PRISONERS' DILEMMA: Eve

David Barnes writes, "I'm curious about the rights of prisoners-for-life to marry. There have been a lot of arguments about how horrible it is that death row inmates can marry but gay people can't, but I can't recall anyone actually defending that position."

Eve writes: Yup, I see this a lot too. This argument operates on both an analytical level and an emotional one. Both are powerful, but both ultimately fail.

The analytical claim is that marriage can't be primarily or intrinsically about childrearing, tying men to their children, guaranteeing paternity, etc., because prisoners with life sentences aren't going to be making or raising babies, yet they can marry.

I agree, this is an oddity. But look how it applies to defenders of SSM: "Marriage can't be primarily or intrinsically about pledging to care for another person, vowing to be committed to him or her, because what kind of care can a prisoner-for-life provide? What does 'commitment' even mean in this context? 'I'll write you lots of letters'?" Every function for which society could institute or honor marriage is much more difficult and much less likely for life prisoners.

So I think both supporters and opponents of SSM actually agree on why prisoners can marry: It's some combination of (in reverse order of importance)

1) possibility of change--the prisoner could be exonerated or his sentence commuted.

2) marginal ability to fulfill functions of marriage--some care and commitment, some ability to parent pre-existing kids.

3) nobody thinks life-prisoner-marriage will attenuate public understanding of the purposes of marriage. Nobody is pushing to have this obviously sub-ideal arrangement recognized as Just As Good as marriages of non-life-prisoners.

The emotional argument is different--"Why can bad horrible people on death row marry, while good wonderful gay people can't?"--and should probably be addressed separately.
posted by Eve at 1:58 AM VOTE

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