This is part four of my series on marriage. This article will focus on the second argument of some who think that marriage is changeable to no end, which is one of the main assumptions by those who want to change marriage laws today. They say “marriage has no distinctive public value, and this being the case the state can remake the definition of marriage to fit whatever our preferences are.” In this case there is no “right answer” for the state’s marriage policy any more than for the national bird, it’s a matter of what folks agree on. There are several problems associated with this: first, it’s often motivated by the fallacy that because social practices are partly constructed they must be entirely constructed. Second, it can make no sense of major philosophical and legal traditions. Third, it contradicts the spirit of most revisionist arguments, implying the revisionists’ view is as unjust as they consider the conjugal position to be. Finally, even if this view were true, it would provide no good basis for the revisionist view.
Point one. Marriage is a basic aspect of human well-being, valuable in and of itself, and in a way that other goods cannot substitute for. Consider the contrast between marriage and friendship. Marriage and friendship have taken different forms across history, but no one is fooled into thinking that they do not have a basic core quality. True friendship requires mutual good will and cooperation; without this quality, one does not have friendship. Marriage too has a core, fixed by our nature as sexually reproductive beings. To deviate from it is to miss a crucial part of this basic human good.
What is considered most basic to marriage–things like bodily union and connection to family life–are nearly universal in marriage practice. So marriage is partly constructed by the culture it is in, but it’s also constructed by our biology and the basic good of family life. This is not the same thing as saying that marriage is entirely constructed by society, as if biology and a connection to family could be ignored. Saying that some of the details of marriage can be determined by culture (British roya wedding vs a Navajo one) is totally different from saying that the basic foundations of marriage is subject to a vote. Marriage is marriage with the accompanying goods if these foundations are present, and is not marriage if they are absent.
Point two. The conjugal view has been developing for as long as humans have been around. Important philosophical and legal traditions have long distinguished friendships of all kinds from marriage. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and many others defended the conjugal view, even amid highly homoerotic cultures (e.g. Greeks and Romans). Plutarch affirmed that intercourse with an infertile spouse realizes the good of marriage, something other ancient thinkers took for granted even as they denied other sexual acts could do the same. To repeat, for hundreds of years, while infertility was no ground for declaring a marriage void, only intercourse between a man and a woman was recognized as consummating (or completing) a marriage.
Points three and four. If marriage were a fiction designed to promote a social function, there would be no natural right to marriage. If this view were true, it would be unjust not to recognize polyamorous couples (such as polygamy) as marriages. However both of these results are repugnant to most revisionists, and in fact are contradicted by their own arguments (that marriage can be anything we decide). Also, if (as I show in part 5) abolishing the conjugal view of marriage undermined the stability that makes marriage good for children, then traditional marriage law would promise great social usefulness.
The strong links between stable marriage and children’s welfare, and between children’s welfare and every dimension of the common good give the state strong reasons to recognize marriage. But more liberal critics are also mistaken to think of marriage as merely some tradition of our law and culture. It is a fundamental human good with a fixed core that we are equally wise to recognize and unable to reshape. Those that ask “what’s the harm if we did?” is what part five of this series will address.