The Difference Between Marriage and an Ethical Society of Friendship

As we watch the final collapse of the political opposition to the idea of something like "gay marriage," it might be worth reviewing why the idea seems so difficult to oppose on rational grounds.  The reason is that we have failed to recall what marriage is for, and why society has a duty to support it.

In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Aristotle talks about a kind of ethical society based on friendship.  He envisions an arrangement that looks very much like this thing we have started to call "gay marriage" -- it is an ideally-permanent union of two (or more, but usually only two) people, for the purpose of each other's happiness (happiness here is eudaimonia, the rational pursuit of virtue), involving all property held in common.  He assumes the two people will usually be men.

There's nothing wrong with such a union.  In fact, if it is done on Aristotle's grounds, it's quite right -- and need not include any sort of sexual element, homo- or otherwise.  Much of our inability to formulate a rational rejection of 'gay marriage' comes from the fact that the form they are asking for is unobjectionable.

What is objectionable is the error of conflating it with matrimony, which is a wholly different institution with a wholly different purpose.  The purpose of the ethical society is the happiness of the two people who create it.  The purpose of matrimony is not principally about the two people who form it at all, and is certainly not about their happiness.  Matrimony is principally about the creation of a blood tie between two families, so as to provide resources that sustain and educate the next generation.

The reason society has a duty to support marriage, and the families it forms, is that society depends on its function.  Society will die if a certain number of men and women don't form marriage-based families, creating and educating their young to assume social roles as adults.  This traditional recognition is why marriage involves all the attendant forms of support that it does:  for example, the idea that your spouse and children ought to have access to your medical plans at work, or the idea that society owes a duty to support a widow(er) and/or orphans of a working spouse.

We lost the ball when we stopped treating marriage itself according to its own norms, and allowed it to evolve in to a sort-of ethical society of friendship.  We can see this in the kind of writing that people do about marriages:  you should marry if it will "make you happy," the most important person in the marriage is your spouse (whose happiness should be valued above the children, because after all the children will grow up and leave someday), divorce should be available whenever a couple would be happier divorced than married.  All of this makes sense if what we are calling "marriage" isn't traditional marriage at all, but a kind of ethical society based on friendship.

It's easy to see how the error was made.  Even Aristotle himself talks about cases in which a man is friends with his wife.  The unity of property has already occurred in marriage, and the bond is permanent, so why not try to be friends too?  There is no good reason why not, and indeed many excellent reasons to do so.  The only concern is that you don't forget that the marriage has a different purpose than the friendship, so that the duties arising from marriage persist even if (for whatever reason) your friendship ends.  Especially in cases when the blood union of the marriage has been realized in children, the duty to support the unity of your families persists even if you come to hate each other.  It can only be rightly broken in cases of severe violation of the duties of the union by one spouse -- traditionally adultery and physical abuse.  Even then, the duties survive the dissolution of the union:  this is what lies behind our legal institutions of alimony and child support.  The violator must continue to answer to his or her duties, even if the spouse can no longer be rightly asked to live with such a person.

Ethical societies need to be considered separately, and if 'the ship has sailed' on treating them differently from marriages, then we must rebuild marriage and family under another name.  We must then also strip what we are now calling "marriage" of its social support, because it is unjust for society to be asked to support a union that is only about the happiness of the two people united.  There is nothing wrong, and much right, with such a union:  but society has no interest in it.  You have no right to demand of your employer that he should support your friend.  You have no right to demand it of your fellow citizens as tax-payers.

It would be better, of course, if we can make the old distinction stick.  I wonder if we can.  American society has grown selfish and self-centered, and I wonder how many Americans are still capable of accepting any permanent duty to anything besides their own happiness.  If that ship has sailed, none of this current debate will matter.  We who survive will be rebuilding the old order from the ashes.

46 comments:

Cass said...

Grim:

I do not want you to keel over in shock, but I agree with pretty much everything you've said here :p

Eric Blair said...

Oh, it gets even better. Due to the language in the ACA, Many employers are soon going to switch to cover only their employees.

