Marriage, History, and Culture
  by Dr. David Eller

The current "debate" about gay marriage has so far occurred in a nearly fact-free environment. The language of House Joint Resolution 1013 illustrates just what kind of a factless or counterfactual debate this is. It is written in good parliamentary style as a series of "whereas" statements leading to a resolution. We can assume that if one or more of the premises of the argument is false, the conclusion is unsound. It turns out that two of the five (40%) are false and that two more are trivial (that Marilyn Musgrave introduced an amendment and that Wayne Allard sponsored it). Only one of the claims is true and significant-that there are attempts to change the definition of marriage-but it is difficult to see the problem in that.

The first argument-that "our creator" established heterosexual monogamy as the "first and most essential institution in society"-is groundless and probably a violation of the First Amendment, since by "our creator" the writer means the Christian god. Vishnu or Zeus or Odin or Osiris or Quetzlcoatl or Marduk said nothing about marriage, at least as the "first institution" in society." And even if we take the Christian source as our authority, the first biblical mention of marriage (Genesis 2:24) says nothing about how many wives a man shall have. And we know indisputably that polygyny (one man with two or more wives) was a normal practice in Old Testament times. Jacob reportedly had four wives-two first cousins. And the "second" marriage (Cain's) almost had to be incestuous.

The next claim-that throughout human history the monogamous family has been the "core social unit" of cultures-is simply false and shows an ignorance of human history and culture. The vast majority of societies in human history-70-80%-have been polygynous, not monogamous. The bill's author may argue that these were not "healthy and flourishing" societies, but they lasted a very long time and were at least as successful at maintaining social order as our own.

So the first two grounds for the resolution are false. It could still be argued that monogamy is the standard form or definition of marriage in our own society. This brings us to the last point. Yes, marriage has been defined by mainstream America as a one-man, one-woman institution. But this simply raises the fact that marriage is exactly a socially-constructed institution. It is not a natural object like a rock or a tree. We define it one way, other societies define it another way. American traditionalists may not like the new definition being offered, but they cannot argue that it cannot be redefined. If we defined it once, we can define it again. That does not mean that just any definition has to be accepted, but it does mean that the objection that people are trying to "redefine" it is moot.

If humans could not redefine their institutions, we would still be living in polygynous marriages, or as subjects of a monarchy, or some of us as slaves. This is not to say that the present redefinition effort is correct but only that it is standard operating procedure. We cannot stop the social creation and re-creation of institutions, no matter how much we want to-and thank goodness.

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