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What
Is Marriage For? First
Unitarian Church of Des Moines
Meditation for 9/14/03Creative spirit, Spirit of life That which is greater than all but present in each. In this crazy world…this world of uncertainty and surprise… This world of violence and pain…. We have reason to pause and reflect upon the gifts of human companionship… the gifts of sharing oneself with another.
We hold in our hearts those couples Who have found happiness with each other against great odds. Those who have risked sharing themselves And who have been smiled upon in return. May they recognize their good fortune, and do what they can to return the love they share to a hurting world.
Our hearts go out to those in troubled relationships, Those who have found disappointment and pain Underneath what was once a blanket of security and warmth. May they stand up for their inherent worth and dignity. And may they discover their inherent resilience… That which will lead them to what they know in their hearts to be true.
We offer our compassion to those grieving the loss of their closest companions, those who still feel the void of an empty space once filled. May they be comforted by their memories and assured that life has more to offer… even in their loved one’s absence.
We
keep in mind those who remain single, by choice
or circumstance. We honor their path and
respect their way of being in the world.
And we offer our support to those who have reason to keep their love hidden… those whose relationships are based in mutual respect and affection but who are not treated equally in the eyes of our culture. We encourage them to follow their hearts and we honor their courage to stay connected and committed despite the challenges they face.
Let us be silent for a time, as we breathe together our common breath…the breath that connects us despite our differences, the breath that can remind us of all we share. The breath of life. (silence) Amen.
Reading
excerpt
from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer
Maria Rilke Marriage is in many ways a simplification of life, and it naturally combines the strengths and wills of two people so that, together, they seem to reach farther into the future than they did before. Above all, marriage is a new task and a new seriousness—a new demand on the strength and generosity of each partner, and a great new danger for both.
The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other the guardian of his or her solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one part or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other whole and before an immense sky.
Sermon
Just before leaving for vacation this summer, President Bush stood in the rose garden of the White House at the end of a press conference and declared himself to be against same-sex marriage. He said while it is “important for society to welcome each individual,” marriage is “between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or another.” In light of the fact that marriage was already limited to heterosexuals by the federal “Defense of Marriage Act” signed by President Clinton in 1996, I wasn’t quite sure what exactly needed to be codified, but the president said he had lawyers looking into it, so there must be something left to do. Even as our president declared his interest in further codifying same-sex discrimination into law, he attempted to show how tolerant he could be, saying “I am mindful that we're all sinners, and I caution those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they've got a log in their own." Good point, Mr. President. Of course, for many of us, homosexuality is not the sin…homophobia is. Try that log on for size.
The president closed out his remarks saying, "I think it's very important for our society…to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country. On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on an issue such as marriage."
When I saw the highlights of these remarks by our president (who NY Times columnist Frank Rich later called our “super-husband-in-chief”), I was not surprised, but I was confused nonetheless. My feelings were probably best expressed the next day by Jon Stewart, on his satirical cable tv news program “The Daily Show.” After showing highlights of Bush’s declaration, Stewart wondered aloud if there had been some proposal being considered that people would have to marry gays or lesbians. “If so,” he joked, “my wife would not be happy.” He then went on to ask if we don’t have to marry gays and lesbians, why does anyone care?
Good point, Mr. Stewart. Why does anyone care?
Of course, President Bush was merely playing politics. There was no urgent need for him to declare his dislike for same-sex marriage that day, other than, perhaps, to satisfy his supporters who were up in arms over the Supreme Court’s decision in June to strike down state laws banning sodomy. Or perhaps he took a stand to separate himself from many of the Democratic presidential candidates who were hogging up the airwaves in pursuit of his job. Funny thing, though… many of these candidates share the president’s view…including the then-front runners. Joe Lieberman has stated that he does not support same-sex marriage because marriage holds a special, sacred place in our society. To which Jon Stewart later added wryly, “Because in America, marriage is meant to be between a man…and a woman the audience chooses for him.”
John Kerry has been quoted saying “Marriage is an institution between men and women for the purpose of having children and procreating.” “Never mind,” as Frank Rich later pointed out, “that Mr. Kerry himself is in a post-procreation second marriage.”
Even Howard Dean, whose state of Vermont is one of the only states to recognize same-sex civil unions, has not (to my knowledge) said on record that discriminating against Americans who happen to be coupled with someone of the same sex is wrong. He says that it is up to individual states to decide whether this kind of discrimination is ok or not.
Again this is merely politics. Personal beliefs of our President and his competition aside, recent polls show that a 57% majority of the American public does not support civil unions for same-sex couples. Anyone seeking the highest office in our land would be going into dangerous territory by suggesting that the majority is wrong…even if they are wrong…particularly in an age where the 24-hour news networks would be certain to repeat the offending sound-byte until everyone had seen it ad nauseam.
Still, I can’t help but wonder what is going on here? As Jon Stewart asked, “Why do people care?” Why is the idea of same-sex marriage such a threat?