Family is the employee's problem, not the employers.

In fact, given the current penalty/tax/whatever of not covering an employee ($2000) and the current typical cost to a firm providing health insurance, ($10K to $12K), Firms may just drop providing health insurance altogether, give each employee a $5000 raise, pay the penalty, and still realize savings.

Yes, Domestic partners may have just got the law on their side to get such insurance find that nobody is going to offer such insurance anymore.

Mencken was right.

Anonymous said...

I just though I'd mention that, in California, there is such a thing as a domestic partnership, which by law confers on the partners EXACTLY the same rights and responsibilities as marriage.

The entire debate about discrimination under Prop 8 has to do, not with equal rights, but what it's going to be called in the official state database.

Valerie

Cass said...

Mencken was right.

Heh :)

Eric Blair said...

Oh, upon consideration, this passage: The purpose of matrimony is not principally about the two people who form it at all, and is certainly not about their happiness. Matrimony is principally about the creation of a blood tie between two families, so as to provide resources that sustain and educate the next generation.

Does not seem to take into account either those marriages between man an woman where no issue is possible, or the adoption of children by (or the procreation of) children by same-sex couples.

I can illustrate the former with my own family--my widowed mother remarried a widower (who had adult children) and certainly no blood kinship bond was created, but some sort of kinship bond was created as I do still interact with my step-siblings and thier children about as much as I do with my blood relation cousins.

The latter example (think Heather has two mommies) would seem on the face of it, to be satisfying the requirement to be raising the next generationl.

I would also point out the example of something I noted in a follow up to the Census form I filled, something called the American Family survey, where one of the questions was whether I was the primary caregiver to a grand-child (whether or not one of the parents was part of the household), which I suppose is trying to get a handle on all those "grandma and the baby mama taking care of the kids" situations that appear to be the norm in the lower class economic strata of the population these days, thus demonstrating that marriage has become passe amongst such folk, so then what's the big deal anyway?

Just some thoughts.

Eric Blair said...

And this is relevant to the conversation, besides unintentionally hilarious, because of what the article doesn't say:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/18/1722171/why-single-mothers-are-in-economic-crisis-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/?mobile=nc

Grim said...

Does not seem to take into account either those marriages between man an woman where no issue is possible, or the adoption of children by (or the procreation of) children by same-sex couples.

In adoption no blood-bond is created. Like the ethical society, it's not wrong, it's just not the same institution. We are not wise to conflate them, even if each one is worthy of support separately.

What you are calling procreation of children by same sex couples is not currently possible in a moral fashion: maybe someday it will be, though, at which time we could reconvene on it. For now, though, it involves either technologies that result in abortion on a massive scale, which is worth opposing on its own; or it involves a mother or father who isn't really part of the "marriage," thus denying the child a relationship with his or her biological parents. That's exactly the error we're talking about in conflating these "marriages" with real marriage: the reason to do this kind of thing is that it is more comfortable for the adults in the union. That is to say that this union is about the happiness of the adults, and not about the needs of the child: in fact, here as in abortion policy generally, it turns out that the needs of the child are entirely dispensable in the face of the happiness of the adults. An ethical society need not be immoral, and can in fact be a very excellent kind of union, but here is a way in which it is being deployed immorally.

Marriage between a man and a woman where there are infertility issues is only recently a problem, since we've only recently learned how to tell. We could either grandfather these unions as they have occurred very traditionally, or read them into whatever form of ethical society we set up.

It sounds like what we're really going to do is wreck marriage entirely, just as you say here:

Domestic partners may have just got the law on their side to get such insurance find that nobody is going to offer such insurance anymore.

That's actually the right thing to do, if we end up conflating all these ethical societies with genuine marriage. The forms of support that traditional marriage merits are merited because of the fact that such marriages produce a necessary condition for society: thus, it is right that society should provide these families with support.

If we're going to collapse the distinction in the law, we're going to have to abandon all the forms of support to "married" couples that were traditional. They won't be just, extended to all the other kinds of ethical societies we've come to call "marriages." We'll have to find a different way to support what we used to call marriages.

