CREATING KIN: Eve

There are a lot of ways you can approach any marriage-related issue. You can ask what marriage intrinsically is. You can ask why society and government give marriage special recognition. There are probably lots more, but the one I want to focus on is the question: What does marriage uniquely do?

One striking answer--and I know I name-check him all the time, but he is very cool--is Jonathan Rauch's: Marriage creates kin.

That intuitively sounds good. But I'm not sure what it means. Over the past couple days I have found myself thinking a lot about this case (which I think is the same one discussed here). Who is this child's kin? Has she got three parents, two parents (which two?), one parent, one-and-a-half? Is her sperm-donor father, who was a friend or acquaintance of her mother, kin? Should he be? Should someone have challenged him about whether he would or should be kin to this child? (And why is he so thoroughly erased from the Post-Gazette news story? I read the piece, wondered, "Is the girl adopted, and if not, where's Dad?", and Googled to see if I could find the answer.)

Thinking about these questions made me realize that I'm still unclear on what "creating kin" means. But I'd welcome your thoughts.
posted by Eve at 7:28 PM VOTE

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home