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April 24, 2006

I Think My Marriage MUST be in Trouble

Yes, I am being facetious, but I just read this article on the top ten reasons against same sex marriage, and I am offended. I am deeply offended, as somebody in what ought to be considered a completely mainstream marriage. The idea that somebody else's marriage will cause such trouble for my marriage is ridiculous, of course, but more painful to me is the implication that all my meaning as a person and as a wife is from the possibility of being a parent.

Technorati Tags: gay marriage, marriage

For example, reasons 1-5 are all about children. But if you get married, say, in your mid-twenties, have children, and then live to ninety, less than half of your married life will be spent raising children, and less than a quarter with small children who are most affected by things like gender confusion and questions about their family. Or, if you are like me, you could have a faulty body and not be able to have children at all. In which case, none of these concerns matter to you. But what this list tells me is that half the reasons for marriage are centered around having children, instead of forming a partnership for life, and therefore my marriage, which is not centered on the production of children, is meaningless and bad for society. Thanks. I appreciate the support.

Reason number 6 has this little "fact": "for instance, women are happier when their husband earns the lion’s share of the household income." No. No, no, no. A-number-one, I would be overjoyed and delighted to be making more money than Noel. I would be even happier if I could make enough money that he didn't have to work. That's because being happy in your work and making money are not the same. And I really want my husband to be happy, because I love him and it gives me incredible joy to make him happy. Which, I think, is a far better basis for a marriage than fitting into some narrow social role.

Yes, people do tend to be happier when what makes them happy is to conform with a social pressure to conform. But people who are not made happy by such things are very unhappy and live under terrible stress that makes them ill and leads to early death. That doesn't sound good to me.

Reason 7: "One of the biggest threats that SSM [Same Sex Marriage] poses to marriage is that it would probably undercut the norm of sexual fidelity in marriage." Infidelity and sexual orientation are not the same thing. We have plenty of evidence of infidelity in heterosexual marriage: fidelity appears not to be the norm there, either. You cannot exert social control over human behaviour by assertion. And, to be frank, I don't think infidelity is as much a problem as some people make it out to be: marriages survive it all the time. What cuts right to the bone is the deception and dishonesty, the devaluing of the partnership. That happens whether gay people get married or not, and not letting gay people get married isn't going to help heterosexual couples any. I mean, can anybody honestly say that in states where gay marriage is not allowed, heterosexual couples are less likely to stray? Does that make sense at all?

Reason 8: we're back to the children. Apparently, these people are all about undermining the meaning of my marriage as well as any gay marriages. "Indeed, from a sociological perspective, the primary purpose that marriage serves is to secure a mother and father for each child who is born into a society." This statement is simply not true. Sociologically the primary and initial purpose of marriage was the formation of economic and political ties between tribes. Early marriages were peace contracts and commerce contracts, and were not formed in churches at all, though they might be witnessed by priests. Children were incidental and were assumed to be a natural consequence, not the intended result.

And gay marriage is not to blame for declining birth rates: prosperity and good health are. When only half your children are likely to make it to adulthood, and the children you have are required to earn enough money to survive, you need to have more children. But if children do not contribute economically to the household and are likely to survive, of course you will have fewer. That is why the birth rate is well below replacement in all industrialized nations, not just the ones with gay marriage. The lowest birthrate is in Japan, after all. No gay marriage there.

Reason 9: "SSM would make it even easier than it already is for men to rationalize their abandonment of their children." Give me a break. Tell me one young man who abandons his children because society tells him it is OK. Men will abandon their children because a biological drive to reproduce urges them to, and their (probably heterosexual) fathers did the same thing to them. All this happens without gay marriage in the equation.

And the kicker? Reason 10: "Women & marriage domesticate men." No: domesticated men (giggle) are more likely to get married. I resent the idea that somehow I made Noel settle down. I did help him with his wardrobe, and I showed him about buying flowers, but that was well before we got married and it was something he wanted to be better at, not something I did to him. He was already a great, well-socialized guy. Saying he was basically a wild animal before we married does my in-laws a great discredit in their work as parents.

Posted by ayse on 04/24/06 at 8:36 PM