Grim said...

Eric:

One thing I find very interesting about your article is the earnings-per-week of men. Men who have children earn almost half-again what men without children earn; whereas women without children earn very slightly more than women with them (and in both cases, around half what men with children earn on average).

That says something about how we divide the burden of supporting families -- as well as the importance of a two-parent family, so that such a division of responsibilities is possible.

Elise said...

In adoption no blood-bond is created. Like the ethical society, it's not wrong, it's just not the same institution. We are not wise to conflate them, even if each one is worthy of support separately.


Yet surely if Ann and Bob get married and adopt (from an agency, no blood ties) Cindy and David, the purpose is "to provide resources that sustain and educate the next generation." The absence of the blood bond does not change that and it seems to me that society's interest in such a family is precisely the same as its interest in a blood-bound family.

Marriage between a man and a woman where there are infertility issues is only recently a problem, since we've only recently learned how to tell.

I don't follow this. Infertility has been a recognized problem since at least Biblical times. All that has changed is our ability to determine why it is happening.

Elise said...

One thing I find very interesting about your article is the earnings-per-week of men. Men who have children earn almost half-again what men without children earn; whereas women without children earn very slightly more than women with them (and in both cases, around half what men with children earn on average).


I'm not sure about that, Grim. The weekly earnings for women are lower but the percent employed for women is also lower. It depends on how the table was produced but given that it dutifully reports weekly earnings of $0 for the unemployed mothers and fathers in the last three lines, I suspect the average weekly earnings include those who are unemployed; that is, those whose weekly earnings are $0.

If I'm right, the apples to apples comparison is in the Two-Parent Families, Both Employed line which gives us a disparity of $999.7 for Men and $676.0 for Women. This is near the neighborhood of the oft-cited "women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns" idea.

jabrwok said...

I recently read an interesting treatise that claimed the function of marriage was to give men equal reproductive status with women. Absent marriage, no man had any reason to believe that any given child was his because he wouldn't be able to claim sexual exclusivity with respect to the child's mother. Without that confidence in his own paternity, men would be far less likely to have any particular emotional investment in the children or their mother(s), and hence no reason to do anything more than the bare minimum necessary to survive and gain sexual satisfaction. Certainly he'd have no reason to work himself to an early grave, or lay down his own life for these people.

Given the lack of incentive to leave the world a better place for his children (since he'd have no way of knowing whether they were his or not, and no particular reason to believe that they were) or even just to work hard to protect and provide for them and their mother, the result would be a stagnant, hunter/gatherer society rather than a technological/agricultural civilization.

It strikes me as a reasonable hypothesis, but I'd be interested in your take on it.

Grim said...

Elise:

In your adoptive example, society's interest may be the same, but the institutions are still distinct. This is because the blood bond creates duties both forward and backward, whereas a union formed purely for the adoption may create duties only forward.

I mean by this that when you marry in the traditional way, the principle debt is to your children, but there is also a debt to your spouse's parents (and other members of their family). You owe it to them to do right by their family member, who is now joining your family, and they have a right to complain to you if you don't. For example if you mistreat their daughter, say by committing adultery against her, her father has a right to be angry about it. The blood bond really unifies the families, so that his rights as a parent (whatever they are) continue to exist in the "new" family also.

A couple that unifies only to adopt doesn't necessarily invoke that kind of bond.

I don't follow this. Infertility has been a recognized problem since at least Biblical times.

The reason I make the claim is that it couldn't be any bar to marriage that a couple would prove to be infertile, if we didn't know in advance who was or was not fertile (or just why). My proposal is that we could continue to admit unions like this on a grandfathered basis, or we could say that they ought to be considered unions of the ethical society type. Either would be fine, I think.

As for your last point, I don't know how the graph was constructed. It seems plausible to me, though, that women who have a partner and also young children might learn a little less, on average, because they reallocate their personal resources to the home more often than men do; whereas men who have to support a young child would earn more, on average, because they reallocate their personal time more to money-generation to support their child (and to support their wife's efforts in the home).

