Marriage for Savages

Ross Douthat’s Op-ed The Future of Gay Marriage discusses Dan Savage’s call for Open Marriage. Savage’s suggestion that we legitimate infidelity poses the following question for Sophisticated Americans: If the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage as heterosexual is oppressive, then why isn’t its insistence on monogamy also oppressive?

Douthat explains the notion of Open Marriage as a blend between (gay) conservative and liberationist views of marriage. Here we would see it as a logical outgrowth of the Lockeanization of marriage. Aspects of marriage like sexual complimentarity and child care duties are dismantled in light of the ‘free individual and nothing more.’ This is the idea behind Justice Kennedy’s mystery passage in Casey and which he reiterates in Lawrence v. Texas: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

In a follow-up post, Douthat argues this individualist understanding will allow manliness to run amok. Monogamy was a way of civilizing or domesticating the thumos of males. Autonomy in principle will yield to a contest of wills in practice, with an unruly male spiritedness coming out ahead. Liberation indeed.

Finally, it is interesting to see Savage defend Open Marriage on the grounds of NATURE, albeit through a Modern rather than a Classical or Christian lens. He thinks we are not ‘wired for monogamy.’ For Savage, the good is natural and nature is identified with our instinctive and spontaneous inclinations. This is in contrast to the pre-modern view which found rationality and teleology (purpose) in nature. At the moment this view is unpopular, but Savage’s proposal to return to nature might allow this older understanding to return-however much he has wrong, at least he has the starting point right.

Love it or Leave it

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Governor Rick Perry and Jon Stewart debate the merits of federalism in this interview. Perry says the merit is that on controversial issues like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage each state can have their own laws. This allows people to leave the state which they disagree with.

Stewart replied the states are not monolithic so there is a minority who does not support the existing laws. For example, there are citizens in Texas who support the two issues mentioned above. Federalism leads to a Tyranny of the Majority which endangers basic rights.

But Stewart is begging the question. He is assuming these things are basic rights. The fact that people disagree about them is the reason why federalism is being proposed as a way to resolve the impasse. States are a “laboratories for democracy” which allow citizens to test a hypothesis.

Of course, Perry did not say that. Which makes you wonder how he will do if he does pursue a Presidential bid.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates on moral relativism

Walk into any Barnes and Noble and you are bound to run into a book display celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. Unfortunately, a book you will not find in that collection is Harry Jaffa’s Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, which was published fifty years ago. Jaffa was recently on Uncommon Knowledge and he talked about what originally drew him to him this debate. What Lincoln and Douglas are ultimately arguing about is whether morals are relative or absolute. Or to put it in Jaffa’s words, “Do the people make the moral law or does the moral law make the people?”

Take Douglas, for instance. His “popular sovereignty” argument is that slavery’s existence is simply a matter for the people in each state to vote up or down. And since the people's will is never unanimous, might or the majority makes right. This is just a variation of the doctrine of moral relativism which states that moral principles are a product of the people’s will. Thus morals are subjective and will vary from place to place which is why Douglas believes popular soveriengty is the solution to the slavery issue.

In contrast, Lincoln argued that the equality principle, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, is made by God, not man. The approval of slavery is a failure to live up to the moral law. This is a textbook presentation of moral absolutism.

What is especially interesting is how moral relativism is applied today. Cultural Liberals, who believe history is moving toward greater and greater freedom, usually presuppose moral relativism when arguing for their causes: abortion, gay marriage, etc. Yet they would think Lincoln, not Douglas, belongs in their pantheon of heroes. If the L-D Debates reveal anything, it is that such Progressives should reevaluate their first principles. The rock of moral absolutism can better secure human rights than the shifting sands of moral relativism.

Millennials on Marriage: "Not Yet"

James Poulos has pointed out an interesting debate between Ben Domenech and Conor Friedersdorf over why Millenials are waiting to get married later than earlier generations.

Here is Ben:

But I say the simplest answer is true: American men today delay the act of

reproduction and union because they devalue it. Because technology and culture
(today, technology is culture) unite to encourage them to devalue it — to favor
distraction over maturity, personal growth over familial growth, and self over
society.

Conor offers a different set of motives: 1) Today’s women are focused on their careers. 2) Parents want to offer their children every material advantage, just like their own parents did. 3) They want to avoid a divorce, which was pervasive in the previous generation.

Ben’s response to the first point is that more and more women today are leaving the workforce. My response to the second point is that Boomers spoiled us when they did that, hence the term 'Trophy Kids'. And the third point I am willing to grant. But I would develop Ben’s argument about the “self over society.” Tocqueville describes it terms of love of material well being (we call it consumerism):

To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world
in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of, but to add a few
yards of land to your field, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a dwelling, to be
always making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to
satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are
small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day
by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world and sometimes intervene
between itself and heaven.

The ubiquity of McMansions and dozens of creature comforts is another reason why Millennials delay marriage and children. Families weigh us down as we try to climb the economic ladder. Tocqueville decried this comfort-seeking mentality and believed it would make us soft. Borrowing an argument from Peter Lawler, I would point out the inevitability of death and how it forces us to reevaluate our priorities. Lying in your deathbed has a way of changing your outlook on things, especially when it comes to how you lived your life. Better to take that perspective now than later.

Should Marriage be privatized? Cont'd

A friend responded to the previous post so I thought I'd paste my reply here:

But my argument is the State will set an example EITHER way. If the state is neutral towards all sexual relationships, the example it will set is that there is nothing better or worse about any of them. This will make it easier for people to get into the wrong types of relationships. Since the state will set an example EITHER way, then it might as well set the example or standard at traditional marriage.

If the message from the state is different from the Church's, then it will only make it more, not less, difficult for the Church to instruct her flock.

You're right that we've been designed for trad marriage and not gay marriage, but that doesn't mean our design is an incentive. Our knowledge of our design is implicit and is suppressed by sin. It is up to the institutions of our society (family, church, and state) to make explicit what is implicit. To bring to light what is in the dark. And it is important that all the institutions are on the the same page. Differing messages or examples will only call into question the validity of the authentic one. I say the authentic one b/c the false one will be easier to believe b/c it is, well, easier.

Should marriage be privatized?

A friend recently presented me with the following argument: "For the sake of protecting traditional marriage, why not have the state get out of the marriage business altogether? This way the debate over the gay marriage will disappear b/c the state has no role in such questions."

Here is Jennifer Morse's response to the 'proposal.'

My argument is the law will have an educative effect one way or another. Either it will teach that traditional marriage accrues benefits for our citizens and the society at large OR it will teach that all sexual relationships are equal, that traditional marriage has no intrinsic merit over cohabitation, gay marriage, or polygamy. The latter will be the message sent to our citizens if the state gets out of the marriage business. In such a cultural mileu, it will be more, not less, difficult to encourage people to enter a traditional marriage. The educative effect of the law's 'nuetrality' will be to incentivize behavior my friend wants to discourage.