Redstate

I had a response to you, Paul, but decided to post it at Dean Nation rather than here given its length. My main point is that the argument that gay marriage is the slippery slope towards polygamy and worse makes no sense as far as I can tell, and I lay out a number of reasons why the analogy falls apart.

http://dean2004.blogspot.com/2005/01/polygamists-are-coming.html

OK, I'll take a flyer on this one.

What's the state's interest in forbidding polygamy?  I ask this somewhat humorously, but I'm also interested to know your thoughts.

Speaking for myself, I find that one wife is plenty.  But, polygamy is a social institution with a long history in human culture.  It also has a great deal of Biblical precedent, so I'm not sure what the moral / family values argument against it is.

While I'm not advocating a change in the law to allow polygamy, I'm also, sincerely, not trolling.  I am, perhaps, stirring the pot just a bit.  But -- what is the state's interest in outlawing polygamy?  If there was an actual constituency for polygamy, or polyandry for that matter, what's the objection?

Cheers -

There was a great National Review issue devoted to polygamy many years ago. Essentially, polygamy favors high status men (who get many women) and low status women (who get occasional access to high status men instead of constant access to low status men). The losers are low status men (who get no women) and high status women (who have to share).

What do you call a society that has a lot of poor, uneducated unmarried men who have no prospect of marriage? You call that a society always about to be overthrown, filled with violent conspiracy and sullen vibes of revolution constantly in the air. Essentially, you have the muslim Middle East.

Yeah, get me some of that! That's the kind of world I want to leave to my kids.

...your example was, I believe, an entire society based on polygamy. What's wrong with allowing a few crazy people to practice polygamy or polyandry as long as it's consensual? I can't imagine ever wanting that for myself, but otherwise...

That once you begin knocking the legs out from under a taboo, that taboo will hold. Why would only a few "crazy" people engage in polygamy? (Why would they be crazy? Doesn't that imply a remnant of the taboo?) I may not be entirely right in the head, but I can see all sorts of rational advantages to it, from the man's perspective. If enough men see it that way, why wouldn't women begin to make the rational decision to accept that as the only game in town?

This is the problem with tinkering willy-nilly with foundational institutions on the grounds of "fairness." The institution, by virtue of its long existence, has already weighed "fairness." Maybe the weighing was wrong. But it deserves a little deference before we start kneecapping it.

...as usual.  And lo, the feminists ought to be up in arms over this one.  It would essentially be the last stage to giving men complete freedom in sexual and relational matters and casting down poor women to near servitude.

We ought to tread gingerly and think hard before altering the definition of marriage.  Can rights for pedophiles be far behind?

The real issue is whether marriage is a human right which the state cannot regulate without showing some compelling interest or whether it is a contractual arrangement that is subject to state regulation in the way business partnerships, real estate transactions, etc. are regulated.

If the courts decide that anyone has a RIGHT to marriage, and I believe we are nearly there as virtually every other imaginable activity has become a right, then there is no compelling state interest in forbidding polygamy. Given the history of the institution, it seems to me that polygamy is much easier to defend.

It's not a slippery slope argument at all.

There is no link between pedophilia and marriage.  There is no link between pedophilia and homosexuality.  There is a link between polygamy and pedophilia and polygamy when it is practiced in settings which allow families to give their daughters to men at far too young an age.  

Regardless, sexual activity prior to the age of majority has nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with protecting children.  Children can't consent, thus the "consenting adult" argument collapses entirely.  I find the pedophile argument as specious as I find the argument that banning abortion will result in the re-subjugation of women in this country - it's a chicken little argument that carries no substance but far too much emotional weight.

Age of consent is a legal construct and varies from state to state and varies with the circumstances.

For instance, the age of consent for marriage in Alabama is 14 while the age of consent for run of the mill boinking is 16.

Age of consent for signing an enforceable contract in Alabama, however, is 21.

So your major point about majority and protecting children is nonsense.

I'm well aware consent laws vary from state to state.  So do incest laws.  How does this change the fact they protect children, and the "consenting adults" argument has no relevance or effect on them?  What argument that is used to buttress gay marriage or polygamy will work for pedophilia?  That if we mess around with marriage the next thing you know states will abandon consent laws wholesale, regardless of age?  Is that the slippery slope, Streiff?  I don't follow the logic.