This is all 'on average,' so even though some families make alternative arrangements, that's how it would play out as an average. However, it could be that the chart reflects something else, if you're right that it's constructed differently than I think.

Grim said...

Jason:

I recently read an interesting treatise that claimed the function of marriage was to give men equal reproductive status with women.... I'd be interested in your take on it.

I would be surprised if this was the case, but I would be happy to consider the argument. Where is the treatise? I'll read it over and see what the arguments look like to me.

jabrwok said...

Grim, it was a sub-thread in a larger work: http://www.fathermag.com/news/Case_for_Father_Custody.pdf

I admit to not having read the whole work. Some editing issues, plus various distractions. I found what I did read interesting.

Elise said...

I really don't follow your argument about the debt to the couple's parents existing only if there is a blood tie. If Ann and Bob get married and Bob commits adultery, I'm not clear on why Ann's father would not have a right to be angry about it, regardless of whether Ann and Bob had their own biological children, adopted children, or remained childless.

As for the chart, I agree that women with children and a working husband may well choose to allocate less of their time and energy to their jobs. I just am not sure we can derive that from the chart as a whole - although we may certainly be seeing just that in the Two-Parent Families, Both Employed line.

Elise said...

My proposal is that we could continue to admit unions like this on a grandfathered basis, or we could say that they ought to be considered unions of the ethical society type. Either would be fine, I think.

It sounds, then, like you would like a definition of marriage that is two people, apparently able to have children together, who intend to do so. Those who enter into what we now call marriage, knowing they are unable to have children (whether because of age or for other reasons), aren't "really" getting married although we may grandfather them in. Those who enter into what we now call marriage knowing they don't want to have children aren't "really" getting married, period.

Is that an accurate summation?

Cass said...

It sounds, then, like you would like a definition of marriage that is two people, apparently able to have children together, who intend to do so. Those who enter into what we now call marriage, knowing they are unable to have children (whether because of age or for other reasons), aren't "really" getting married although we may grandfather them in.

I would have a problem with that, because a childless couple do gain family ties (uncle, aunt, etc) to other people's children through marriage - and also they often take care of their spouse's parents.

Grim said...

Jason:

I've read over this piece, and I can't say I'm persuaded. There's nothing wrong with writing a polemic, which is a legitimate form of rhetoric, but you asked me to evaluate the historical claim. He doesn't seem to have any good evidence, and since he's talking about a period that is literally pre-historic, what he's really working with is a best-guess about family structures.

I'm not sure about a rhetorical argument that defines "matriarchy" as a mechanism by which women are supported by the state, though it leaves them powerless (except over their personal sexual choices) and poor. That kind of arrangement is more usually called "paternalistic," because the state is stepping into the role of the father (or husband). His argument seems to be that women really want sexual liberation at the cost of every other good, which is why it's right to call this 'rule by women.' But if so, the women aren't really getting very much out of the deal; it's a poor bargain for them above all.

jabrwok said...

But if so, the women aren't really getting very much out of the deal; it's a poor bargain for them above all.

And yet they keep voting for it.

I agree that his argument for the ultimate function of marriage is at least somewhat speculative, though his examples of modern communities that have abandoned traditional marriage (in favor of marriage to the state, granted) do seem to support the contention that relations between the sexes absent marriage are to no one's, and certainly not to society's at large, long-term benefits.

Thanks for taking a look at it and sharing your thoughts.

Grim said...

...like you would like a definition of marriage that is two people, apparently able to have children together, who intend to do so.

I don't want a definition as precise as that. What I want is more like a paradigm case. It would admit of near-cases, such as a man and woman who would like to have children but who can't -- an Abraham and Sarah, say.

I do see the blood tie as fundamental, and Cass offers some additional reasons why. It's about unifying blood lines across generations. This is ideally (and most actually realized) in children produced from the union, and educated by the members of the union, with duties both backward and forwards across generations.

