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Marriage and the Patriarchy
Recently,
the media has been awash in different perspectives of the issue of same
sex marriage. This has been highlighted by independent decisions by cities
in several states to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples, by the
court action of the state of Massachusetts to legalize marriage for residents
of that state on one side; and by the highly-touted, though clearly doomed
attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to state only heterosexual couples
can be legally married and the new Marriage Protection Act currently wending
its way through the legislative process, as well as myriad local protests
and laws passed to prevent recognition of same sex marriages on the other
side. Clearly, this is an issue whose time has come to be dealt with squarely
in the public and private, governmental and societal arenas.
The debate, centered on whether or not same sex couples have a legitimate
right to marry, seems to be a fairly simple one to resolve. There is no
question that same sex couples have long enjoyed the intimacy and commitment
of lifetime relationships. In these relationships, they have chosen to
have children or not, have parented children from previous heterosexual
relationships, have bought homes together and pooled their monies in joint
bank accounts. The only thing missing is the legal protection and societal
recognition of these relationships as not only valid, but of enduring
nature that will serve to strengthen and enrich the community at large
as well as the lives of the individuals desiring to enter into holy matrimony.
The question that often goes unasked in the rush to the altar of same
sex couples and the equally determined efforts of the conservative elements
of society to barricade the door to the chapel before they get there,
is this: Should the gay and lesbian communities be seeking marriage at
all, or is this an opportunity for society as a whole to re-examine the
efficacy of marriage and the entitlements that currently are the first
wedding gifts (heterosexual) newlyweds receive?
In this paper I will address the Judeo-Christian historical contours
of marriage and how those foundational patriarchal beliefs about marriage
still shape public and social policy regarding marriage entitlements,
explore the unconscious reasons that conservative politicians and religious
leaders oppose same sex marriage, and finally, seek to answer the unasked
question with a different ethic that, in the words of Dr. Mary Hunt spoken
to a summer school class in July, 2004, seeks relational equality for
all rather than legal privilege for a few. I also want to note that, although
the queer community is often addressed in terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgendered, for the purposes of this paper I will be focusing on
unambiguous gay and lesbian relationships. This is not to say that the
bisexual and transgendered communities have no voice in this debate. Indeed,
I believe in large part those communities will present our state and legal
governments with the conundrum of gender and sexual identity that might
just will be what it takes to widen the hole in the dam obstructing same
sex marriage so that justice can flow like the river and righteousness
like a never-ending stream. In this paper, I will be dealing with the
patriarchal attitudes towards those who identify as biologically male
and female, however, and so will use the terms gay and lesbian when referring
to same sex marriage.
A cursory look at the historical implications of marriage in the Judeo-Christian
tradition make it abundantly clear that it has only been in recent years
that love and marriage were presumed to go together like a horse and carriage.
In her book Body, Sex and Pleasure, Christine Gudorf (1994) notes
the particular cultural aspect of marriage in the nomadic tribes of Israel
had nothing to do with romantic love and everything to do with the transference
of property rights (the woman) and the differentiation between the Israelites
and their neighbors, many of whom practiced heterosexual and homosexual
sex acts in pagan rituals (1994, p. 57). The patriarchal view of women
cannot be underscored enough. Indeed, a truly "biblical" marriage would
open the door to polygamy (for the man) as seen in numerous biblical texts
(Genesis 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5, 5:13; I Kings 11:3 and II Chronicles
11:21, to name a few), and death to women who weren't virgins on the wedding
night (Deuteronomy 22:13-21). In fact, the concept of chastity meaning
virginity and sex only within the confines of the marriage bed stem from
this view of women as property. The husband needed assurance that any
children born were, in fact, his children, his property. Thus the codes
regarding marriage were more cultural and practical than moral. A woman
must be a virgin and monogamous; a man was not bound to those same requirements.
In fact, throughout the Hebrew Scripture it is virtually more common for
men to have more than one wife and/or concubines than not. As basically
the only means of survival for women, marriage was clearly a restrictive
yoke placed on them that assured the continued domination by men in society.
