Regulating Marriage

There has been much debate over the ages over the role government should play in the lives of its citizens. Aristotle did not have any qualms about legislators deciding such issues as whether a couple should be allowed to marry or whether a child with deformities should be allowed to live; indeed, in Book VII of "Politics" he advises legislators on how they should make these decisions. Government remains involved in the lives of the people from cradle to grave today, but in America at least the government it is not quite as involved in the marriage-making as Aristotle envisioned. Indeed, Americans have relatively large degree of freedom to marry whosoever they choose despite variations in marriage-related state laws, but there is also a school of thought which espouses the idea that government should have a larger role than it already has regarding the institution of marriage.

Like Aristotle who was interested in regulating marriage so that only men and women who would be likely to have children together could be united in wedlock, American supporters of increased regulation on marriage also have tended to support these restrictions for moral and cultural reasons. Laws against interracial marriage were once exceedingly common, for instance, and reflected the prevailing mores of a racist society. There are still numerous laws on the books which forbid polygamy and marriages between relatives. Now, of course, the most controversial marriage issue is the question of whether or not homosexual marriage should be legal. Those who believe homosexuals should be able to legally be married often present the issue as a civil rights matter -- homosexuals are being denied equal treatment under the law despite the fact that their homosexuality does not transgress the law...in most jurisdictions, at least! Those on the other side of the debate often argue that because the concept of a marriage being between a man and woman is so firmly ingrained in American culture that the legal definition of marriage should be made to match the cultural definition in order for the law to reflect the viewpoints of the majority of Americans. As with most controversial issues, both sides are to an extent right. Clearly, homosexual couples are being discriminated against when they are not allowed to marry while similar heterosexual couples are allowed to marry -- whether there is a "right" to be married is very doubtful, but obviously a homosexual couple is not equivalent to a heterosexual couple in the eyes of the law which is supposed to look on all Americans as having been created equal. On the other hand, American laws often do reflect public opinion and widespread moral values; laws against homosexual marriage reduce rather than protect the rights of citizens, but many other laws do exactly the same thing. Personally, this is an issue where I err on the side of liberty. I can totally understand why a person's religious beliefs, moral values, and cultural inheritance might make that person opposed to the idea of homosexual marriage, but the fact remains that homosexuals do exist in this country and many of them want to be able to be married like other Americans can be. That is an utterly reasonable desire. The more America bends to forces which wish to limit American liberties the more I fear that these forces will try to bend our laws in other ways. Aristotle was a brilliant man, but he seems to have seen nothing wrong with forbidding the infertile or the aged to marry. Who knows what marriage restrictions will be put in place by the brilliant people of our tomorrow?

Of course, if we take the liberty argument to its logical extreme, there will be virtually no restrictions on marriage left at all. Honestly, I tend to think the laws forbidding relative marriages and polygamy are good in practice, because such marriages have great potential to be used to screen the crimes of child and spousal abuse. The net effect of such laws is thus positive, I might argue...but it is probably true that most marriages between relatives and most polygamous marriages would not entail any more abuse than the typical heterosexual marriage would, and it undoubtedly true that heterosexual marriage is itself also often used as a screen to hide abuse. It is thus extremely hard to argue that my feeling that some marriage restrictions help prevent abuse and thus make society better despite limiting the rights of the individual is valid yet the similar feelings of those who wish to ban homosexual marriage are invalid. This debate will have to continue for another day.

Book link: Aristotle's Politics