I don't tie pedophilia to gay marriage or polygamy. I only point out that the age of consent to marriage or sexual activity is not set to "protect children" as what is legal marriage in Alabama could quite easily be pedophilia in another state.

My objection is that you are creating a rubric and a coherence for these laws that does not exist. They sprang up for a lot of different reasons over an extended period of time.

I agree with you that the ancestry of consent laws may not have been exclusively to protect children, or at all.  Regardless of their origin, sexual consent laws protect children from sexual relationships with adults before they are ready to participate in such relationships.  They may have originated in the protection of familial property rights, but that is not their use today.  And whatever their origin, they serve as a bar to the slippery slope that supposedly exist between gay marriage and pedophilia.  Do you agree with that premise?

What would be your opinion of a legal gay marriage in Alabama (stop laughing and keep reading) between a 35 y.o. and a 14 y.o.?

14 is the youngest age at which Alabama parents may marry off their child, but the child may not get married without the permission of both parents, so this is not the age of consent that is comparable with the other two examples you gave.

That they can get married but not have sex?

Brilliant.

Same as I would for a heterosexual marriage - what the hell was Alabama thinking?  Do you know if the 14 year old consent law also includes parental consent, or is it absolute?  Not sure that would necessarily make it better, just curious.  I think Kentucky has a similiar statute.

I think I understand what you're driving at, that consent laws don't absolutely bar what could legitimately be defined as pedophilia.  If this is just an argument over how protective those statutes really are on a state-by-state basis, I'll conceded I don't know and that in some states the age will be too low.  But they do offer protection, and the arguments for gay marriage wouldn't seem to contravert them.

Just testing your threshold of nausea.

They require parental consent unless you are and emancipated minor.

I'm doing some work on informed consent procedures right now and have been amazed at Alabama, in particular.

You can get married at 14. But you can't have pre-marital sex until 16. An unmarried 14 year old can't give informed consent for herself but if she has a child she can give informed consent for the child. And you can't sign a legally binding contract until you're 21.

Sounds like that combination of laws is perfect enforcement for shotgun weddings. "If y'all don't marry Betsy Sue, y'all'll be breaking rocks for a while."

challenge....  This is a debate which is as confused as any other in our society which touches upon fundamental conceptions of human nature, morality and the lot, probably more so.  That being the case, anything I might hope to state could well only add to the sum total of confusion.  Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that it is worthwhile to attempt to say something, because it does not appear that disputants are doing much more than arguing about ephemera, without actually getting down to the level of the essential disagreement...

The debate between opponents and proponents, or at least those who do not much care one way or the other, of SSM, is in large part a debate between those who believe that things possess an essence or nature which pre-exists any human attempt to define them and those who regard belief in such natures as just another superstition, it being, so they say, self-evident that all ostensible natures posited of things are mere conventions.  That is to say that this debate is, in large measure, a skirmish between essentialists and nominalists.  Perhaps we do not like to conceive of ourselves as being locked in the reverberations of some apparently long-dead philosophical dispute - that to most people will have about as much resonance as debates over angels and pinheads - but that is, essentially (pun not intended, or maybe it is), where we are.  

Those who oppose SSM generally believe that the essence of marriage is that of a union of complimentary sexes oriented, whatever may be the externalities and side benefits, towards the creation and training of future generations.  This eseence they see as rooted in human nature and inextricably linked to the order that sustains society.  Proponents of SSM may make a variety of arguments in defense of the proposition that marriage ought to be redefined to encompass same-sex couples.  They may argue that marriage, as traditionally defined, is a mere social convention.  They may argue that the core idea of marriage is a committed union of two persons.  They may couch their appeals in the language of one or another of the rights discourses circulating throughout the world.  

The second form of argument is one that ought to carry little weight, as it possesses all the character and charm of an obvious expedient intended to open one desired possibility while closing off another regarded as undesirable or inopportune.  It also fails to account for the universal prevalence of opposite-sex unions, regardless of type, across the broad spectrum of human societies and cultures.  Anthropology may not definitively establish one type of male-female union as the archetype of marriage, but it does indicate quite clearly that marriage has something to do with men and women and reproduction.  The idea that, somehow, in spite of these obvious civilizational and biological realities, the nature of marriage is not necessarily connected to the compimentarity of men and women and the imperative to sustain the species, and is, in the end, about nothing more than commitment however defined or expressed, has more than a faint odor of the ridiculous about it.

