barriomulas.com - Marriage, Discrimination, and the State

Marriage is a universal social institution that has existed for as long as human culture itself. Though love-based marriage and the male breadwinner model is a more recent invention, marriage is practiced by every culture, both primitive and civilized. Evidence of biological impulses towards long-term relationships are present within humans as in many other animal species. Women's lack of the estrus cycle of other mammals, for example, has allowed human females to become sexually available year-round and thus allow "draw men into long-term relationships," as noted by Stephanie Coontz.

Despite this, the definition of marriage is quite different from tribe to tribe, as a central quality of marriage in one society is absent in another. In many Native American groups, for example, a man doing "woman's work" could marry a man doing "man's work". "Such a contradictory hodgepodge of social rules," states Coontz "could not have sprung from some universal biological imperative." Marriage is thus a cultural institution created in response to biological tendencies. It therefore predates state and law.

State and law have rendered useless the few shared core spheres of life that are regulated by almost all of the world's marriage norms. They are as follow:

Property. Edmund Leache suggests that marriage is "the set of legal rules that govern how goods, titles, and social status are handed down from generation to generation." Property and class thus play a central role in Leache's definition. Despite this, we currently live in an age where classes are increasingly mobile and property is defined and transferred through a complex legal system. Inheritance, the exchange of property, and nuptial agreements can now be defined by contracts and be upheld in a court of law. In modern society, property can be divided among separating parties and estates can be passed down from generation to generation in an orderly manner independently of marriage.

Family. Marriage has long been a tool used by societies to join families, pool resources and labor, and reach peace among waring peoples. But in an age where individuals are much more financially independent than in previous generations, marriage is no longer needed to secure one's social success. Not only have extended families lost their political and social importance in a post-Catholic society but modern accommodations such as daycares, schools, hospitals, and ready-made meals have downplayed responsibilities once held by persons outside of the nuclear family.

Economics. In a similar manner, it is no longer necessary to marry in order to obtain financial success. Couples can become wage earners in the modern economy and each own their own residence long before deciding to tie the knot.

While developments in recent centuries have led nuclear families to declare independence from the extended family, individuals - including children - have been able to obtain their independence from each other.

There exists little practical purpose for modern day marriage. Property inheritance, custody over children, and economic security are no longer limited to legitimately married couples. Very few relics of such an age still linger and can be seen in taxes, adoption regulations, and a few details of property and custody laws. One could say that there still exists a small scale of discrimination against couples who choose not to marry. But if the few legal benefits of marriage were to be extended to non-married couples then what would be the reason for people to get married?

Advocates of same-sex marriage demand that marriage be applied to them in an nondiscriminatory fashion. But what if tax, property, and custody laws were to be applied in a nondiscriminatory fashion to non-married couples. Than what would be the appeal of marriage? The only thing that comes to my mind is religion. But if that is the case, then would legal marriage be a violation of the separation of church and state? If two people choose to bind themselves spiritually and religiously for the rest of eternity, should this really be a field in which the state should enter?

If it is a pastor that marries two people and if it is a certain denomination or church that these persons choose to marry under, should they not be abridged by the norms and regulations of the organization and not that of the state? Marriage is in fact a private contract between two people. "After the late eighteenth century," states legal historian Michael Grossberg, "marriage was increasingly defined as a private agreement with public consequences."

It is not that I oppose same-sex marriage. It's just that I oppose the state's mingling in such a cultural and religious institution. The moment judges instead of priests began marrying us was the moment the state began invading our households and regulating our private relationships.