Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Protecting Marriage to Protect Children

The funny thing is, none of the first three restrictions (against minors, close relatives, and persons already legally married) are universal. We have no problem accepting these restrictions as valid, even though, throughout history and around the world there have been (and still are) societies which allow one, two, or all three of these types of marriages.

One the other hand, opposition to same-sex marriage is universal. And it is not simply a matter of a societal taboo against homosexuality. Read the history of homosexuality. Homosexual behavior was accepted in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. It was accepted in parts of Africa. It was accepted in ancient China. Spanish conquistadors were astonished to find homosexual behavior among the native Indians of the Americas. AND YET, these same societies consistently defined marriage as a union between male & female.

Yet proponents of same-sex marriage insist on stating categorically that this is the one restriction for which there is no valid reason. No amount of arguing will convince you otherwise. So, I have to ask you, why do you believe those societies which allowed (and even encouraged) homosexual behavior still insisted on marriage being a union between members of the opposite sex? Why do you reject my explanation (that societies universally have this social institution called "marriage", defined as a union between males & females, because societies actually obtain benefits from having this definition of marriage), and what explanation can you offer in its stead?

I should have said the restriction against same-sex marriage was universal - for the past 2000 years of history. Obviously, it no longer is.

As you say, Vicki, historically there have been several societies which accepted homosexual behaviour. And yet all of these societies defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Is there a reason for this insistence on marriage between a man and a woman, and the universal historical rejection of same-sex marriage?

I think there is. And the reason, obviously, is procreation. Not only that, but I will insist that procreation was more important earlier in history than it is now. How so? The answer is relatively simple. There were comparatively few people around at earlier times, and the farther back in history we go, the fewer people there were.

This is an animated graph of the growth of the human population since 1 A.D.:

Animated graph of the growth of humanity since 1 A.D.

Here is a link to another estimate of the world's population growth since 10 000 B.C.:

World population growth history

Here is a graph of the growth of the human population since 0 A.D.:



Earlier in history there were many fewer people, and the available techniques used to build houses, farm the land and produce everything else that was necessary for survival were primitive. All work was labour-intensive. Much work needed to be done, and a lot of people were needed to do the work, and few people were available.

In other words, it was critically important that societies earlier in history managed to produce all the workers necessary to provide all the labour that those societies needed to survive.

Bear in mind, too, that we have every reason to believe that child mortality was high in most societies earlier in history. If those societies had allowed a large fraction of their (small) populations to eschew 'traditional marriage' and live in same-sex relationships, producing no children, those societies would probably have been doomed.

Remember what God says according to Genesis to the humans he created on the sixth day of creation:

Well, humanity has rather achieved that goal now, don't you think? Not only have we all but filled the earth - see the animated graph above - but we have subdued the earth to the point that we are about to overwhelm it and quench it:

Earlier in history, there were few people around, but a largish number of people were necessary to provide the labour needed for those historical societies to survive. It was critically important that people back then produce as many children as possible. For that reason, most societies have traditionally outlawed any homosexual relationships at all, and all societies that existed back in history have, as far as we know, forbidden same-sex marriages (or insisted on opposite-sex marriages).

But the world in which we live isn't the same as the world that our ancestors lived in. We need other things than they did in order to survive.

Sure, we need children too. That goes without saying. But I don't see any signs that humanity isn't still producing rather more than the number of children it needs to survive.

The title of this thread is 'Protecting Marriage to Protect Children'. Well, I'd say that those historical societies that forbade homosexual relationships and same-sex marriage didn't do so to protect children. Rather they did so to produce children, as many children as possible.

