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The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, and Morals

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There's no denying that the movement to grant legal recognition to same-sex unions has recently brought the subject of marriage back to the forefront of public debate. But while many involved in this debate are quick to voice their opinions on the subject, few take the time to consider marriage's significance in careful detail. The authors of these essays, however, do just that. Uninterested in cliched talking points or partisan claptrap, they engage in a serious consideration of marriage's meaning and importance. The resulting product is a careful analysis of the significance of marriage for the individual, for the family and for political society.

Roger Scruton reminds us in the book's first essay that institutions, including marriage, may be viewed externally or internally, from third-person or first-person perspectives. Skillfully weaving together literature, history and the phenomenology of personal experience, Scruton argues that marriage's full importance can only be comprehended through considerations from both perspectives. This essay is an appropriate choice to precede what follows, because in subsequent essays, the authors approach the topic mindful of the differences inherent in these two perspectives and determined to examine marriage from every angle imaginable. Furthermore, they are remarkably capable of engaging in this challenging task, experts as they are in a variety of fields ranging from law and public policy, philosophy, sociology, economics, history and political science. Though the authors are among today's leading academics and scholars - from Princeton, Amherst, U Chicago, Stanford, UVA, and so on - this book is quite accessible to the lay reader. In the end, the readers will be left more greatly aware of the breadth of issues implicated in contemporary marriage debates and more capable of participating in civil discourse through evaluating common arguments and advancing his or her own arguments as well.

But this is not to say that the average reader will find each essay in this book extremely rewarding. The essays are all very well written, but unavoidably a reader's own interests will dictate that he or she will find some of these essays more approachable or interesting than others. This is simply the downside of the fact that this book seeks to leave no facet of marriage's significance out of the discussion. Yet the upshot of this same fact is that there is a great deal in this book that will be of value and appeal to everyone with any interest in considering the meaning of marriage.

The Essays:

Foreward by Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spellman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago and the Thomas and Dorothy Leavy Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at Georgetown University

1 - "Sacrilege and Sacrament," by Roger Scruton, professor of philosophy at the University of Buckingham

2 - "What About the Children? Liberal Cautions on Same- Sex Marriage," by Don Browning, Alexander Campbell Professor Emeritus of Religious Ethics and the Social Sociences at the University of Chicago Divinity School and Elizabeth Marquardt, affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values

3 - "Changing Dynamics of the Family in Recent European History," by Harold James, professor of history at Princeton University

4 - "Why Unilateral Divorce Has No Place in a Free Society," by Jennifer Roback Morse, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University

5 - "The Framers' Idea of Marriage and Family," by David F. Forte, Charles R. Emrick Jr.-Calfee, Halter & Griswold Endowed Professor of Law at Cleveland State University

6 - "The Family and the Laws," by Hadley Arkes, Edward N. Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College

7 - "What's Sex Got to do with It? Marriage, Morality, and Rationality," by Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University

8 - "Soft Despotism and Same-Sex Marriage," by Seana Sugrue, associate professor and chairman of the department of political science at Ave Maria University

9 - "(How) Does Marriage Protect Child Well-Being?" by Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy

10 - "The Current Crisis in Marriage Law, Its Origins, and Its Impact," by Katherine Shaw Spaht, Jules F. and Frances L. Landry Professor of Law at Louisiana State University

11 - "Suffer the Little Children: Marriage the Poor, and the Commonweal" by W. Bradford Wilcox, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia

Given recent court decisions there is a clear and present danger that the Supreme Court of the United States, following the lead of the Massachusetts State Court and the Federal District Court of Nebraska, will strike down all laws limiting marriage to the union of one man and one woman. Alarmed over this possibility, eleven states have overwhelmingly approved defense of marriage initiatives. In this context The Meaning of Marriage is making its debut.

In the form of eleven scholarly essays The Meaning of Marriage is an anthology of variations on the theme that marriage is foundational for civilization and as marriage goes, so goes the family, and so goes society. Marriage, it is argued, has been severely destabilized by fifty years of disastrous experiments including: legal sanction for unilateral divorce; legal sanction for unrestricted access to contraception; and, legalization of unrestricted abortion. This produced among other problems a divorce rate of fifty percent, an out of wedlock birthrate equal to one third of all children (two thirds of all black children), and a dramatic rise in poverty among women and children. Nevertheless, our public policy blithely promotes these remedies for the good of society. Promoters and defenders of these policies are taken to task in the essays with reasoned arguments and impeccable research. Yet, the concern of the essays as a whole is not just to stop the bleeding, but also to sound a clarion call to a threat more destructive to marriage than all previous experiments combined, - the unintended consequences of legalized same sex marriage. Unlike predecessor experiments, advocates of same sex marriage seek a redefinition of marriage. This, it is argued, effectively abolishes marriage, and along with it, the possibility of any coherent alternative social standard for sexual behavior.

