Lee's Blog

This is in reference to “What’s love got to do with it?” on Accept No Substitutes. Mephistopheles O’Brien has had several posts about marriage, particularly with respect to gay marriage. I have commented a little, but don’t want to take over his blog with my comments. So I think I will respond here, beginning with this one.

Mephistopheles observes (read the whole thing, of course) that:

“Marriage” has meanings in at least 4 different contexts, and while these overlap they’re not identical. The 4 contexts are:

1. Individual/emotional: the choice of individuals to “join their lives together”, “dedicate their lives to each other”, “blend their families”, and similar sentiments.

2. Social/societal: the way that people and organizations treat people they consider married, single, and various states in the continuum. This also includes various expectations for proper behavior once married.

3. Religious: The mystical joining of individuals, typically as ordained by the appropriate deity or deities, surrounded by ceremonies and prayers, carrying with it various supernatural risks and allowing certain benefits.

4. Legal: A binding contract which carries with it tax consequences, legal rights, responsibilities, and termination clauses.

When someone says (as some have) something to the effect of, “it’s none of ….’s business whom I marry,” is that true? In the individual context, I suppose it could be. Every other context, though, has the need for someone else to recognize the marriage an provide some sort of approval. That gives the organization (society, church, government, whatever) some ability to define what it means to be married, under what conditions they will recognize that marriage (and in some cases, stop recognizing it), and how the “married” people will be treated compared to “unmarried” people.

I agree with all of this, but I think there is already a massive disconnect among these various contexts, and in particular, the legal aspect has gotten increasingly disconnected and, frankly, irrelevant. In this post, I will begin with Mephistopheles’ first context: individual/emotional.

When I was a child, I remember hearing a song that included the line, “We’re not forced to love each other, we just love each other naturally.” This was based on the complaint made in the 60’s that “marriage is just a piece of paper” and people shouldn’t have to (or want to) get that piece of paper. At the time, that was not true, however. Divorce was, I understand, difficult to get as a matter of law and often entailed heavy financial penalties for the man which might make it difficult for him ever to remarry.

(A cultural note: I remember a scene in Alas, Babylon, written in the late 50’s, where Dr. Gunn observes that he cannot remarry; indeed he cannot even build his practice, because, between the progressive tax structure and the escalation clauses in his alimony obligations, if his income ever rises to $50K, he will have to declare bankruptcy.)

So, in the 60’s, marriage was not just a piece of paper, but today, to a very large extent, it is. That is, people may feel a personal commitment based on the piece of paper, but they do not in fact have much more commitment based on that piece of paper.

You doubt me?

I read an article back in the 90’s to the effect that the institution of marriage simply does not exist in the United States any more. The author pointed out that:

• Marriage is not permanent. Every State has provisions for divorce; many allow “no-fault” divorce, meaning that either party can get a divorce just because they feel like it; and if the grounds for divorce in one State are not liberal enough, either party can simply move to another State, establish brief residency, and get a divorce there. The author observed that a contract terminable at will by either party is not a contract at all, and a marriage terminable at will by either party is not a marriage either.
• Marriage does not produce unique financial burdens in the form of alimony. Alimony has all but disappeared over the decades, with the recognition that marriage is ephemeral and thus a woman cannot expect to be supported for life by her husband. On the other hand, to the extent that one partner can claim to have been promised life-long support, marriage is not a pre-requisite to recovery. Remember palimony?
• Marriage does not produce unique financial burdens in the form of child support. As we all know, a man can be pronounced “father” of an out-of-wedlock child in the absence of any evidence except the mother’s word, and on that basis, without even the slightest pretense of due process, compelled to provide child support for that child. Thus, the obligation of a man for his children (or some other man’s children) is the same whether he married the mother or not. (Note that I do not think it is unfair to require a man to support his own children in or out of wedlock, though I do strongly feel that the Constitution should be honored even here.)
• Marriage does not produce a unique relationship with the resulting children. Fathers who did marry the mother have no greater right to the company of their children than fathers who didn’t bother; while the Courts do issue visitation orders in divorces, they don’t enforce them in any way and such orders are routinely ignored by hostile mothers, without penalty. Out-of-wedlock fathers can also get visitation orders, and I assume those are routinely ignored in the same way.

The author of the article observed that “marriage” in the United States today is essentially an iterated game of Prisoner’s Dilemma: since each party can defect at any time as soon as a better offer arises, the other party must be prepared to defect first, as soon as it becomes evident that the first is getting ready to make the move. Thus, have an iron-clad prenuptial agreement, maintain separate bank accounts and make sure the other party can’t drain them, think long and hard before having children….

It is true, of course, that some marriages are built on a basis of mutual trust where the Prisoner’s Dilemma aspect is disregarded. I know a number of couples like that. But that’s only because the couples have decided as an individual emotional choice to join their lives together and dedicate their lives to each other. It is not in any sense the product of “marriage” as an institution in the United States.

That being the case, getting back to Mephistopheles’ comments about gay marriage, I don’t see any difference on an individual emotional level between a committed relationship between people of the opposite sex and a committed relationship between people of the same sex. In neither case is there any legal obligation to continue the relationship, whether or not there is a “piece of paper” involved.

I have of course been keeping an eye on the potential pandemic of influenza. The nice thing about the modern world in general, and my job in particular, is that I really can work quite effectively from home. So if it comes to that, I’ll stock up on food and just hole up at home until the worst is over.

But what is the worst? We’ve all heard of the 1918 flu — well, from what I’ve read, there are two things that made it so bad:

1) There were no antibiotics, so people who got the flu and then developed pneumonia either got over it on their own, or died.

2) The flu developed in the middle of trench warfare, where soldiers were cold and miserably fed and crowded together, such that no matter how sick their trench-mates were, they could not get away from them. Those circumstances, so I’ve read, actually selected for the most virulent strains of flu, as the most virulent strains killed their hosts faster than less virulent strains, but spread most effectively since they produced more virus particles that the trench-mates could not avoid.

Neither of these circumstances apply today, and they haven’t for a long time. Consider the two other pandemics that keep being brought up: 1957 and 1968. Do you know anything about them? Have you heard about families wiped out, hospitals overwhelmed, food supplies to cities interrupted, any of that? No?

I asked an older co-worker if he remembered those pandemics. He was 13 in 1957 and 24 in 1968, so easily old enough to remember some dreadful epidemic sweeping through the population. He said he didn’t recall that at all (though he added that his generation spent 1968 in a drug-addled haze so perhaps would not have noticed bubonic plague).

I have heard the term “Hong Kong flu” so it must have made it into popular culture enough for even me to have learned of it, but clearly these pandemics were not 1918 redux. The authorities are worried about having a lot of people out sick at once, making it hard to keep the lights on, but I don’t think they’re really worried about The Stand. And I don’t think we should be either. We should be careful, especially people with young children, old people, and people with chronic illnesses, but I see no reason for panic.