It should perhaps be pointed out that Catholic Christianity has offered celibacy for both men and women as a real, highly respectable alternative to child-producing marriages. Interestingly, Catholicism has occasionally celebrated celibacy even in marriage, so that a married couple did well if they stayed childless for quite a long time back when contraceptives weren't available. But for Catholicism, too, the only alternative to marriage as a way of producing children has been a noble form of celibacy. And the reason for why Catholicism has praised celibacy may be that Catholicism traces its roots back to when the first Christians expected the world to come to an end very shortly:

But few societies have, like the early Catholics, expected the world to come to an end probably within the lifetimes of most of its living members. Therefore they needed to provide for the future and create children to take care of this future. The father who was the head of the polygamous family I posted an image of earlier would have been a hero in many historical societies. Today it would not be a good thing if every sixth man produced thirty children, twenty-nine of which survived, and forced five out of six men to live in celibacy or in homosexual relationships.

Ann

Ann,

That's where I disagree. The sexual urge is suffient to ensure that people are going to procreate. In fact, in an earlier post you spoke about about the frustration of unmarried men in Egypt. The reason they can't have sex is because their society insists on the institution of marriage. If they lived in a marriageless society, there would be no reason to "wait until you are married." People would be having more sex, not less.

No, marriage was not invented in order to get people to have babies. It was invented because people were having babies, and society needed to provide for and, to a degree, regulate the upbringing of those babies. Society needed to ensure a safe and stable environment. It needed to ensure, among other things, that the father would stick around! It needed to protect the rights of the children, those of the father, and those of the mother.

It is obvious that a society needs each generation to produce the next generation, and that is why societies promote the idea that people should grow up, marry, and have children. But the reason for the marriage, per se, is not to get you to have the children, but rather to provide for and protect the children that you are going to have. So, I disagree with your conclusion, and I maintain just the opposite.

[Edited to correct a typo.]

Vicki, you said:

That is probably true in most cases, at least before there were contraceptives. On the other hand, if homosexuality became too popular, men might possibly prefer childless homosexual relationships over married, child-producing relationships with women. According to a book about ancient Greece that we have in my school, homosexuality was a part of young man's education in that society. An older man became the young man's teacher and mentor, but also his lover. When the young man had reached a certain age, he was no longer the older man's lover. Instead, later on, he himself took a younger man under his wings, and that young man became his lover. So you can say that (male) honomsexuality was institutionalised in ancient Greece.

Yet in Greece, and certainly in Athens, men were required to marry a woman. Not only that, but according to the book we have at my school, the men of Athens were required to have sex with their wives at least three times a month, to make sure that the population of Athens did not decline. It might have done so, if a lot of the Greek men had preferred homosexual activites over their married bed. So married sex with his wife was a man's lawful duty in Athens.

As for the functions of women in ancient Greece, I can't resist quoting this passage from Against Naera by Demosthenes (384–322 BC):

Do men necessarily take care of their children, if they know that the children are theirs? When I read the Bible, I don't see many signs that fathers back then did a lot to provide for their children. Yes, Joseph took Jesus to Egypt to protect him from Herod (maybe - the other Gospels do not repeat that story) and Jairus, a patron of the synagogue, asked Jesus to raise his daughter. And there is of course the story of the prodigal son and his kind and forgiving father. Otherwise the fathers seem to be very distant from their children in the Biblical stories, and it is the mothers who care for the children.

Please note that you don't need marriage to have mothers who take care of their children. A famous story from 1 Kings 3 tells the story of two harlots who come before Solomon to fight over one living child:

You don't need marriage to take care of children. The way I see it, the chief historical function of marriage (at least the kind where the woman is punished most severely for infidelity) has been to let the father know what children are his, so that he can make decisions for them (for example, decisions about who his children will marry). Marriage also allowed the father to know what boys were his, so that he could pass his property on to them. But fatherhood did not necessarily require the man to provide for his children very much.

So let me amend what I said in my previous post: The two chief functions of marriage have been to produce children, and to let the fathers know what children are theirs, so that they can make decisions for them, and so that they can pass their property on to their own sons.

Ann

Oh my. What I said and what I meant to say were two different things. I appreciate you changing the word, but it wasn't the word that I was worried about. I was worried about aiming your words at an individual instead of calmly discussing an issue. I know you didn't curse at him, but you were sort of aiming in his general direction. That's why I said to be careful.