If Ann and Bob get married and Bob commits adultery, I'm not clear on why Ann's father would not have a right to be angry about it, regardless of whether Ann and Bob had their own biological children, adopted children, or remained childless.

If Ann and Bob get married, the father does have the right. The blood ties in marriage go backward and forward.

The case I was trying to paint was one that was purely about adoption, without marriage. Say Ann and Bob are not married, but are neighbors who meet a family of orphans they decide to adopt. They don't wish to marry, but they do pool their resources and provide a adoptive home for these kids.

That doesn't create a blood tie between their families: Ann and Bob may not even have a sexual relationship themselves. If Bob should sleep with other women, that may be perfectly in accord with the rules of the union Ann and Bob have formed. It's no one else's business, including her father's, if Bob doesn't show sexual fidelity to her -- they may have no rule of that kind.

In marriage, that would not be true.

Dad29 said...

All that has changed is our ability to determine why it is happening.

One could add "intent" to Grim's marriage-is-for-children essay.

The Catholic Church's marriage rite uses this form: "Will you ACCEPT children from God...?"

That raises another issue, of course, which has also been ignored by society. That is this: there is no "right" to marriage, nor is there a "right" to children.

Elise said...

Okay, Grim, I'm now hopelessly confused. I thought your argument about adoption was that married, heterosexual couples who adopted rather than have their own biological children didn't meet your requirements for the purpose of marriage.

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Cass said...

But has anyone examined the link between uranium levels and the decline of marriage?

This is what keeps me awake at night. That, and wondering what Grim's position on uranium might be... :p

Grim said...

I'm in favor of it, of course.

...married, heterosexual couples who adopted rather than have their own biological children didn't meet your requirements for the purpose of marriage.

My position is that adoption and marriage are conceptually distinct institutions, not that they can never go together. It wouldn't make sense to say that a married couple isn't married because they also adopt; the point is that a couple who adopts need not be married, nor be bound by the strictures of marriage.

There's no reason a married couple can't adopt, just as there is no reason a married couple can't also form an ethical society of friendship. All I am saying is that it is important to recognize that "marriage," "adoption," and "an ethical society of friendship" are three different kinds of human institutions. They may occur separately. They may also occur together. But whether they occur together or separately, they remain distinct.

What makes a marriage is:

1) The unification of bloodlines across generations, with backward and forward duties, and,

2) That the primary purpose is not the happiness of the couple, but provision for the future generation.

Both of these I think are fundamental. (2) can be exercised in ways that are close to the paradigm case of actually bearing and rearing children, if the couple wishes, in which case it is a marriage if they want one. But if the couple really doesn't want children, nor to support nearby family, but is purely and only interested in their own happiness, then it is an ethical society of friendship.

There's nothing at all wrong with that. I think, as Aristotle thought, that such a society is potentially a wonderful thing that will develop the virtue of each of the parties. I'm all in favor of ethical societies of friendship. The point is not to disallow them, but to recognize that, as they do not perform the same necessary function for the survival of society, they do not have the same claim on society's support and resources.

Cass said...

...and still, Grim continues to duck the important question of his views on uranium.

How like a man :p

/running away!

All I am saying is that it is important to recognize that "marriage," "adoption," and "an ethical society of friendship" are three different kinds of human institutions. They may occur separately. They may also occur together. But whether they occur together or separately, they remain distinct.

A point I wish more folks would take on board when it comes to parenting. Every time I hear someone go on about "punitive" child support, I want to scream, "YOU CAN'T DIVORCE YOUR CHILDREN".

Although during the teen years, there are times every parent fantasizes about it :p

I don't understand the notion that divorce terminates the parental duty to support our own progeny.

Elise said...

What makes a marriage is:

1) The unification of bloodlines across generations, with backward and forward duties, and,

2) That the primary purpose is not the happiness of the couple, but provision for the future generation.


Than if a homosexual couple is able to marry - that is, make enforceable vows to each other in the eyes of the State; has the blessing of, and maintains warm ties with, their families of origin; adopts children and raises those children as their own, with the full support of their extended families - it seems to me they qualify as married under your definition.

