one lies with? And the “you’re trying to be a man but you’ll never pull it off” attitude that has traditionally defined homophobia against lesbians is, digit for digit, the same attitude that has traditionally defined sexism.
But I protest too much. The best reason for NOW to support lesbian and gay rights is not because it’s central to our mission as feminists (although it is), or because we are all fighting the same kinds of oppression (although we are), or because lesbians have always played an important role in the feminist movement (although they have). It’s because we can, we have, and we will. That’s our mandate. If some folks don’t agree, that’s fine. Nobody has to. There were plenty of folks who thought that NOW’s original mandate was too broad, too, and there are plenty of other organizations that do good work that don’t use NOW’s multi-spectrum approach. But if somebody wants to fight for the entire feminist agenda–from soup to nuts–then NOW is the only organization out there that can really claim to do that, and it wouldn’t be able to make that claim if it neglected other victims of the institutional gender role system.
Cheers,
TH
“It is almost impossible to fight sexism without also fighting racism and without also fighting discrimination against people with disabilities, because in the final analysis it’s all one problem.”
Tom, I don’t buy that. It’s not all “one problem.” Devoting time and energy into the gay marriage issue helps a 10% segment of the population. NOW would do a better job of serving its constituency by focusing on wider issues that affect all women, not embracing every liberal cause.
NOW’s constituency is its membership, Allura, and that membership has voted to make the rights of the 10% that are lesbian or gay, and the 12% that are African-American, and the 18% that are disabled, part of NOW’s platform. We consider all of this to be part of the feminist agenda. If you disagree with our definition of feminism, then there are plenty of other organizations with a narrower mandate.
Cheers,
TH
“It is almost impossible to fight sexism without also fighting racism and without also fighting discrimination against people with disabilities, because in the final analysis it’s all one problem.”
It is all one problem. The one problem is the organization of society into heirarchies of power in which rich, white men are always the top of the heirarchy and the others are always competing for resources and influence.
Tom, this is an excellent post. You (knowingly or not) just explained why the social conservatives have such a problem with gay marriage and their tag line is “preserving/protecting marriage.” I knew that marriage had social functions and different functions for different communities at different times. However, it just clicked while reading this post that the “marriage” that social conservatives want to protect so badly is the one that is a compulsory “life insurance policy”. The institution that they want to protect has nothing to do with the image that we have of marriage as “two people fall in love and get married.”
What is marriage anymore, anyway?? It’s hard to tell who is married to whom, and just because they are with one person they may be legally married to another… in this day it’s basicly who’s bed do you sleep in that night is who you are with. My own mother has been married 5x. Marriage is disposable… like a diaper. My wedding was a bargin at about $5000 for me (lots of help). My divorce, $1500. What does that tell you about this country?
I have only been married once, and it won’t happen again. I did not know this was legal, but it is… he took my SSN and went to town with it. Over the time we were together he put most everything in my name, then didn’t pay it. While I was trying to leave him, he would use his position as my ‘legal spouse’ to get my phone shut off, my lights, almost got me kicked out of my new place then. Thank God I got some of it straightened out, but my credit may never recover. He even got into my bank accounts at one point. Get this… I cannot prosecute. Not for fraud, forgery, ID theft, the lost bank accounts, the pain-in-the-ass time I had getting stuff straightend out with the bills, none of it. Why? Because we were legally married when it happened. And if you are married to someone, you can use their personal info to do what ever you want with it, and get away with it. At least in Missouri you can.
If I would have known that before we said our vows, I would have never gotten married. I never ever plan on it again. I love the man I’m with now very much, it’s a good relationship. We are both mature adults who do not need a piece of paper or a judge or a preacher to tell us what our rights and privilages are in this relationship.
In fact, Christ taught a bit against marriage… use what ever translation you like to read… Matthew 19: 1-11. I will try to put it into a nutshell here… He was in Judea on the banks of the Jordan river teaching when some of the Pharisees came up to Jesus and asked him about divorce. They asked why, if marriage is sacred, did Moses say it was ok to divorce your wife? Jesus told them that Moses gave them that right becuase “their hearts were hard”. Jesus goes on to say that the only true grounds for divorce is adultry. “If a man has to have such grounds in dealing with his wife,” the disciples asked, “it’s better not to marry.” Jesus answered them, ” not all can do this, only those wo whom it has been given.” He goes on to say that there are alot of different reasons to not get married. “If anyone can do it, let him do it.” (I used Wm F Beck translation of New Testement, 1964)
I have the right to choose not to get married again. If anyone else thinks they can do better, go for it. Everyone should have the right to screw up at least once. (Just look at Liz Taylor!)
It’s wrong for the gov’t to tell people what they can and can’t do in their own private bedroom in their own private time…