STRIVING FOR THE MARRIAGE IDEAL: Jennifer Roback Morse

...Divorce is in the background of the gay marriage debate in at least three ways. First, gay marriage is the end of the trend that no-fault divorce began. The legal innovation of unilateral divorce began to reduce marriage to nothing but a temporary association of individuals. If marriage is merely a free association of individuals, there is no principled reason to exclude gay couples, or even larger groupings of sexual partners. The permanence of marriage was one of the key features that distinguished it from an ordinary contract.

Second, the high divorce rate and the resulting non-permanence of marriage made the institution of marriage more attractive to same-sex couples than it otherwise would be. If marriage still meant one to a customer for life, I seriously doubt that we'd be hearing about same-sex marriage today. Gay couples evidently have a more relaxed concept of both permanence and fidelity than do heterosexual couples. Gay activists would be much less likely to invest time and energy working for the right to marry, if divorce were available only for adultery or cruelty.

Most importantly, the high divorce rate has made it difficult to articulate opposition to gay marriage. ...

Admit that unilateral divorce has undermined marriage. Agree that straight people have already done a lot of harm to marriage. The divorce rate is too high. Our attitude toward divorce is too casual. Current law often does reward irresponsible behavior, on the part of men and women alike.

We need to work to change all that. ...

... Figuring out how to live more comfortably with the person you married; figuring out how to keep love more actively alive; making a wiser choice of partner in the first place: all these areas need work. Individuals and institutions, laws and customs, all have room for constructive change. And society needs to reform itself in all these ways, regardless of what gay people do or don't do, regardless of what the law says or doesn't say about gay marriage.

Of course, there is much more to be said about gay marriage, and about divorce, too, for that matter. But let's not kid ourselves. The current demand for homosexual marriage and the sad prevalence of heterosexual divorce are part and parcel of the same trend toward reducing marriage to a loose association of sexual partners. All of us need for marriage to be more than that.

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posted by Eve at 3:57 PM VOTE

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