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 Monday, October 24, 2005
DOES MODERN MARRIAGE REQUIRE A BAIT-AND-SWITCH?: Eve/Noli Irritare Leones
[I don't know that I agree with her framing, here, but I do think NIL is on to the essential question: How does a marriage culture get people to do the hard stuff? I guess my stance is that you can't lie to them. They'll figure it out. So the hard stuff has to be clear up-front. And, more interestingly, the hard stuff has to be made rewarding--a source of joy and a source of one's sense of self. That's typically how cultures get people to do hard things: by providing an identity, a role, which is honored for doing what's right. Anyway, here's NIL. --Eve] ...I found this argument interesting, because it suggests to me a certain cultural tension. If we emphasize too much the adult satisfaction aspects of marriage--romantic fulfillment, companionship, etc.--are we giving short shrift to the "hanging together and caring for the kids even when it's tough" aspect? On the other hand, if it's just about hanging together and caring for the kids, and if you don't get any of what Sanchez calls "the marriage fairy tale" with it, how many people would want to marry, for duty alone? more 
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How does a marriage culture get people to do the hard stuff? I guess my stance is that you can't lie to them. They'll figure it out. So the hard stuff has to be clear up-front. And, more interestingly, the hard stuff has to be made rewarding--a source of joy and a source of one's sense of self. That's typically how cultures get people to do hard things: by providing an identity, a role, which is honored for doing what's right.
It is a problem for you guys in the anti-marriage crowd, isn't it?
You've got to focus on procreation - on marriage being only for a man and a woman who are interfertile.
You've got to denigrate and downplay the use of marriage as providing a stable and nurturing environment to rear children.
You've got to deny and denigrate the joy of marriage - the joy of being with the person you've committed your life to, through all the trials and ups and downs.
Because you can't afford to make much of anything related to marriage that is obviously shared by same-sex couples.
How do you deal with this, Eve? You obviously want to be pro-marriage, but something is stopping you: why do you feel you have to be anti-marriage and anti all the elements of marriage that you clearly see are important to marriage?
I'm not sure I need to point out that the above is a serious misreading of my posts. Just in case: For all you out there in TV Land, please read my posts (the series that starts with "The iron wire on which the beads are strung") all the way through before deciding that Jesurgislac has me dead to rights. Because I honestly don't know how he sees what he's seeing in my writing.
Eve
Eve: Because I honestly don't know how he sees what he's seeing in my writing.
Eve, do you want to assert, then, that you don't think:
1. You think marriage is about procreation - marriage is only for a man and a woman who are interfertile.
2. You don't think marriage as provides a stable and nurturing environment to rear children - marriage in your view has no benefit to the children of the marriage, so there's no need for same-sex couples with children to be allowed to marry.
3. You don't believe that the joy of being with the person you've committed your life to, through all the trials and ups and downs, is a sufficient justification for marriage. (This is a given, in fact, for anyone in the anti-marriage crowd: if you did believe in 3, you could not oppose same-sex couples marrying.)
You wonder how I read this from your writing?
I wonder why you don't understand that this is what you are, explicitly, saying.
Try this simple exercise.
Physically stand up and go seat yourself on the other side of the table, or room, and look at the the debate as if you were arguing the other side.
Try, really try, to make the best case you can for what Eve has posted. Defend what she has said. Just go through the motions and see if that helps with the communication block.
I think it is evident that Eve has genuinely tried to do just that in the reverse. And then she stated her own view, which has not remained static.
Am I far off or close on this, Eve?
Anonymous, I have no idea which one of the flock of anonymous posters you are, but I have decided that to discourage this habit I'm not responding to people unless they pick a username. (You get this one in case you're a new anonymouse.)
I doubt if Eve can claim that she doesn't believe any of the points listed, one, two, or three. The first two are points that Maggie and Eve have explicitly made: the third is inherent in opposition to same-sex couples marrying.
I could dress up those three points, make them look prettier, add some sad fluff - but Maggie and Eve already do that for themselves.
Point #1 is only half correct and the second half is a misrepresentation.
Point #2 still awaits an answer to how the legal incidents of marriage directly benefit the child-adult relationship in ways superior to that of second-parent adoption.
Point #3 is an appeal to sentimentality and is no implication of the actual points, properly represented, that were made by either Maggie or Eve.
Try the exercise that was suggested in a previous comment (by a different commentator).
Unresponsiveness to the content of comments won't discourage commentators from using the available anonymous option. Center attention on the content, not the identities, because no commentator (anonymous or not) is the center of the universe.
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