In the period of early Christianity in which the New Testament was written,
we see a relatively short period of time-less than 100 years - in which
sex roles were relaxed, allowing women more freedom and leadership roles
within the church. Gudorf attributes this to the widely held belief that
the end of the world was at hand and the return of Christ, imminent. Given
that focus, the priority was on the mission fields rather than on maintaining
societal constructs. However, when it became clear that Christ was not
on his way back to earth the Church was thrown into an identity crisis.
Additionally, the Roman Empire was hostile to the Christian cult. In an
effort to both stabilize the Church and appease the government, the church
reverted back to the strict patriarchal views of marriage, family and
women's roles that mirrored both their Jewish tradition and the secular
norms of the day (Gudorf, 1994, pp.56-59). In the Roman Empire, marriages
were arranged for any number of reasons: political alliances, family obligations,
the need for offspring. Love was not one of them. As Jean Ponder Soto
states in the essay The Church and Marriage: Looking for a New Ethic,
"In the Greco-Roman world, marriage and the begetting of children were
considered a duty one owed to the Roman state." Soto goes on to assert
that the patriarchal family structure was the basic unit of that society
and that men married to establish a family, produce heirs to carry on
the family name and fortune, and to provide citizens to maintain the Roman
state (Jersild, Johnson, Jung, Jung, 1998, p.59).
As Christianity entered the highly influential Reformation era the theologians
continued to tighten the Church's control on relationships by asserting
the only marital sex that was good and "allowed" was sex that was procreative
in its' function. They had taken the sexual codes of conduct of the early
Jewish tribes and moralized their meaning so that there was a clear distinction
between "good" sex and "bad" sex. And the bad sex wasn't just bad, it
was evil. At this time marriage was still not about love so perhaps that
provided a reprieve for woman for who sex with their husbands was neither
welcomed nor fulfilling. This in itself served to continue to control
the bodies of women, but the other implication was that marriage was still
primarily a contractual agreement about the current property of the bride
and future property of any offspring. In fact, up until Vatican Two the
Roman church taught that procreation was the primary aim of marriage (Jersild,
et, al, pg. 59).
According to Marvin Ellison in his book Same Sex Marriage? A Christian
Ethical Analysis, marriage was still largely overseen by community
elements and the patriarch of the family until the 19th century when the
rise of industrial capitalism precipitated a massive overhaul in how family
units were patterned. It was only at this time that marriage was redefined
as "a contract between two adults who pledged to build a life together
on the basis of conjugal love and a desire for companionship" (2004, p.
18).
Marriage has undergone it's most drastic and numerous changes, perhaps,
in the past 50 years with the overturning of the laws against interracial
marriage, the criminalizing of spousal rape, the addition of convicted
felons to the list of those who have the right to marry and the economic
changes that have given women, in particular, more freedom to delay marriage
and/or to leave an unhappy marriage. Yet there is a subtle understanding
that women are still expected to bear the brunt of domestic duties, regardless
of whether or not they have a job or career outside the home, (and to
feel the guilt of that if the couple has children) and the men are still
seen as the primary bread-winners and the ones with the most control over
the running of the family.
As marriage as evolved in the United States, over 1,000 entitlements
and benefits have been attached to the legal state of marriage. These
include benefits in the areas of tax status, inheritance rights, social
security, child custody and others. Additionally, most companies will
offer health care benefits to the legal spouses of their employees. All
of this serves to extol marriage as normative and beneficial while those
in alternative families or who remain single are seen as the "Other."
By attaching these benefits to marriage the State has, in effect, not
only discouraged but blatantly disregarded the creative ways in which
families can be formed. As a result, heterosexual couples marry who might
not otherwise do so. For example, last year I officiated at the wedding
of two friends of mine. They had anything but a typical romance. They
met in the aftermath of the passage of Amendment Two in Colorado, a prohibitive,
anti-gay measure that made it illegal for any governmental or business
entity to include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination clause.