The ideas behind the push for SSM, then, with the greatest strength and plausibility are those which attempt to recast marriage as a pure social convention, and appeal to some or another doctrine of rights in defense of such attempts.  They possess that strength because they are able to draw upon vast reservoirs of sentiment and passion in modern Western societies in favour of self-expression, self-creation and the claims of the individual as over against the constraining structures of society, tradition and custom.  They are able to draw on the resonance with something in the character of modern Western culture of the ideas - if they can be dignified with the title of "ideas" - expressed in the infamous (among conservatives, at least) "sweet mystery of life" passage of Planned Parenthood v. Casey.  

It is for this reason that the much-derided slippery slope may be seen to exist; it is for this reason that polygamy and even, God forbid, pedophilia are not entirely out of the question once the culture takes its steps down the path of marriage redefinition.  Marriage is already perceived, especially by those advancing the arguments for its redefinition, as an aspect of sexual self-creation or expression, and this latter is, implicitly in the culture and explicitly in certain places in the jurisprudence of even our highest court, just another aspect of the rights of self-creation assumed to be at the heart of what we mean by the words "liberty" and "freedom".  If marriage should be redefined to encompass same-sex couples, the transition from tradition to the innovation will not be that from a state in which marriage was arbitrarily restricted to certain classes of couples and denied to others to a state in which marriage is now open to all couples, regardless of the sexes of those involved.  The transition will be one from a state in which marriage, however weakly and inconsistently, is still tethered to the division of the human species into male and female, and the necessity of producing and rearing future generations, to a state in which marriage is an aspect of self-expression rooted in the desires, ambitions and passions of those who enter into it.  It will be the transition from the traditional understanding of marriage to an understanding of marriage as an artifact of will, because it will no longer be grounded in biological and social realities (this will be utterly impossible), but in the self-definition of the participants.  The foundational institution of civilization will no longer be that one by which the culture reproduces itself; the foundational institution of civilization will be the legal relations of those who wish to share a household and enjoy sexual relations.  Whether the change is loved or loathed, it would be not merely a legal peccadillo; it would be epochal, and the entire logic of the culture that arose in the wake of the sexual revolution, as well as elements of the fundamental jurisprudence of the nation, would not be able to withstand the logic of polygamy proponents, for to deny them would be arbitrary in light of assumptions too commonly held, and our culture does not accept the arbitrary unless it is located in the individual will.

A comprehensive and elegant summary of the philosophical underpinings and implications of the ghastly innovation that lies before us. Well said, Maximos.

Let me add this addendum: We must never forget that, like she did for the ancient world, the Church will yet preserve the sanity of human sexuality and procreation (for the two cannot be separated) as the astonishing gift that they are, even when men have turned against it, debased it, scouted it, and finally reviled it.

Maximos -

Allow me to play devil's advocate.

How does your argument argue against polygamy?

Assuming same sex marriage was allowed, how would it prevent the culture from reproducing itself?

How would recognizing same sex marriage in any way interfere with heterosexual marriages?

I'm neither supporting or endorsing either polygamy or same sex marriage.  I'm asking you to make your argument clearer on a couple of specific points.

Thanks -

1. My arguments were not intended to tell against polygamy per se; they were intended only to demonstrate that the logic of commonly held ideals of self-creation, and of life as the canvas of desire, leads ineluctably from same-sex marriage to polygamy to.... whatever.  The Supreme Court has been enshrining such nostrums in its jurisprudence for decades now, and any attempt to halt the logic at some point will, by the nature of the case, be arbitrary.  And the arbitrary does not hold in our culture; any arbitrary stopping point must be imposed by some authority, in a culture which increasingly denies that any authority has the right to interfere with individual projects of self-creation.  Any stopping point between same-sex marriage and polygamy or polyandry or whatever will be nothing more than a layover.

