What kinds of marriage should we allow?

I’m a second year History and Philosophy student at Lancaster Univeristy with a particular interest in applied ethics, which is where the topic for the blog comes from. This is a topic which has been increasingly hitting the comment pages in recent months, mainly thanks to the campaign to allow gay marriages and straight civil partnerships.

The waters are muddied by the wide range of definitions of marriage. Marvin Ellison offers three ‘traditional’ definitions: ‘one-flesh union’(a rather nasty patriarchal concept); “Marriage as a covenant”; and marriage as “passionate mutual love” (those two are much nicer). Ralph Wedgewood bases his definition on what he thinks people see marriage as now “(1) sexual intimacy; (2) domestic and economic cooperation; and (3) a voluntary mutual commitment to sustaining the relationship.” Wedgewood’s is a bit dodgy as he says that it’s easy to imagine marriage without one of these but they are essential; and goes on to say it’s easy imagine gay marriage so heterosexuality isn’t acceptable :s

More recently academics and commentators have gone for reductionism. Elizabeth Brake’s concept of ‘minimal marriage’ suggests we should only require a marriage to be a ‘caring relationship.’ Peter Tatchell argues for a system where ‘legal rights are granted to all relationships of mutual devotion and support.’ In these systems people do not have to exchange the full range of rights and responsibilities currently associated with marriage but can split them up among as many people as they wish.

I’m not a fan of the Brake and Tatchell approach, at least not fully; I think Brake’s system reduces marriage to friendship with no recognition of the value of relationships in which the participants intend to maintain the relationship indefinitely. This does not mean that a relationship cannot end if it’s not working, just that at the outset the partners genuinely do not perceive an end to the relationship. Put simply, that no one should enter into a marriage intending to have a divorce.

My compromise proposal is the adoption of Brake’s concept to provide a legal and societal recognition of complex modern ‘adult support networks’; that is, adults who support and care for each other. Yet I would propose a separate institution of marriage, allowing distribution of rights in the same way as Brake but recognising the value of committed long term relationships to society.

A few clarifications at this point. Firstly, this concept of marriage requires no religious affiliation though partners are of course free to have their relationship blessed if they wish. Secondly, gay marriage is allowed and given equal standing to straight marriages. Thirdly, if you want to read an argument against the general themes of this blog try here.

Brake’s argument is useful in providing a rather nice Rawlsian appeal to neutrality; it allows any consenting adult to grant those rights, responsibilities and entitlements associated with marriage to any other consenting adult it allows equally for polygamous or monogamous, homosexual or heterosexual marriages. My proposal would not impinge upon state neutrality as no additional rights or responsibilities are packaged up in marriage as opposed to recognised ‘caring relationships’.

I have some developed prudential arguments against allowing polygamous marriage but I don’t want to go on too much so I’ll leave that for another time, or feel free to ask me. Hope you enjoyed my first foray into the blogosphere.