To answer this question, I think we have to try to answer a bigger question: What is marriage for?
People who are opposed to same-sex marriage often point to the need to protect the sanctity of marriage, to respect the tradition of this storied institution of humanity. So this morning I will spend some time reviewing the history (and the her-story) of marriage as practiced in Western culture with the hope that I might get to the root of what marriage has been for in the past, and what it might be for today.
[The source of my examination into marriage is research done by E.J. Graff, whose book “What is Marriage For?” was published by the UUA’s Beacon Press in 1999.]
By taking a broad overview of marriage practices and restrictions over time, we can see many shifts in not only the purpose of marriage, but expectations of it. Particularly over the past 300 years, both marriage and the family have been in a constant state of transition and change according to shifts in economy, culture and class. Therefore, to attempt to pin down one moment in this history as traditional is to look past the adjustments always taking place…even today.
Despite the constant state of flux, however, at least one aspect of marriage has remained constant. Marriage has always been a means by which the economy of society is organized. During the time leading up to the industrial revolution in particular, the financial future of families was greatly impacted by how members married. Indeed, the marriage ceremony used to be when money changed hands between two families…a kind of group merger…and was more commonly officiated by a notary rather than a priest. In the most traditional sense then, the notion of a “good marriage” had little to do with love, passion, intimacy or even companionship. A good marriage was more like a good education or a good job today. It created financial opportunities for the couple (especially the man) and…more importantly…it created financial opportunities for the families being merged. Traditional families were so dependant on their sons and daughters marrying well that they resorted to withholding inheritances from sons who refused to marry according to the family plan. Daughters who disobeyed could be treated even more harshly. Take, for example, an excerpt from a letter written by a fifteenth century British woman, who declared with apparent pride that when her daughter refused to marry on command she “hath…[for several months] been beaten once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice on a day, and her head broken in two or three places.” (9)
And we thought our parents were controlling!
These arranged marriages were most common among the well-to-do—those who had enough money or prestige themselves to attract interest from another family. For those without access to inherited wealth, marriages were the primary means by which a workmate was selected. For craftsmen, shopkeepers, farmers, even prison wardens, the wife served as primary business partner and co-worker. One’s life income was directly related to how well the marriage partnership worked…literally.
In both arranged and working partnership marriages, couples were so important to each other’s security and financial well-being that divorce was a non-issue. People in the middle and upper classes couldn’t afford to think about divorce. And, it seems, they couldn’t afford to expect love…at least not in our contemporary sense of the word. Marriage was a practical pursuit that had either social status or productivity as its primary goal.
Looking back through history in the West, the best examples we may find of our more contemporary expectations of mutual attraction and affection in a marriage are probably the love relationships of the lowest classes, especially slaves and servants, who had no financial leverage and therefore the fewest restrictions on whom they could be partnered with, assuming, of course, that they stayed within their class. Their stories, like all those of the lower classes throughout time, are not well documented; yet, it is apparent that slaves did, in fact, marry. While their masters did not always recognize these marriages, the slaves clearly did…both the couples and their community of peers. Did it matter that these marriages were not legally sanctioned? Probably not. What good is legal sanction of marriage to a person who is discriminated against in countless other ways? Similarly, I’ve met same-sex couples today who do not feel the need to have their relationship sanctioned by the state because they don’t want to further empower their oppressors.
Back to history, how did we get from the 18th century idea of marriage, which was dependent on exchange of wealth or the forming of a strict business partnership to our current Western perspective that marriage is an inalienable right to be driven by mutual consent and affection… assuming of course that we are talking about heterosexual marriage? Graff asserts that changes in the institution of marriage rarely instigate changes in society; in fact, they are usually reactions to changes in society. For example, marriage increasingly became more of a personal choice in direct correlation to the degree that each partner could craft his/her own financial future. When one was accustomed to obedience in every other aspect of life, obedience in marriage was not only acceptable but natural. But the further society traveled toward capitalism and a freedom fueled economy (at least in theory), the more important love and passion and intimacy became when choosing a mate. Still this transition did not happen overnight. In fact, for many women at least, we could say it is ongoing.
In the past, when a woman was a business partner of her husband, or when her family had a vested interest in the success of the marriage, she had financial leverage, even if it was slight. As the industrial revolution took hold, more couples became financially independent of their families and husbands went off to work. During this transition, the husband essentially took over his wife’s identity. Once a mostly equal partner in the family business, the wife was now rarely more than a housemaid. Even if she did work in a factory, the wages went to the husband. When Married Women’s Property Acts were enacted in the 19th century in attempts to protect women whose husbands were squandering their financial future and leaving their wives destitute, men who had enjoyed their control and economic power began to proclaim the death-of-marriage and the end of the family was near. One example of this doom-saying is a familiar-sounding quote from a 1859 edition of the Boston Quarterly Review which read, “The family, in its old sense, is disappearing from our land, and not only our free institutions are threatened but the very existence of our society is endangered.”