Anyway, thanks for softening the blow.

By the way I keep hearing about how society invented marriage, but we don't have any evidence of that. It is just as likely that marriage was around before society. Both institutions predate our written records.


Elisabeth

I'm probably going to regret posting this, but... what the heck.

I have a question. Why is something that some consider a religious sacrament even part of the law of the state?

So here’s my solution. Dissolve all marriages. To avoid mass confusion, current marriages could be converted into civil unions. No ‘marriage’ in the future would have any legal ramifications. If people want to file a civil union, they can. If they want to have some sort of ‘joining ceremony’ they can (although this wouldn’t be the government’s responsibility - they would just keep track of civil unions that are filed properly with the appropriate authorities).

Governments wouldn’t keep track of marriage. A local church or union hall or some internet nut with a marriage fetish could do that if they wanted. But as far as the government would be concerned, marriage simply wouldn’t exist for any legal purposes.

Then give civil unions all the rights and responsibilities currently associated with marriage.

And then, if you want to have a ‘marriage ceremony,’ you can circle your bridegroom, stand under a canopy, drink rice wine, recite vows in front of a minister or share your vows with your favourite tree or local wicca priestess. But until you truck on down to the courthouse and file the papers necessary for a civil union (and, no, your marriage papers don’t count - especially since they could have been created by your favourite tree ), there are no legal ramifications to your ‘marriage ceremony.’

But get rid of the word ‘marriage’ from the law all together. Make civil unions possible for any two consenting adults who want their finances and property dealt with as part of a single ‘household’. It would make all people equal and would allow people to decide for themselves what the meaning and purpose of ‘marriage’ is - instead of making the state define it.

Just an idea, of course.

ML

Small nitpick, Elisabeth.

Can you really have marriage if you don't have a society? Marriage is an institution, but can you have an institution if you don't have a society?

I know. It says in the Bible that Eve was Adam's wife. Well, there was no society around back then, assuming you believe that the Bible tells the truth about the origins of humanity. Still the Bible calls Eve Adam's wife:

We see no ceremony uniting Adam and Eve, apart from what Adam says about a man leaving his father and his mother to be united with his wife, so that they will be one flesh. (It is quite interesting that Adam is talking about a man leaving his father and his mother, since Adam himself can certainly have no knowledge of what it means to have a mother. Conceivably God can be seen as his father.) Anyway, I don't think we can see an official ceremony uniting Adam and Eve, but even so they were apparently married.

What about Adam and Eve's children? They would have to marry their sisters and brothers, since no other people would be available. (And if there were other people there as well, then the creation of Adam and Eve just wouldn't be all that it is cracked up to be.) Anyway, through what ceremony would Adam and Eve's children be united in marriage? How could we know which of them was married to whom? Would it be enough that Adam's sons repeated their father's words about a man leaving his father and mother to be united with his wife?

When there existed more 'official' societies, it would probably not be enough for a man to repeat Adam's words for him to be married to the woman he had chosen.

So, Elisabeth, is it really possible to have marriage without a society?

Ann

I've heard that they married apes.

Vicky I wonder if you might be interested in my personal journey on this question.
When I first heard about same sex marriage I was against it too. But I was hard pressed to come up with any reasons that I could really defend, other than religious ones.
I do believe that religions have the right not to recognize these marriages . But from a civil law point of view there's just not a leg to stand on.
The funny thing is, gays and lesbians used to be villified for their so called promiscuous lifestyle. Now that they want to get married, some of the same people are criticizing that too.
I have to ask, what does it hurt if two people commit to loving and supporting each other for life. Surely society can only benefit from this.

I actually had a hard time coming round to this myself. Then I heard someone say -- I don't mind at all , if only they don't call it marriage. That struck me as so silly that it stuck in my mind and made me open up my mind rethink my position.