Roger Scruton and Robbie George offer two philosophical analyses of marriage. Dan Browning and Elizabeth Marquardt elaborate on `kin altruism' as a family benefit to society. Economic historian Harold James highlights how harmonious continuity of economic activity across generations and time spans is ensured by family businesses. Jennifer Roback Morse and Siena Segrue in separate essays contend with social libertarians who contradict themselves by supporting unilateral divorce and same sex marriage respectively. Both require government meddling with the family, which violates libertarian principles. David F. Forte argues that the Founding Fathers understood the family, as a school of virtue, to be indispensable to republican government. Hadley Arkes and Katherine Shaw Spaht in separate essays unpack the legal philosophy and the recent legal history contributing to the unraveling of marriage and family law. Maggie Gallagher debunks much of the phony social science under girding our contemporary social engineering projects. Last but not least, W. Bradford Wilcox, shows how contraception and abortion have undermined the common good and visited disproportionate harm to the poor by trifling with traditional concepts of marriage.

The Meaning of Marriage is an excellent primer on our contemporary culture crisis. It provides philosophical, legal, psychological, political, and economic perspectives and includes a helpful topical index. I highly recommend this outstanding and timely study for serious, and particularly for complacent, Americans.

Dr. George has assmebled an excellent group of contributors to the eponymous subject of the book. The authors answer the question, "how does the marriage of two people of the same sex affect me?" (the "me" being a heterosexual married person) by detailing the major principles on which marriage is based - permanence, fidelity, child-rearing, personal growth - and how same-sex marriage cannot meet them. Apparently the public feels the same way in its overwhelming support of defining marriage to be the union of a man and a woman. The challenge of same-sex marriage has one benefit - that is the stimulation of thoughtful and informed persons to speak out as they do in this collection of essays and bring clarity of answers to questions not previously asked. It should be in the library of every thoughtful citizen.

Our argument about marriage goes much deeper than a simple argument over fairness, or equality.

"In the modern mind, marriage has become a proxy for happiness and fulfillment, an adult centric rite (and right) in which children play little (or no) part. Marriage has changed primarily because of the intrusion of the idea that it is about the search for happiness. ... In its extreme version, the modern view treats marriage as simply an extension of a search for consumer satisfaction. If I buy a good at a store, I am party to a contract, which I participate in because it enhances my satisfaction at that moment. There is no obligation to treat it in a particular way. If I get pleasure from buying an expensive watch and then smashing it on the ground, the worst that I can be accused of is eccentricity or perhaps tastelessness. And we perfectly well expect that over the course of time, a watch will wear out and need to be replaced. This view of marriage as a search for satisfaction is now more or less prevalent. ... The result as far as the family is concerned is that children are seen as a nuisance, because the key relationship is that of the married partners. Recently, for instance, the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University concluded that "Children seem to be a growing impediment for the happiness of marriages." -The Meaning of Marriage"

This argument over marriage is the surface of a much larger argument, a clash of worldviews that shapes and shakes the very foundations of civilization itself. This book argues that if marriage fails, society itself fails. The case is strong from every perspective the authors of the essays here choose to engage --and the variety of directions from which they take the issue on is astounding. The reader might expect to see a religous treatment of the topic, and they will find that here in Sacrilege and Sacrement. What you might not expect is a hsitorical treatment (Changing Dynamics of the Family), or a liberal treatment of the problem (What About the Children?), or even a look at the problem from libertarian point of view (Soft Despotism and Same-Sex Marriage). Each essay is well written, deserving a full treatment on their own, but there isn't enough space here to manage a feat of this magnitude. The most interesting essays in the collection, simply because they are from unusual points of view, or provide interesting arguments against same-sex marriage, are the chapters addressing the issue from an economic and societal point of view. Specifically, Why Unilateral Divorce Has No Place in a Free Society, Soft Depotism, and What's Sex Got to Do with It? Three crucial points are made in these essays that need to be broadcast far and wide. First, moving marriage out of the realm of one woman, one man, leaves society with no other basis on which to actually define the institution. The underlying logic in redefining marriage either in terms of sexual or "loving" relationships is to destroy marriage itself --and that appears to be the point of those who want same-sex marriage. If you define marriage as a "loving" relationship, then parents should be able to marry their children (a point indicated by the divorce of parents and children already available in some areas of the world), sisters should be able to marry sisters, etc. If you try and add sex into the mix, the problem actually worsens rather than abates. If the argument that marriage isn't about producing children holds, then there are no bounds or limits. An institution without bounds is simply not an institution at all --all things must be defined by what they exclude as well as what they include. Second, if marriage is loosed from its relationship to children, then the job of rearing children must be taken over by someone --and the only "someone" remaining is the state. But once you cede raising children to the state in the name of freeing marriage for more selfish fulfilment, you inevitably slide into despotism. There is simply no way to turn children over to the care of the state without turning all privacy, freedom, and culture over to the state as well. Turly, same-sex marriage is a case of giving up freedom for pleasure --and giving up freedom for pleasure simply reduces humans to the animal state where there is no freedom or pleasure.

This is a must read group of essays for anyone serious about understanding the debate over marriage, refreshingly tying same-sex marriage with no-fault divorce, and presenting very strong arguments from almost every angle.

I thoroughly enjoyed this work. Prominent scholars examine the importance and sanctity of traditional marriage with respect to their fields- philosophy, economics, law, etc. If you are concerned with the current state of marriage in this society, this is a must read!