Ultimately, Amendment Two was overturned as unconstitutional by the United
States Supreme Court, but until then "Bill" was working for a political
activist group and "Marge" for a non-profit philanthropic organization
that was housed in the same suite of offices. Although each identified
as gay and lesbian, respectively, they fell in love. At that time they
consciously chose not to marry since the religious and social function
meant nothing to them. However, last June, after 10 years together they
took the plunge. Their reason? To ensure protection for their year old
daughter should one of them should die.
This is the ensnaring logic of marriage. In order to protect assets
and ensure your partner has agency in making decisions should anything
untoward happen to you, in order to collect your partner's social security
payments as a widowed person, marriage is the only way to achieve true
peace of mind. And when heterosexual couples marry, they participate in
a patriarchal system that has, at its foundation, control and subjugation
of women and children. Moreover, they continue to enforce the perception
of marriage as normative and healthy and alternative arrangements as suspect
and inferior. Underscoring this view of marriage is the Bush Administration's
ill-conceived "Healthy Marriage Initiative" which proposes a $1.6 billion
allotment over the next five years to promote marriage to lift people
out of poverty. To their way of thinking, it's the early bride that gets
the tax break. The fallacy in this plan is that there are daunting reasons
why poor couples don't get married, including infidelity and drug use
(Lerner, 2004). The initiative also largely ignores the very real possibility
of domestic violence and would leave these women to fend for themselves
for a lower poverty rate to tout as success. Even the fact that this would
be a serious consideration for reducing poverty, rather than spending
the $1.6 billion on education, workforce training, rent assistance, etc.
speaks to how entrenched the institution of marriage has become and how
much a tool of the patriarchal system it is to enforce societal expectations.
Even more chilling is HB751, the recently enacted law in the State of
Virginia that not only reaffirms the state's ban on same-sex marriages
but takes it a step further by prohibiting all contractual rights between
same-sex partners. The ramifications of this new law have yet to be seen
but it is a stunning backlash to the demands of the GLBT community to
have equal legal rights for their relationships. It is almost as if in
their fury at the audacity of lesbians and gays to seek these rights,
the conservative politicians are bent are not only denying rights, but
taking away even more that the queer community has once enjoyed.
This again speaks to the inherent patriarchy and sexism in marriage
as a legal contract. I believe that there are three main reasons that
are the unconscious driving force behind the religious right and others
of their ilk to speak so vociferously against same sex marriage. None
of these have to do with the destruction of society, biblical mandates
for marriage to be between one man and one woman, or even the moral "sin"
of homosexuality. Instead, I see three reasons all embedded in maintaining
the patriarchy at the cost of women.
The first reason is the unconscious, or at least unspoken, fear of the
disruption of the social order of men and women in marriage by being in
relationships that do not continue the oppression of women and the dominance
of men. While, admittedly there are instances of non-consensual domination
and control in same sex relationships, as a whole they speak to the lie
of patriarchy by taking away the coupling necessary for patriarchy
to continue on unabated and, indeed, validated. Two men or two women who
choose to share their lives together will have many difficulties and will
have to figure out their unique roles and gifts they each bring to the
relationship. However, those roles can be created without the underlying
assumption of what the man's role and woman's role is to be.
Even in lesbian relationships that are self-identified as butch/femme
both people in the couple were enculturated as women. They are regarded
by society at large as women and they have no first hand knowledge of
being in the dominant gender in the world at large. Moreover, to identify
as butch or femme is not to take on a heterosexual role because the relationship
is still between two women and are distinctly lesbian cultural roles that
vary from one butch/femme couple to the next. More commonly women, who
have known the sting of sexism and gender discrimination, seek to create
an egalitarian relationship in which each is honored and input is necessary,
regardless of whether or not they identify as butch/femme.