Allie,

First, thank you for posting, and telling your story. I also supported same-sex marriage, back when I believed the only objections were religious. In fact, I came to the same conclusion you did - I thought we should change the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions, while allowing churches to "opt out" if they choose not to conduct same-sex marriage services. It was only after I began to understand the complexity of the issue that I opened my mind to the possibility that society actually benefits from the traditional definition of marriage, and that there are valid reasons to oppose changing it.

I also now believe the solution of changing the definition of marriage while at the same time allowing churches to refuse to perform same-sex marriages is not a viable one.

One reason I believe this solution would not work is the current situation with the Boy Scouts of America. Boy Scout membership requirements exclude homosexuals. The ACLU has been very successful in litigation prohibiting any government sponsorship of Boy Scout activities, preferential access to government resources, etc.

With this precident, it seems highly likely to me that a change in the legal definition of marriage will result in churches being forced to choose between performing same-sex marriages or losing their tax-exempt status. An even greater concern is that churches which continue to refuse to perform same-sex marriages be sued for hate crimes.

Because of this very real threat to freedom of religion, the solution which struck you as silly actually makes a lot of sense. Allow a civil union with the full weight of marriage, including the rights and priviledges of marriage, yet called by another name. This is the the only solution I can think of that would allow society to permit the union of same-sex couples while at the same time guaranteeing the 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Religion - churches would be allowed to continue to perform traditional marriage ceremonies and remain faithful to their religious doctrines.*

* [edited to add: this is assuming society decided it wanted to allow same-sex unions, and grant them the rights of a marriage. I am not saying I think our society should do this, only that if it decides to do this, then the way to go seems to me to be to create a separate institution.]

Ann,

I will agree with you that all societies have made a clear connection between marriage and marital relations. Our own society does not set a fixed frequency, but we do allow for divorce based on lack of marital relations, or annulment based on lack of consumation. This really does not contradict what I have said, since I do maintain that society promotes the idea that people should grow up to marry and have children. That some societies have used obligatory marital relations as a means of producing more children does not surprise me in the least.

You say that you do not need marriage to raise children. Do you mean that any given individual can have and raise children without the benefit of marriage, or are you saying that you believe society as a whole does not benefit from the institution of marriage as a means of forming family units within which to raise the next generation?

I don't think Marriage is just to have children. I'm a Christian and believe what the Bible stated that marriage was given by God to a man and woman.

And we shouldn't redinfine something God has given.

Question: how and from what does marriage protect children? Guess that's two questions.

As some food for thought, since it was brought up that "marriage" as a word stems from "mater". The German equivalent is "Ehe" stemming from "law" and "conventions".

In Germany itself the "Ehe" is only for heterosexual pairs, but is a matter of the state. A marriage in Church doesn't count as a legal marriage. You have to get married by an official of the state first, before you can get married in a church (if you want).

There is a status similar (civil union) to marriage for same-sex pairings.
It currently doesn't give all legal benefits marriage has (they aren't equal in taxation and adoption, for example), but the highest court has ruled, that while the "Ehe" is especially protected by the Grundgesetz (similar to the Constitution), the legislation is well within their rights to grant/demand to/from same-sex civil unions the same benefits/duties as married pairs.

Thanks for that, Karen! You made me laugh!!

I've always wondered . . . maybe the whole sister/brother marrying thing started us all off on the wrong foot . . . Maybe we're all genetic mutants! Sure would explain a lot . . .

Have to agree with many of the others claiming libertarianism - it doesn't bother me what others do. Life's too short.

Squirky,

When you say you don't care what others do, do you mean you don't care what they do with their personal lives - as in, if you are a man and you want to live with another man, what's that to me? Because if that's what you mean, then I totally agree. Who my neighbor loves and who he lives with is no concern of mine.

