SKY FALLEN; FILM AT ELEVEN?: Eve replies to Donald Sensing

Well now, that's a mighty odd article ("Save Marriage? It's Too Late"). Here are five quick thoughts in response.

1) What I said below, and what Elizabeth Marquardt says (better) here: It's just not true that we have "solved the problem" of unplanned pregnancy. Given that fact, Rev. Sensing might want to be slower to give up on the institution that, by his own account, exists preeminently to make the basic biological fact that intercourse makes babies into a source of social stability and personal joy rather than social chaos and personal tragedy. Contraception has not made marriage obsolete.

2) It's also not true that we have lost the societal sense of the purpose of marriage. One of the experiences that led me to write the "When Worlds Collide" post, about the two clashing contemporary understandings of marriage, was working with people involved in the Healthy Marriage Initiative. People who work in poverty reduction, people who work with inner-city fathers and poor mothers, people who mentor teens in communities with high rates of unwed childbearing: To these people, it completely makes sense to think of marriage as a child-centered institution developed to handle the pressures, risks, and potential harms and benefits of intercourse. And I've found, when I discuss marriage in a serious, heartfelt way with unwed mothers, that they get it. Marriage as a way of protecting children and securing men's sexual and economic loyalty is not this bizarre alien concept. It's what these women want. All they need is help getting there. This is a genuine clash of worldviews, not a rout by one and surrender by the other.

3) It is really quite odd to me that Rev. Sensing would state, "Society's stake in marriage as an institution is nothing less than the perpetuation of the society itself, a matter of much greater than merely private concern," at the beginning of his essay, and then just throw up his hands in resignation at the end. Fight harder, man, if you really think civilization is on the line!

4) If I supported SSM I would be pretty p.o.'d at being told that now that heterosexuals have drained it of its meaning (made it "basically symbolic rather than substantive"), I can have the empty shell.

5) And last: If marriage is no longer a pillar of civilization, if it is instead an exchange of love-tokens signaling the existence of a happy personal bond, what'n Ah say what'n is the government doing licensing and regulating it? Sensing's piece is less an argument for SSM than an argument against civil marriage.
posted by Eve at 8:54 PM VOTE

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