Grim said...

They do not, because they cannot form a blood union without inherently immoral acts, barring future changes in technology that might fundamentally alter the question (see remarks to Eric, above).

The paradigm case admits of near cases, but cases which are inherently immoral (at least for now) are not 'nearly' like the natural function of creating a blood union realized in children. No social institution ought to be set up for the purpose of supporting inherently immoral behavior, such as the kind of mass-scale abortion that results from IVF.

Of course, we have many such institutions in fact. I regard that as a problem, not a precedent to be encouraged.

Notice also that I have not invoked the state anywhere here. I don't think the state is necessary for marriage at all (or ethical societies of friendship either). Should the state collapse, people could still marry, have children, and build anew -- if they could not, humanity would have ceased to exist long before now.

Grim said...

I think what you're wanting to say is that adoption can stand in for the organic blood bond. I clearly don't agree with that: from my perspective, adoption (though a great good, and certainly to be encouraged and supported) is a distinct institution. A married couple can adopt, an unmarried couple can adopt, an organization can adopt, a single individual can adopt. It doesn't create a blood bond, though it does create a legal one. It may also create a great deal of affection -- another ethical society of friendship, between adopted and adoptee -- but there is not a blood bond.

Grim said...

Now, you might want to say, "Well, I don't want a blood bond to be part of the case, then," but I think it serves a very important function. It's what keeps people from marrying dolphins, for example. Marriage can only exist between the kinds of beings who could have children without engaging in inherently immoral acts, such as abortion. Near cases such as a man and woman who are accidentally unable to have children, or who don't want to have children but will support their family in other ways, fall within the scope of this principle. Dolphins, or those that require immoral acts to procreate, do not.

In case it isn't clear, I'm considering the abortion-based technology (or the use of a surrogate who denies the child a relationship with one of his or her parents) as the inherent immorality, not the homosexuality.

Grim said...

And I suppose just to be fully clear, though you already know this from other discussions, when I say that abortion is inherently immoral I mean abortion except for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. Those cases are not inherently immoral: and in the case where the mother and child would both die without an abortion, it may be morally correct, or even obligatory.

Elise said...

I don't think adoption necessarily involves an inherently immoral act, at least on the part of the adopting parents. It may be possible to argue that the biological parents are acting immorally by depriving their child of knowing them but even if I accept that (and I don't in all cases) I cannot transfer the immorality of that to parents who take an unwanted child and raise him or her.

The condition that the two people getting married could - barring some type of physical malfunction - create children between them is an additional condition, beyond the two I quoted above. It's your definition so of course that's fine and it does make clear why same-sex marriage would not be acceptable under your conception (ahem) of marriage.

At bottom, I simply do not attach as much importance to the blood bond - or the theoretical possibility of a blood bond - as you do. To me, the reason sane human beings do not marry dolphins (or robots or other primates or cats) is because those beings are incapable of fulfilling the minimum requirements for a spouse: serving as auxiliary memory when I'm telling a story and have forgotten the details, and participating in the car-ride-home postmortem following a deathly dull dinner party.

Miss Ladybug said...

I don't buy into the statement that adopted children feel no bond to previous generations of their adoptive families. My best friend and her two siblings are all adopted (I do not know the circumstances of why they did not have biological children, and whether or not they were aware of that issue when they married). My best friend doesn't view her grandfather any differently because he is not her biological grandfather. And I would also say that her father would feel no differently about his son-in-law where he to cheat on my best friend. Doc would be pissed, just as "Ann's father" would be in your example.

My fiance and I are getting married in the Catholic Church. We've done the marriage prep already, to include an introductory NFP class that is required and the actual NFP course that teaches how to practice it. We don't know if we will be able to conceive, but we want to and are "open" to any children we may have. But, we both understand that I am not getting any younger and we may not be successful in having biological children of our own. We will look into adoption if it comes to that.

Honestly, I don't think "let's get married just so we can adopt" happens very often, especially since being single is not a bar to adoption these days...