Or do you mean you don't care what people (voters and, by extention, legislators) do - as in, if they want to pass a law to redefine marriage, what's that to me? Because there, I would disagree. I believe it is of utmost importance that before a far-reaching law such as this be enacted, its effects on society and especially, as the title of this thread says, on the rights and protection of children, not to mention its effect on churches and our 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Religion, be analyzed and discussed.

Vicki, you asked me:

Basically I think you are asking me what what my ideal society is. And I have avoided answering because the question is too big, and I don't have a pat answer. And RL has been killing me lately anyway.

So let me give you a few quick answers, anway.

About gay people: I can't see any reason whatsoever why they shouldn't be able to enter into civil unions, which, in the eyes of the law, should be perfectly comparable with a heterosexual civil union in all aspects except those that have to do with a heterosexual couple's natural ability to have biological children (in most instances anyway). I agree with those who think that churches should have the right to bless only those couples whose unions they approve of, and they should be perfectly entitled to reject those couples whose unions they disapprove of. In other words, a gay couple don't have the 'right' to be blessed in church, if the church disapproves of homosexual marriage.

If gay people are not allowed to live together, and if they are not allowed to have consensual sex with each other, then I definitely and quite strongly disapprove of such a law. If gay people are killed because they are gay, I get furious. But I'm usually furious when people are killed just because they are considered 'less valuable' than other people. In other words, I don't get more upset when gay people are killed for being gay than I do when girls are killed for being girls (in truth I get rather more upset when girls are killed for being girls).

As for marriage in itself, and what it does for society, that's a tough question. I think marriage has basically two functions: one that has to do with caring and providing, and one that has to do with ownership. By ownership I mean one person's right to control other people. The 'ownership' aspect of marriage manifests itself in many ways. In many cultures, young people belong to their parents or even to the head of their clan, and it is the father, uncle, older brother or the head of the clan who decides who will marry whom. Marriages are sometimes sealed when the bride is newborn and the groom is a few years old. In several countries today, girls no older than eight or nine are sold to men three, four or five times older than themselves and are required to fill all the functions of a wife, including the function of having sex with their husband, even though they themselves are small children.

In India, a wife has been regarded as so much her husband's property that she had had no right to live when her husband died, and she has been required to burn herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre.

In several cultures in Africa, fathers have not really been required to care for their children. The children, however, have been required to care for their father.

In countries and cultures where marriage is very much about ownership, polygamy is a natural consequence of this state of affairs.

Where marriage is about ownership, men and women don't have the same sort of duties to each other and not the same right to choose their spouses or to get a divorce.

When marriage is about ownership, the owner has the right to punish his property for being unfaithful to him, much like the slave owner had the right to punish his slave. I once saw a documentary about a Christian Coptic village in Egypt, where the men were perfectly entitled to batter their wives to death if the wives had dared to speak to a male stranger.

Historically, when marriage has been about ownership, fathers have sometimes had the right to decide whether or not a newborn baby, particularly a newborn girl, should be accepted into the family or not. If the baby was not accepted, the father had the right to send her away from the family's home and leave her alone to die.

All things considered, I don't much like the ownership aspect of marriage, particularly not when the law gives one spouse the right to punish or abuse the other spouse or their children.

I like the caring and providing aspect of marriage so much better. However, in the same way that ownership is not always expressed in terms of marriage - the slave owner was not married to his slaves, after all - so caring isn't always an aspect of marriage. That is very true in the case of rearing children. A friend of mine, who has spent a lot of time in parts of South America, says that it is very common there for people to eschew marriage and to have sexual relations with a lot of partners. That way the women often have children with several men. The mother is her children's chief provider, but the man who is currently her lover is expected to pitch in and help.

In many parts of the western world, not least in certain social strata in America, it is common for young women to raise their children with the help of their own mothers. In parts of Africa, paternity has not been really interesting, and the children's maternal uncle has been the important father figure in their lives.

I'm saying that family structure has varied wildly in different cultures and over time.