A point that Graff makes throughout her book is that once anti-reformers begin declaring that any changes would be the undoing of God, or nature, or civilization (much like what we hear expressed in the debate about same sex marriage today), it is obvious that they are losing the fight. The changes are already upon us. Listen to the words of one 19th century legislator from New York who pleaded in defense of “the complexity and fragility of marriage as a social institution.” His words would fit right in to our president’s rose garden proclamation. He said, “If any single thing should remain untouched by the hand of the reformer, it was the sacred institution of marriage…[which] was about to be destroyed in one thoughtless blow that might produce change in all phases of domestic life.” (31)
Today the connection between advancing women’s property rights and destroying the institution of marriage seems silly to most of us. And yet, there are still those who hold out for the “good old days” when wives were beholden to their husbands for financial security. [Two things are certain about this arrangement. It would effectively keep women as subordinates to men and it would lower the divorce rate.] Still, history has shown that once economic factors are not in jeopardy, change is inevitable. Therefore, as women continue to approach equal status with men, we should expect more change to the institution of marriage followed by more dire warnings of impending doom.
So, if in its most traditional sense, marriage has been for financial security, for productivity, and for maintaining a power differential that favored men over women, then why does our culture continue to embrace marriage and why would same-sex couples want to be included? What is marriage for today?
I’ll spare you all the sentimental, health, and relational benefits that ministers, social workers, psychologists, and maybe even your family claim that marriage can provide. We know from experience that these benefits vary from couple to couple depending on countless factors. Instead, I’ll just cut to the chase. Marriage today serves an important and practical function of telling society that a couple has chosen to blend its emotional and financial fortunes…and that the couple should be held responsible to society’s institutions in return. There are currently over 1000 federal laws in which benefits, rights and privileges are dependent on one’s marital status, and each state has hundreds more. Graff puts it bluntly: “…society uses marriage as shorthand to define who gets to share and who does not.” While domestic partnership and legally wrangled powers of attorney can afford couples some benefits, the breadth and ease of these benefits for married couples far surpasses anything possible outside of marriage.
At a workshop at this year’s UUA General Assembly in Boston, Hillary Goodridge, a lead plaintiff in a pending Massachusetts court case seeking rights for same-sex couples, pointed out that it is often only in times of “death, disability or disaster” that people realize the many rights and privileges afforded those holding a marriage license. She described the efforts she and her partner went through to gain some of these rights, documented by a stack of papers several inches thick, and still, she said, not equaling those granted with the single sheet of a marriage certificate.
Marriage recognizes the couple after one dies in countless ways that unmarried pairs cannot hope to achieve. Here are just two of many possible examples. Even if a same-sex partner leaves everything to you in a will, the parents, children, or siblings can challenge the bequest. A legal widow pays no inheritance tax on jointly-owned property, but if one member of a same-sex couple dies, the other will have to pay inheritance tax just to inherit her own property.
Even when people agree that society should confer rights to same-sex couples equal to those of married couples, they often want to know, why do we have to call it marriage? Why not a new name, such as civil union? Here I think Graff offers a solid argument. She says, “Society need not reinvent the wheel—or in this case, a parallel institution that attempts to replicate years of accreted decisions about what’s fair—simply to keep the word ‘marriage’ pure from the taint of homosexuality. It need only ask itself: what is marriage for? If it’s to let equal partners willingly share responsibility for each other’s lives and fortunes, then same-sex couples belong.”
For me, it all comes down to some simple questions. Why in the world would we want to keep people from fully inhabiting their loving, mutually satisfying relationships? Why would we treat same-sex couples who want to commit monogamy as threats to society? And how can we call ourselves a welcoming country, open and fair to those with good hearts, (as our President suggests we are) if we seek to ignore the rightful interests of our fellow citizens?
In the end, allowing same-sex couples to marry would not directly impact anyone else’s daily commitments…not a whit…certainly no more than heterosexual marriages. But legally recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples would be another important step toward the building of a world where the inherent worth and dignity of each individual is respected and there is justice for all.
Why should we settle for anything less?
Bibiography ___E.J. Graff, What Is Marriage For?, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999)
___“Statement of the Rev. William G. Sinkford; President, Unitarian Universalist Association; Press Conference in Support of Civil Marriage for Gay and Lesbian Couples; Boston, MA; June 5, 2003
___“Family Values Law and Marriage in the 21st Century”; workshop at 2003 UUA General Assembly; Boston, MA (accessible through www. uua.org)
___“Bush wants marriage reserved for heterosexuals”; CNN website; Thursday, July 31, 2003
___”And Now, the Queer Eye for Straight Marriage” by Frank Rich; The New York Times; Sunday, August 10, 2003.
___”Why America Has Gay Marriage Jitters” by Elisabeth Bumiller; The New York Times; Sunday, August 10, 2003.
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