Eric Blair said...

I think Grim is making way too much of this 'blut und volk' thing, seeing that it can go very very wrong very very fast if the last century is any clue to the subject.

Grim said...

I don't think adoption necessarily involves an inherently immoral act, at least on the part of the adopting parents.

I really didn't say that, Elise. I'm not sure why you would think so. All I've said about adoption is that it is not an analogue. Abortion involves an inherently immoral act -- killing an innocent for your own purposes -- with the exception mentioned. Adoption is generally an act of charity that is praiseworthy on its own terms.

Grim said...

Eric:

It's worth remembering that "universal cosmopolitanism" went at least as badly in the last century, when taken to the Marxist/Communist ideal.

Besides which, the problem with both that model and the one you cite is its use of state power. As I said above, I don't view the state as having a legitimate role here. The natural family, on my view, is valuable in part because of the counterweight that blood ties provide against an overweening centralized state.

I take it as good that one has a natural loyalty to family that opposes, at least in some ways and in theory, one's political loyalty to the state. This is good for the same reason that one might have a moral loyalty to a church that can check political loyalty (or even loyalty to family) in favor of moral questions.

The more power is divided between institutions, the more space there is for freedom, and the less for tyrants. That means keeping the old institutions strong. The more we allow them to be dissolved in favor of the state, the more danger there is of the kind of problem you're raising, which is the problem of tyranny.

Grim said...

Oh, Elise.

...is an additional condition, beyond the two I quoted above.

This is a minor point, but I don't think it is an additional condition. I take it to be contained within the definition of what it means to unify bloodlines across generations.

As usual with human institutions, I think they start from nature, and then use reason to perfect them. So we have a natural function -- the need to have children and educate them to assume roles in society. Reason perfects this through the institution of marriage, the form of which guarantees spousal loyalty, and ensures support from the broader families by establishing two-way rights and duties (the child has a right to support and not to be mistreated, the parent has a duty to provide support and not mistreatment; but the parent has a right to command and guide the child in youth, and the child has a duty to obey; older generations have a right to respect, and younger generations have a duty to be respectful).

Where the natural function is absent, we're not on the right ground for the institution. Where it could be performed, but only via an immoral act, we're also not on the right ground. One thinks of the example of artificially creating dozens of embryos in order to install just one, disposing of the others and using sperm taken from a father whom the one surviving child will never get to know: if this technology had been available in the 19th century, they would have written a fine novel about it on the order of Frankenstein.

Eric Blair said...

Grim: "universal cosmopolitanism" was a propaganda line pushed by Soviet (i.e. Russian) communists on everybody else. It was never realized as the Communist/Marxist ideal because such an ideal did not actually exist. It is sort of amusing to see how quickly the various states in the Eastern bloc went their own ways after WWII--and always under a nationalistic impulse.

Now, you may not view the state as having a legitimate role in the family in anyway, but you have to realize that's chucking out pretty much all of human history. Good luck with that.

I'm sure you saw in Iraq what the clan structure did to retard civil society, and how that sort of thinking impacted 'family' for good or ill.

In fact, Senator Portman's change of mind on the subject of gay marriage is quite instructive on how the pull of blood kinship can lead one to declare the opposite of what you're arguing here.

Grim said...

...chucking out pretty much all of human history.

I don't think that's right. Marriages have at times had, and at other times not had, state involvement. For example, there was a time at which it was a question for the church, not the state; and there was a time before that when the church really wasn't involved (marriage as a sacrament in Christianity is medieval, not ancient) at which time it was a family matter.

The point is that whether the state does or does not recognize X as a marriage isn't the issue. States come and go. This is a natural institution, one related to what kind of beings we are. The state might be the enforcement arm of the rights and duties of marriage, or the church might, or the family might. But the rights and duties are a function of our natures.

As for Iraq, my sense was that the family structure was really the most functional structure at work in the part of Iraq where I was. Civil society requires trust, and a state requires some combination of trust and force, but the blood ties usually held. Not always -- once the Qarghuli sheikh in our area was nearly killed by one of his own nephews, who had been swayed by al Qaeda to believe that killing him was a religious duty. But usually.