But I'm not trying to say that marriage is a bad thing or that it is unimportant. I, too, think that a happy heterosexual marriage, where the parents are committed to each others as more-or-less equal partners and where they really care for their children, is ideal. I think that society really benefits from such well-functioning and happy family units. I think that stability and commitment are very good things, and when heterosexual marriages work out well, they are indeed so good for the family members and for society.

One reason why heterosexual marriage is a good thing is that most people are straight, so a heterosexual relationship is natural for them. Another reason is that the small family unit that we have in the West hopefully has less to do with ownership and more about mutual commitment.

I just don't think that heterosexual marriages are right for everybody, and I don't see why responsible homosexual adults who want to live in stable legally recognized unions should not be able to do so. And I don't see why they should not be able to be good and caring parents to their children. I talked earlier about a gay Swedish couple, Jonas Gardell and Mark Levengood, who are good friends with a lesbian couple, and the four of them decided to have children together. Thanks to artificial insemination, both of the women have become mothers and both of the men have become fathers. If these four people are caring parents, and I don't see why they wouldn't be, then I don't see why their children should become disadvantaged from having 'four' parents instead of two.

Vicki, you said that a serious concern of yours is the freedom of churches, and your fear that the freedom of churches might be circumscribed has a lot to do with your opposition to the idea of legalizing gay marriage. I can see that there could be ways that churches might be adversely affected by legalizing gay marriage, but I think that the rights of people are more important than the rights of churches.

Ann

Ann,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I actually agree with a great deal of what you said. One of the things we agree on is civil unions. I do not oppose society allowing homosexual couples the right to form legally binding civil unions, with rights comparable to a married couple (for example, in tax codes, insurance plans, hospital visitation rights, etc.)

My objection is to a change in definition of marriage. And, as you note, one of the reasons I stated was a concern over freedom of religion. If legally binding same-sex civil unions (called by any name other than "marriage") are allowed, churches whose doctrines do not approve of these unions can simply refuse to conduct the ceremonies. For a church to say, in reference to this newly created homosexual civil union, "We don't offer that service" will not, in my opinion, be challenged in court.

However, if the definition of marriage is changed, churches will NOT have the option of refusing to perform same-sex marriages. Any church which says, "We will marry *these* couples, but not *those* couples" will immediately be sued for descrimination.

You talk about the rights of churches, and distinguish them from the rights of the people. Here I strongly differ. Freedom of religion *is* a right of the people. In the United States of America, it is a Constitutional right. I maintain it is one of our most fundamental rights. (It is the First of the so-called Bill of Rights to our Constitution.)

I think it is interesting to note that Wikipedia has the following to say about Totalitarianism: Common to all definitions is the attempt to mobilize entire populations in support of the official state ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, entailing repression or state control of [...] churches.

I object to the use of the word "right" to describe the ability of a person to marry whomever he pleases. As I have stated previously, in America a person simply does NOT have the right to marry whomever he pleases. Specifically, he cannot marry (a) a minor, (b) a close relative, (c) a person who is already married, and (d) a person of the same sex.

I do distinguish between the so-called "right" to marriage (which is not an absolute right) and the right of a person to love whom he or she pleases, to live with whom he or she pleases, and basically to live his/her life without interference. For this reason, as I've said, I do not oppose the institution of some sort of legally-binding civil union.

That is absolutely not true. Churches refuse couples all the time with no legal recourse whatsoever. Churches can refuse to perform a marriage ceremony for any number of reasons, including, but not limited to, the couple's religious affiliation or their lack of participation in pre-marital councelling. The law does not require that churches perform marriage at all, let alone that they perform them for everyone. There is no reason to believe that refusing same-sex couples would give them any legal trouble at all.

The religion of one group should never be forced on the society as a whole. Our country was founded on the separation of church and state, and legally allowing same-sex couples to marry only strengthens that separation. A ban, however, treats same-sex couples as second class citizens under the law, and that's not the kind of country I want to live in.

~Anna