That said, the general argument against polygamy (polyandry being vanishingly rare in reality) is that it unduly increases the status of certain men, degrades the status of women, and results in the emergence of groups of younger men with no meaningful stake in the society.  This is very nearly self-evident upon consideration of African, Arab and Mormon schismatic communities where polygamy is prevalent.  There is no doubt that polygamy has its defenders, both within and without societies in which it is practiced; but it has never been our tradition, and the introduction of novelties to cultures unaccustomed to them is bound to create disturbances.  We should be especially unwilling to introduce such a novelty, given that it will only exacerbate all of the personal and social ills which have attended our culture of divorce and sexual-self-creation; the only perspective from which the consequences of polygamy would be desirable would be that of the deformed individualism behind the other changes our culture has undergone in the area of family life.  Imagine filtering the pathologies of polygamous cultures through the matrix of the pathologies of the divorce and illigitimacy cultures.  Not pretty at all.

However, the real threat is probably not polygamy as we understand it, but polyamorous combinations of stupendous variety.  In some places, the pathologies linked with polygamy and the divorce culture will appear; in others, unique variants will arise.  The point is not to analyze every conceivable combination to discern the pathologies it will generate.  The point is that by permitting such combinations as marriage, society will be severing, perhaps forever, the link between marriage and procreation.  This seems counterintuitive, what with all of the 2 man, 5 woman households some of us have heard about, with children born to various couplings.  But the reality will be that marriage is no longer about a man, a women and procreation; marriage will be, first foremost, and always about the sexual desires of the participants and the arrangments necessary to their fulfillment.  Reproduction and the rearing of future generations will be secondary, an afterthought, by the very logic of the ideals which justify the combinations.  Given all of the deleterious impacts upon children of the fallout of the sexual revolution and the divorce culture, we do not need to place children - our future - under the multiplier of polyamory.    We have already severed the sexual energies of the species from that channel which best conduces to the good of children and society as a whole, in the name of individual liberation.  We need not permit those energies to become totally untrammeled, rendering future generations a gamble contingent upon fortuitous outcomes of a social process which will only magnify all of the ills we already suffer in consequence of earlier innovations upon the family.  All because some people like to have orgasms by different means and combinations?  This is not a rational exchange.

I'll address the questions about SSM when I get to work, as I am running late, and would like to spend some time with my 6-month old son before I leave.

2. As to the arguments against SSM, the argument is not that SSM will render reproduction impossible; that could only occur if everyone were to go gay, and not even the execrable Mr. Phelps in a moment of heightened dementia is making that argument.  No, the argument against SSM is a subset of the arguments outlined above.  Legalized SSM will enshrine, as a matter of law and public policy, the idea that marriage is about individual desire and self-creation, not about reproduction and the perpetuation of the society.  It cannot be otherwise, for obvious reasons.  That being the case, society will no longer be priveleging that means by which it continues to exist, but will regard it, implicitly, as a matter of happenstance: as the occasional and random outcome of a process of sexual self-expression on the part of individuals, a process, one hopes, that will, fortuitously, bring forth well-integrated citizens in spite of all of the pathologies we know that it produces.  The argument, then, is that SSM will enshrine the view of marriage as nothing more than a mode of sexual self-definition, and will, therefore, exacerbate the problems brought by the sexual and divorce revolutions, adding its own unique difficulties to a culture which priveleges the desires of adults (locked in states of psychological adolescence) over the needs of children.  
   
3. Recognition of SSM is not expected to induce the breakup of particular marriages.  Legalized SSM will enshrine in law the idea that marriage is about sexual self-definition, that it is what each person says it is for himself, and will, in consequence, obscure the ideal of marriage, rendering it increasingly difficult, especially for those who already have difficulties with the thing, from grasping what it is and what it enatails and requires, and how it is essential to the maintainance of society.  It would, to state the matter baldly, tell us - even those of us in stable heterosexual marriages - that marriage is about desire, when again, to state the matter baldly, it is about so much more that one can only marvel at the crude, reductive mode of thought that could reduce so venerable an institution to nothing more than a manner of rutting favoured by some couples.  It would, therefore, devalue what most heterosexual marriages are already about.
   

That is not to demean homosexuals; it is just to observe that homosexuality is quite different, and cannot be assimilated to heterosexual norms without injuring society as a whole.  

Don't your arguments tend to tell us that the government is ill suited for this task? Yes, there are some functions of marriage that are important to the government, some which survive the divorce. What the government isn't very good at is trying to deal with a social tradition, marriage, that has different meanings to different people.

The government has a legitimate interest in seeing that parents take responsibility for their children until they are grown, that people be allowed to ask others to make decisions for them when they cannot make those decisions for themselves, that dependents and survivors are taken care of in a way that reflects the family that existed, whether or not there is a formal arrangement.