In the same manner, two men who set up house together each have the
privilege of power that our culture ascribes to males. Any roles or gifts
they bring, they bring to a level playing field, again with no pre-set
expectations from society's template. In fact, there may be issues that
arise when they each realize they must share the power in order to have
a healthy loving relationship of mutuality and intimacy. However, having
the confidence of being in the dominant gender, they more likely than
not come to the table assured that they can resolve the issues and establish
a healthy, authentic commitment.
The second unconscious reason for the conservative politicians and religious
leaders to oppose same sex marriage is an extension of the first, and
that is fear of a sexual expression that is different. This fear strikes
at the very core of patriarchy because our sexual expressions as gay and
lesbian people dares to make no pretense about the role of sex in relationship.
While many gay men and lesbians do parent, there is no question about
the possibility of conception in lesbian and gay sex. The only purpose
of sexual intimacy in gay and lesbian relationships is that of pleasure.
I believe this is fearful for the right-wing element to contemplate because
our society over all is sex-phobic. This, too, is a result of a patriarchal
culture in which sexual roles are clearly delineated. To be sure, heterosexual
couples can and do enjoy a variety of sexual positions and acts, yet at
its most subliminal level there are two roles: the penetrator (male) and
the penetrated (female). Subconsciously in the very act of the most widely
acceptable form of heterosex the man is dominating the woman. While this
is (hopefully) mutually acceptable and pleasurable for both, it still
reinforces the image of man as having power over woman, even in her body.
Gay men and lesbian couples also enjoy a wide variety of sexual positions
and activities, and these can and do include penetration. However, the
penetrative act is performed on someone who is biologically and culturally
similar and the role of penetrator and penetrated can be changed with
ease. The act of sexual intimacy apart from cultural patriarchal models
rides roughshod over the sexual roles assigned to men and women in a way
that threatens the heart of patriarchy.
Finally, and ultimately, these two above unconscious fears about same
sex marriage leads to the third, and that is the deconstruction of patriarchy
from the inside out. As stated earlier, gay men and lesbians have always
been in long-term intimate relationships. Some of these couples have been
very closeted and some have been very open about the nature of their relationship.
If, however, we legitimize those relationships by sanctioning same sex
marriage the right-wing people unconsciously fear that such blatant disregard
for patriarchal norms will seep over into the heterosexual community like
a virus, challenging other old ways of being. In other words, perhaps
the conservatives are right: same sex marriage does threaten the fabric
of society. By this I mean that once state-legitimized role models for
families exist that color completely outside the lines of patriarchal
norms we may enter a kind of creative Zeitgeist in which all citizens
suddenly realize the vast possibilities of change and social transformation
in other arenas of society and culture.
With the man/woman paradigm no long being the only game in town for
marriages, I believe patriarchy will have been struck a severe blow that
cannot help but weaken its hold in other places. What if, by legitimizing
same sex marriages and celebrating non-patriarchal ways of loving, the
eyes of the people are opened to other areas where oppression still rules?
What if, in insisting on same sex marriage, the door is also opened for
domestic partner benefits for unmarried partners of any gender or sexual
orientation? What if, with the advent of same sex marriage, there is an
increased awareness that gender is not divided in a binary fashion but
that there are multiple possibilities for gender expression? Perhaps,
in the wake of same sex marriages, universal healthcare will be addressed
as a way to address comprehensively the human right of all people to receive
good medical care. Maybe in the resultant energized and strengthened communities
we will be able to put forth our energies currently going into this debate
to address issues of poverty, domestic violence, and war.
Clearly, marriage is not a panacea for societal ills, nor is it historically
a blessing of a relationship based in mutuality and love. The soaring
divorce rates show that while most heterosexuals still buy the myth of
"happily ever after" sometimes forever is ephemeral at best. Yet it is
this somewhat scurrilous goal that many gays and lesbians are now vociferously
seeking.
As I stated earlier, not allowing gays and lesbians to get married does
not preclude the fact that many gays and lesbians are in stable, committed,
lifetime relationships. It is important for partners in gay and lesbian
relationships to have legal protection for their assets, medical wishes,
and children. Many have done so to the best of their ability under current
laws. They have named one another as beneficiaries in wills and have signed
Living Wills and Durable Powers of Attorney to safeguard their rights.