Insofar as civil society was going to form, then, I would have to say that the family was the necessary foundation for it. Families could begin to build trust because they were islands of something like stability. Our policy was to try to do it the other way around -- to build a super-strong state, in the hope that such a state could impose stability and give rise to civil society. But what really worked was to secure the family first, and then let the families begin to find ways to work together. That's how you get civil society.

And that's why the Awakening, and the success of the Surge, was based on a tribal revolt.

As for Portman, I don't blame him for wanting his child to be happy. I don't even want his child to be unhappy. I just want us to remain sane, instead of pretending that we can simply define ourselves however we wish and that nature will follow our will. That's how you get problems.

Eric Blair said...

Look closer. The "state" always has an involvement: whether in what to do with inheritances or property, whether it's how many children the couple is having--I don't think you can't show me a society or culture anywhere at anytime that the state and society didn't have some involvement. It does not exist in a vacuum.

Grim said...

Well, if you say "the state and society" you're pointing to two different things. Society contains other families, who of course will have something to say because you are looking for marriage partners from outside your own family. Society will usually also include religious bodies, who sometimes have things to say (although, again, Christian marriage as a sacrament is a medieval invention -- the ancient Christians talk about the importance of marriage, but the involvement of the church is unclear at best, and in fact appears to be minimal).

The state is a more formal structure, and hasn't always concerned itself with the question of who marries or why. Sometimes it has: for example, in Medieval Spain some cities that needed people to show up and live in disputed regions offered to let any couple that came there marry and be defended as a couple, regardless of what their families had to say. In other places, correspondingly, that was not true.

Eric Blair said...

Again, find me a state that has not actually concerned itself with marriage in someway.

The question here is only "who is marrying who" at the bottom of it.

I don't discount the answer to that could have all sorts of consequences, and may not have been a facet considered by states everywhere, (never mind cultures, because those are ALWAYS concerned with who is marrying who), but actual states? Oh yes.

Grim said...

So, what do you mean by "actual states"? For example, church courts handled marriage law in medieval England, which is as good a candidate for a "state" as exists in that period.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Marriage_Disputes_in_Medieval_England.html?id=8L1is9lUxIAC

If you only mean modern nation-states, say from Henry VIII or Charles XII or even as late as Napoleon, you're probably right that states have 'always' concerned themselves here. But that is because modern states have been very overweening, compared to earlier political models.

My preference would be to correct that trend, not reinforce it.

Eric Blair said...

I don't mean just modern nation states--hell, I'll go back to tribes if you want.

They always have an interest. They may not, perhaps, be able to make things stick the way they can today, but the Romans, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Babylonians, I don't care who.

I will concede that actual laws and a legal system probably need to be in force, but even tribes have some sort of mechanism for it.

Grim said...

I think I dissent from that proposition, then, but maybe only because I don't agree with your conceptual division of what a state is. I don't think of tribes as states, even large and powerful ones, but as families -- or, when several families are operating through personal ties, or through markets, as societies. To reach the point at which you have a state, I think you need a formal authority with the capacity to pass and enforce laws. That capacity is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a state on my view, because religious organizations have often enforced laws of a sort as well, alongside a state. Sometimes the religion was a part of the state apparatus, as in the Caliphates, in which case I think you can fairly call these states; but it is also possible (and to some degree desirable, assuming you don't lose the capacity to root laws in general religious mores) for these institutions to come apart.

Now, for example, Herodotus spends a lot of time talking about the marital customs of various of the peoples he was writing about circa 440 BC. Only some of these seem to have been based on laws -- that is, state-influenced on my terms -- rather than family-based negotiations, or social customs. One that comes to mind is the Babylonians, that had a law requiring that no family could negotiate a marriage for its children, but that instead all daughters had to be sold as wives at an annual auction. But Babylon was an unusually powerful state for the ancient world, and overweening as well.