Gay Marriage

Someone remarked to me the other day that her daughter would make someone a good wife. Her remark caused me to wonder about the roles of husband and wife in society nowadays. In the past a husband and a wife had a specific role in marriage. I’m not sure these specific roles still exist and if they do perhaps they have become interchangeable. In the past I have defended traditional marriage which prohibits same sex unions but if these roles no longer exist or are now interchangeable then perhaps I should reconsider my position.

Let us assume that marriage has evolved so that the role of husband and wife are to some degree interchangeable. I am perfectly happy to accept such a change. This evolution means a woman can play the role of husband and a man the role of wife. It follows two women can play the roles of husband and wife in a marriage and the same applies to two men. It might then be argued if the state recognises marriage between a man and a woman it should also recognise a marriage between two partners of the same sex and that my defence of traditional marriage was wrong. Perhaps even my defence was due some unconscious prejudice on my part

At this point I must make exactly clear what position I have previously defended. Let us accept that until recently in western world it has been accepted that marriage was the union of one man and one woman. I did not defend the states right to define what marriage means. I accepted that the state has no business in semantics or else we might end up in a state akin to that in George Orwell’s 1984. Nonetheless I did defend the state’s right to encourage and offer support to traditional marriages. My argument went as follows. The state supports children’s education because this helps them flourish and become good citizens. I then argued by analogy if a marriage helps the children of the marriage flourish and hence become good citizens that the state should support marriage. I pointed to evidence that the children of married couples flourish better than those of unmarried couples, see for instance Married and unmarried family breakdown .  I concluded that the state should support traditional marriage.

However even if my argument is accepted it doesn’t mean the state shouldn’t recognise gay marriage. Gay couples don’t want to radically change marriage or destroy traditional marriage they simply want it to become more inclusive. I accept my argument above doesn’t automatically preclude this possibility. Provided of course this inclusion doesn’t harm the relationship between heterosexual married couples with children. Prima facie it would appear there is no moral reason why the state should exclude gay couples from marrying. Nonetheless the above provides no reason why the state should do so. Someone might object that the state should do so for reasons of equality. If it did so straight couples will no longer be able to claim moral superiority over gay couples. In reply I would of course accept that straight couples have no moral superiority over gay couples. Nonetheless my reason why the state should recognise traditional marriage had nothing to do with equality or discrimination it was simply concerned with helping children to flourish. My objector may now question why infertile heterosexual couples should be able to enter into a traditional marriage and gay couples shouldn’t. In reply I would argue the state has no moral reason to promote the marriage of infertile heterosexual couples. It may of course do so for purely pragmatic reasons simply because it is hard to differentiate between couples who don’t want or can’t have children and those who do.

In the light of the above I was perhaps wrong to argue the state should prohibit same sex marriage. However this is not the same as saying the state should support same sex marriage. A government might of course do so purely to project itself as both caring and modern. But these reasons are based purely on the government’s interests and not on the interests of gay people. In my next posting I will consider whether the state has other reasons to justify it supporting gay marriage.