The government has created many rights for married people, both within the government and as a rule for businesses and others who deal with married people, but it has also made marriage far more optional. Most states have abolished common law marriage, most have relatively easy divorce. Why not go the rest of the way and get the government out of marriage completely?

Let people register as domestic partners and let this revocable registration be the government's only foray into marriages. We can easily limit the number of recognized partners to one without running afoul any constitutional problems. As a necessary complement to this, we may need to have some changes in the law about parental responsibility for children, delineating certain formal rights and responsibilities that both parents have independent of marriage or domestic partnerships.

Miriam Wright Eidleman, Hillary and all the rest have already been pushing for a "right" for children to "divorce" their parents.  (BTW, Hillary & Co. are from up north somewhere, I believe.)  So, it really is not much of a stretch to go from a right to "divorce" one's parents to a right to have consensual sex with anyone.  

All I see are a parade of horribles, none of which seem likely to come to fruition.  I think there are sound arguments against same sex marriage, arguments which I disagree with but can be wrestled with in the public sphere.  Arguments about the role of marriage in procreation are well received and I consider them seriously.

Screaming pedophilia in a crowded bridal shop is something else entirely.  

Maximos, the fact that you reduce all of this to sexual self expression and defintion is as crude as the philosophy you ascribe to others.  As anyone who has been in a long-term committed relationship knows, sex is not the glue that holds a couple together, or if it is, without the growth of more durable attachments, the relationship will fail.  Same sex marriage is no different on that account.

Same sex marriage to me is so much less about the sex than the committment, and about the special rights which the government provides for such a committment.

Your comments about procreation I understand and respect.  There is something to be said about the long history of sanctioned marriage versus the long history of prohibition and sanction for homosexuality.  I don't think same sex marriage in any way devalues traditional marriage, if you are not focused on the sex/desire aspect and rather look at the love/devotion/committment aspect.  I also don't think it devalues child-rearing, but I will consider further the procreation position.

My intial instinct was to pan the position with the old "we don't force hetero couples to have kids" line, but I think you're getting at something deeper.

This may be a touch off-topic, but what do you suggest should be done to strengthen hetero marriages, particularly by the government?  Do you also oppose civil unions (as a lesser-status marriage)?

"getting government out of the marriage business" altogether.  What this would permit would be the proliferation of do-it-yourself, build-your-own-family-model arrangements - precisely the sort of situation which we now have in part, thanks to easy divorce and the egoism that the sexual revolution made possible, and which we would have in greater measure were SSM to be legalized.  That is to say that the arguments in favour of "getting government out of marriage" assume a great number of things from political theory, from the role of the state and the nature of society, to the place of the individual and the nature of law and morality - all of which I find it tedious to discuss.  My point here is only that getting government out of marriage is away to have all of the undesirable and chaotic effects I have indicated while ceasing, in theory, to argue about them politically.  It is, to my way of thinking, like saying, "Let's just make this whole messy debate go away because it's so unpleasant to have to have it."  It at once assumes too much controversial theory and takes too little notice of what makes for a stable society.  

I don't believe that this establishes that government is ill suited to involve itself in marriage.  What it establishes is what any argument in political theory must establish, if it is to arrive at a conclusion: government must say yes to some things and no to others.

one of the conclusions to be drawn is that commitment, as a general category or concept, is not enough for the central, civilizational role that marriage has fulfilled.  It is not that commitment is inessential, or that is has nothing to do with any relationship that is not heterosexual.  That is not my argument; if I created that impression, it was certainly not what was intended.  Substitute "self-creation", "self-definition" and "lifestyle-self-whatever" and the argument will likely be clearer.  It is not all about sex per se, although sex is certainly overly prominent in some of the alternative lifestyles waiting in the wings; it is about self-creation as it impacts on the areas of sexuality and family, and it is the entire idea of there existing few justifiable limits on the origination of novel experiments in living that is the root of the matter.  This is what is so injurious to society generally and children particularly.