If they were forward-looking, that is. Often, these legal protections
have been left undone with the often nightmarish results of property being
taken away from the surviving partner, with medical decision made by a
"family member" who was often hostile or even absent from the life of
the one impaired, and with the emotional pain and stress, often becoming
despair and hopelessness, for the dis-empowered partner. And even for
those who have filed countless legal documents to ensure their relationships
are legally protected, there is nothing to stop contentious family members
from contesting those documents. The result can be a protracted legal
battle that leaves both sides embittered and financially and emotionally
exhausted. The reality is a legal marriage would trump virtually all claims
made by others.
Which brings me to the unasked question: Should gays and lesbians be
seeking marriage rights at all? Is it be possible to envision another
way of legally sanctioning the agency and authority of long-term relationships
for both heterosexual and same sex couples in a way that doesn't privilege
marriage over other types of relationships and families that exist on
the margins of society? Is marriage, in its current form with its nebulous
history, the prize we should all be eying?
Clearly, there is no easy answer. Early on I was tempted to say that
the struggle for marriage is one that is a fruitless waste of our energy
and resources. However, I am now more inclined to see it as a step in
the right direction. Yet we must not make the mistake of thinking that
the achievement of legal marriage for same sex couples means the goal
has been reached. Indeed, I see the achievement of marriage as a milestone
on the road to true equality and mutuality in all of society. With the
inevitable approach of that day when same sex marriages are recognized
in all 50 states regardless of where the wedding took place, we will have
won a major victory not just for gays and lesbians, but for bisexuals
and transgendered, for people of color and the impoverished and all those
who currently exist on the margins of our society. We will not win this
victory at the cost of any other group, but rather this victory will enhance
and enrich all of society.
While in many ways I think we are climbing the ladder of same sex marriage
only to find it is propped against the wrong wall, I also recognize that
it is the ladder we seem to be facing. At the end of the day, there is
much more to be done. Marriage needs to be disentangled from the entitlements
that give legal privilege to a few while still denying relational equality
to all. Perhaps the means in which marriage is disentangled from the entitlements
is by the allowing of same sex marriage and the affront to the patriarchal
norms that are so entrenched in the current institution of marriage. Marriage
needs to be de-constructed so it becomes iconic of "just" love in an atmosphere
of mutuality and intimacy. Again, maybe this is one of the gifts that
legalized same sex marriage offers to all relationships.
Regardless of people's motivation for seeking to legitimize same sex
relationships, regardless of my own ambivalence on the advisability of
that aim, there is one thing that gives me great hope and that allows
me to officiate at same sex "weddings" without feeling an ounce of hypocrisy.
The gay and lesbian couples who I have seen make the commitment to share
their lives together and celebrate that with a public ritual, do so, not
out of some hope that their union will be legal one day and they will
get all the benefits currently enjoyed by their heterosexual counterparts.
Nor do they go to the expense and stress of a ceremony to make a political
statement. The primary, dare I say the only, reason these couples choose
to marry is because they love one another. Anything else is icing on the
wedding cake.
Bibliography
Ellison, Marvin M. (2004). Same-sex marriage? A Christian ethical analysis.
Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press.
Gudorf, Christine E. (1994). Body, sex, and pleasure: Reconstructing
Christian sexual ethics. , Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press.
Lerner, Sharon (2004, July 5)."Marriage on the Mind: The Bush Administration's
misguided poverty cure. The Nation, pp. 40-42.
Soto, Jean Ponder (1998). The Church and marriage: Looking for a new
ethic. In Jersild, Paul; Johnson, Dale; Beattie-Jung Patricia; Jung, Shannon
(ed.) Moral Issues and Christian Response (6th ed.) (pp.59-62).Orlando,
FL: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Rev. Elder Nori
J. Rost is pastor of Pikes Peak Metropolitan Community Church in Colorado
Springs, CO
Copyright © by the author
All Rights Reserved
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