Allan C. Carlson - Conjugal America: On the Public Purposes of Marriage
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The institution of marriage has become perilously weak in America. Changes in the law over the past three decades, such as the spread of no-fault divorce and broad acquiescence to cultures of divorce and intentional childlessness, have stripped traditional marriage of important legal supports. Half of all marriages end in divorce and just as many are childless. Conjugal America seeks to recapture the real purposes of marriage and the unchanging nature of this most vital and fundamental human institution.Confronting contemporary issues and drawing heavily on the natural and social sciences, each chapter also reaches into the past to find truths grounded in human experience. Carlson reexamines the basic bond of marriage to procreation, showing that this tie has been no less than the foundation of the unwritten sexual constitution of Western civilization. He also shows how the Gnostic heresy, which despises procreation, posed a stark danger to the early Christian movement and to the sexual constitution of our own time as well. He then dissects claims regarding the evolution of marriage, showing that true marriage always represents the vital connection of the sexual with the economic.Carlson explores the political nature of marriage showing, why every ambitious totalitarian government seeks above all to destroy marriage, and why the true marital bond actually stands for liberty. He concludes by arguing for the necessity of marriage policy. Because both the nature of the centralizing state and the pressures of modernity have altered family circumstances, new protections and encouragements to marriage are now imperative. Conjugal America will be central to the new debate on marriage and its purposes. This book sees the current moment as an opportunity to revitalize a necessary institution that has recently been abused and neglected and reinstate it as the primary source of commitment and care in the modern world.
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CONJUGAL AMERICA
CONJUGAL AMERICA
On the Public Purposes of Marriage
Allan Carlson
First published 2007 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright 2007 by Taylor & Francis.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2006050057
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carlson, Allan C.
Conjugal America : on the public purposes of marriage / Allan Carlson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7658-0362-3
1. MarriageGovernment policyUnited States. 2. Marriages
Religious aspectsChristianity. 3. Human reproductionReligious aspects
Christianity. 4. Religion and polticsUnited States. I. Title.
Conjugal America : on the public purposes of marriage / Allan Carlson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7658-0362-3
1. MarriageGovernment policyUnited States. 2. Marriages
Religious aspectsChristianity. 3. Human reproductionReligious aspects
Christianity. 4. Religion and polticsUnited States. I. Title.
HQ536.C366 2006
306.850973dc22 2006050057
306.850973dc22 2006050057
ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-0789-0 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-7658-0362-7 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-7658-0362-7 (hbk)
For Anders, Sarah-Eva, Anna and Miriam
Contents
of this book began as components of a special lecture series on The Meaning of Marriage, presented at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., during 2004. They appear here with permission. I want to thank those affiliated with the council that year who gave these lectures their encouragement and support, including Allen Crippin II, Colin Stewart, Douglas Minson, Mark Haskew, Peter Sprigg, Bridget Maher, and Tony Perkins. I also need to thank my colleagues at the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society in Rockford, Illinois, who provided important help and critical advice, including Heidi Gee, Bryce Christensen, Jean Heise, John Howard, and Larry Jacobs. As always, I am grateful to Transactions founder and chairman Irving Louis Horowitz, for valued recommendations on reshaping the manuscript, while editor Laurence Mintz did an able job in giving it a fine tuning. My wife of thirty-four years, Elizabeth, provides me a splendid model of helpmate, mother, friend, and advisor. Finally, I dedicate this volume to my children.
When same sex marriage first emerged as a policy issue in the late 1990s, advocates of the traditional family found themselves in an awkward position. To begin with, they were surprised, even shocked, by this new challenge to an ancient institution, a challenge that seemed to come out of the blue. Only a handful had been following the internal debates in the gay and lesbian community during the prior two decades over the best strategies to win public acceptance for their lifestyles. Conservative gays saw same-sex marriage as a promising wedge-issue for winning over the American mainstream, an argument opposed by more radical voices who yearned instead for the liberation of homosexuality from all restraints. Well-funded advocacy groups finally settled on the former argument and crafted legal and public relations strategies with patience and skill.
Pro-family advocates also quickly discovered that the cherished institution of marriage was already perilously weak. Changes in the law over the prior three decades, such as the spread of no-fault divorce and broad acquiescence to cultures of divorce and intentional childlessness, had stripped traditional marriage of important legal qualities. For example, the linkage in law and custom of marriage to procreation became vulnerable in an age when a large proportion of marriages occurred between couples unable or unwilling to beget children. As companionship displaced offspring as the guiding reason for marriage, the claims of same-sex couples for recognition gained traction.
Finally, advocates for the traditional family found themselves at a surprising disadvantage in the battle of ideas. While the social sciences were collecting a growing mountain of data confirming the powerful, positive social value of marriage, the public meaning of marriage seemed to be in growing disarray. Cohabitation was in the ascendance. One of every two marriages ended in divorce. Half of married-couple homes were without children. Those homes with children commonly stood empty during the day; mothers and fathers scattered to their separate workplaces with the children in commercial care or at public school. Serial polygamy, rather than fidelity for a lifetime, seemed to be the waxing model. Indeed, marriage appeared as something increasing archaic, an institution no longer suited to an evolving social order. As one contemporary historian concludes:
just as we cannot organize modern political alliances through kinship ties or put the farmers and skilled craftsmens households back as the centerpiece of the modern economy, we can never reinstate marriage as the primary source of commitment and care giving in the modern world.
This volume, Conjugal America, seeks to recapture the real purposes and the unchanging nature of this most vital and fundamental human institution. Confronting contemporary issues and drawing heavily on the natural and social sciences, each chapter also reaches into the past to find truths grounded in human experience. This book welcomes the new debate on marriage as an opportunity to revitalize a necessary institution that has recently been abused and neglected.
dissects claims regarding the evolution of marriage, showing that true marriage always represents the vital connection of the sexual with the economic. Marriage renewal, the chapter shows, must rest on the reconstruction of functional, child-rich homes.
. It shows why every ambitious totalitarian government seeks above all to destroy marriage, and why the true marital bond actually stands for liberty.
argues for the necessity of marriage policy. Both the nature of the centralizing state and the pressures of modernity have altered family circumstances. New protections and encouragements to marriage are now imperative. The book concludes with specific recommendations.
Notes
1. Early summaries included: Glenn T. Stanton, Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society (Colorado Springs, CO: Pinon Press, 1997; Linda J. White and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier, and Better off Financially (New York: Doubleday, 2002); and Bridget Maher, The Family Portrait: A Compilation of Data, Research and Public Opinion on the Family (Washington, DC: Family Research Council, 2002).
2. Stephanie Coontz, Marriage: A History (New York: Viking, 2005): 313.
1
Children as the First Purpose of Marriage
Children as the First Purpose of Marriage
When Massachusetts officials, facing the court case Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, set out to defend that states marriage law from a challenge by seven homosexual couples, their major line of defense was procreation. Making babies, the state argued, was the first purpose of marriage. By definition, same-sex partners could not create a child as a couple. This was important, the argument continued, because children usually do best when growing up with their two natural parents. Moreover, requiring fertility tests before marriage by opposite sex couples would be cumbersome and overly intrusive. It was better to let all otherwise qualified opposite sex couples to marry than to go down that troubling regulatory path.
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