As to what governments might do to strengthen marriage among heterosexuals....  I am under no illusions that any such things are likely to occur.  I believe that divorce is far too easy to obtain, and that no-fault divorce, in particular, is, in reality, an outrage upon many wronged spouses and children.  I believe that tax policy should certainly never penalize, however indirectly or inadvertantly, married couples, and should probably even favour marriage.  Beyond these more concrete policy questions, however, I believe that education must increasingly emphasize the responsibilities and duties of maturity; I do not read the trade journals of educrats, but the impression I have, from my own experiences, is that there is too much emphasis on finding oneself and the like.  Children, to state the matter frankly, should be educated against egoism and narcissism.  Beyond even unspecified changes in education policy, what is truly required is a cultural transformation that would shift the relationship between individuals and families, as well as the other institutions of society, back towards something more nearly resembling balance; our society overpriveleges the individual qua individual, and this is as destructive as any other monomania when introduced into society.

Regarding civil unions, I am sceptical, inasmuch as civil unions robust enough to qualify as marriage-in-all-but-name would likely entail many of the undesirable effects I wish to avoid, albeit at a somewhat diminished pace.  If anything, governments should remove what obstacles there are to homosexual couples who want and need to establish certain legal arrangements, rather than elevating relationships other than marriage to positions of equality with marriage.  Marriage, on my view, must be priveleged in some substantial, meaningful way; it does not necessarily follow that gay couples should not have hospital visitation rights or the right to bequeath property, and so on.  I'll leave it to those who are actually interested in the practice of law to define the differences.  

Maximos -

This was a thoughtful and thorough reply, many thanks.

For the record, I agree with your thoughts on polygamy.  As a practical matter it degrades women.  As a non-practical matter, and without getting into it too deeply here, IMO it also works against the higher goals of marriage.

I agree that it would be destructive for marriage to become something that everyone could define for themselves.  Marriage, as an institution, has and deserves a weight and value that merit serious respect.  It shouldn't be trifled with.

Regarding the role and purpose of marriage in society, IMO procreation is really only part of it.  More encompassing, I think, is that is the basis of the home and family as the central social unit.  The freely given vows of man and wife to cleave to and care for each other, for life, create an excellent context for, but also have value beyond, childrearing, both socially and otherwise.

Regarding same sex marriage, my thought is this.  Many gay people already live out the bond of marriage as I've described it above.  Through intentional mutual commitment, they cleave to and care for each other, for life, at least as well as most hetero marriages.  And, they appear to have done this for a long, long time, as far as I can tell.

So, I understand and in fact support your point about not wanting to open the door for everyone to redefine marriage to suit their own tastes.  And, I'm not sure how you would extend the institution of marriage to gays without allowing the line to be drawn further out in future.  But, I do observe that many gays are married already, in every sense that we normally give that word short of mutually participating in reproduction.  Not that that's not a significant thing, but it's not the whole of marriage.

Regarding the religious issue, there are in fact a number of passages in the Bible that condemn homosexuality.  If you accept the Bible as an authoritative document, you can't gloss over that.  But, I'm not sure that discussion belongs in considerations of civil law.

As a practical matter, I think the MA Supreme Court would have been wise to accept the legislature's proposal to allow civil unions.  It would have addressed 90% of what gays here were seeking, and would have done so in a way that would have met with pretty widespread acceptance, at least here in MA.  As legal and civil solutions to private issues go, 90% is pretty good.

Thanks for your comments.

Cheers -

Take the long view for a second.  Just over thirty years ago, abortion was illegal and taboo and certainly not defended by anyone respectable.  Now, murdering a baby coming out of the womb after a healthy pregnancy is staunchly defended as somebody's "right".

Thirty years ago, homosexuality was illegal and taboo and discussing it openly was not even considered polite.  Now, homosexuals are claiming a "right"  to marriage, an institution whose definition has been set for thousands of years.  

Twenty years ago, pedophelia was illegal, taboo, and not tolerated.  Now, pedophiles have a national advocacy organization and indulge in a multi-million dollar industry devoted to depicting its' practice.

Fifteen years ago, porking an intern and lying about it to a Grand Jury would the disgraceful end to any Presidency.  Now it's fodder for a 10 million dollar book deal.

I could go on and on, but are you beginning to see a pattern here?  No my friend, legitimizing the sexual availability of children is not nearly as far-fetched as you might think.

that we can entertain this discussion, in spite of disagreements, in a civil and dignified fashion.  

You are quite right about marriage being about more than procreation.  The family is the foundational unit of society.  If I have emphasized the reproductive angle, I have done so only because procreation is the obvious linchpin of the position of the family in a healthy culture; it is the factor which enables us to drive towards what is at the heart of these controversies.

Thanks for your questions and comments.  

what do you suggest should be done to strengthen hetero marriages, particularly by the government?

I agree with Maximos that the government's role, aside from a significant tightening of divorce law, is limited here.

Something absolutely necessary, in the cultural sphere, is a correction against our almost absurdly inflated notion of romantic love. That many people imagine marriage to be founded upon romantic love, a notoriously ephemeral and capricious emotion, is a pulverizing indictment of our moral education.

No, what marriage is founded upon is not romantic love, even if it is braced by some vague idea of commitment; it is founded upon a vow -- a vow solemnly taken, even in its debased condition of our day, before God, before family, before community, and before the state. The vow is, to put it frankly, a rather reckless one*, precisely because of its implicit disdain for romantic love.

This is a vow that could, if tragedy struck, transform itself into a vow of chastity: for either the husband or wife could suffer the destruction of his or her sexual capacity by accident or disease. This could happen; yet the vow would remain, placid and immovable. Beauty will fade; love (in our romantic sense) will diminish; lust will turn its lidless eye elsewhere; but the vow will remain -- as well as, in the great preponderance of cases, the flesh and blood outcome of the vow: children.

In my view there is no more needed remedial treatment than the shifting of the emphasis of marriage from romantic love to those ancient pillars of our civilization: the Vow and Posterity.

______

* I will never forget, in this connection, a title for an old Chesterton essay: "In Defense of Rash Vows."

ideal rose to such prominence in our culture.

I think, actually, that the, or our, concepts of chivalry and romantic love are siblings, and are perhaps joined at the hip.

Cheers -

with courtly love? I don't think romantic love is easily linked to chivalry.

I'm a Republican and I really dislike it when gays flaunt their position, but I really don't think gay marriage would lead to legalized polygamy.  The reason being that gayness could (whether right or not) be attributed to biology whereas I very much doubt that polygamy can be.  

If worst came to worst, we could keep polygamy illegal the same way we keep gay marriage illegal right now (simply because we feel like it).

For the record, I really don't care one way or the other about gay marriage. Let'em have it or don't.  Someone else deal with it.

Romantic love, in the sense of emotional attraction and affinity between two people that is a kind of transcendent good in and of itself, is often seen as emerging in Europe in the late Middle Ages along with, and related to, the cults of chivalry and the courtly ideal.  The poetry and other literature of the period, including the legend of Tristan and Iseult and much of the Provencal lyric poetry, kind of exemplifies this idea.  The courtly love ideal is, I think, something of a variant of this, which specializes in loving an unattainable object and proving the purity of your love by a kind of self-abnegating worship from afar.  By "cult" I don't mean a religious cult, but the elevation of chivalry etc. as social ideals.

Romantic love also has a more general, and modern, meaning as an attraction between two people that is more than merely physical.  It's related to the more technical "comparative lit" meaning, but is somewhat less high-falutin.

Cheers -

So the legal age someone can be to marry (with parent's consent) is 14, but what about just going out with the person who is under the age of 14? Would it be illegal for a 17-year-old female to go out with a 13-year-old male? I understand that after one of the two turns the age of 18, that the other "partner" is considered "jail-bait", but would it be legal for the aforementioned pairing?

The 18 year old can legally date the 14 year old all he or she wants. They just can't engage in any kind of hanky-panky at all beyond holding hands.

And the 18 year old better be real, real sure that he stays on the 14 year old's good side, because if the younger one decides to make up a story one day, there's going to be a world of trouble for the 18 year old.

The exact laws differ from state to state. In Louisiana, for example, statutory rape occurs when a person over the age of 18 has sex with a person under the age of 18, when there is more than 2 years between their ages. So the 17 year olds can have sex with each other, and the 18 year old boy can have sex with his 17 or 16 year old girlfriend. But the 19 year old can't sleep with a 16 year old. To the best of my knowledge, in Louisiana, there is no prohibition against a 17 year old having consensual sex with a 13 year old. But I wouldn't recommend it. They may find a judge willing to decide that the 13 year old was legally incapacitated from consenting by her lack of maturity the same way someone who is passed-out drunk cannot consent to sex. And that would be full-fledged rape, not statutory rape.