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The Supposedly Universal Definition of Marriage is Not Universal
09/14/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
There is a fallacy that is heavily stressed in classes on counter-terrorism. That is the fallacy of the universal person. The crux of the theory is that all people everywhere are the same. This is the basis of ethnocentrism and prejudice, and it is relevant to the discussion of same-sex marriage rights.
During the Victorian and post-Victorian eras, the tendency was to sanitize and normalize those parts of history and culture which did not match the ideology that was being espoused by those scholars doing the writing. Thus, the tendency was to assume that marriage rights were the same everywhere in the ancient world, and that any deviation from what was considered “civilized” was be seen as being barbaric. Any deviation from the norms of masculine centered power structures was also deemed barbaric. Indeed, any cultural structure that did not match the Victorian view of what constituted civilized had to be altered in order to fit into that ideology.
There is an Ancient Greek story about Procrustes. It is said that he owned an inn with one bed. Any visitor who wished to stay had to fit on that bed. If they did not fit on the bed, they were made to fit upon it. Thus, if a person was too short, they were stretched out to fit it. If the person was too tall, the bits dangling off were chopped off. That gave rise to the idea of the Procrustean bed. This is what the academes of the past often did to civilizations.
The assumption implied by most of those who argue against marriage equality is the notion that all cultures had marriage rights whereby a couple would go up to a priest and say ‘I do’. This is the fallacy of the universal person, and their entire argument centers around it despite what they may say to Dr. John Corvino. What Dr. Corvino fails to point out in countering someone who tried to counter him is that the notion of a sanctified heterosexual marriage of the type that is supposedly universal is far from universal.
The notion that marriage is between one man and one woman only holds true under certain constraints. The first constraint requires the removal of all cultures which believe exclusively in Islam and have a legal system based upon the Quran to one extent or another. Arab civilizations have always, and Islamic societies since it was founded, have engaged in polygamy. Then the removal of all Native American societies is required in order to make the idea of one man/one woman heterosexual marriages be considered universal. Most Native American cultures had, before the introduction of Christianity, some form of same-sex marriage within their society.
By the time one gets through all the constraints on their examples, the pool of available marriage definitions is actually quite small. It amounts to Greece and Rome among a few hundred societies, and even that is not necessarily accurate. It may be down to Rome. Ancient Israelis before Rome arrived had polygamous marriages. Greek culture was subjected to the Procrustean bed of Victorian academia and is still recovering. After all, Victorian sources on Greece consistently fail to mention the long standing love between Athena and Pallas that stretched long after Pallas died in an accident, or that Athena took her lady love into herself to keep her spirit alive.
What it may be time is to stop dancing around this point. It is time to ask them what their absolute definition of marriage is, and if it is “a sacred union between one man and one woman”, then it is not a true definition of marriage as understood by the vast majority cultures and societies in the history of the world. And it is time to slam that one down and make sure that they understand it.
Their definition of marriage does not belong to the world. It belongs to their religion, and their religion is not mine.
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9 Responses to The Supposedly Universal Definition of Marriage is Not Universal
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Sei
September 14, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I wanted to thank all three of you who responded.
@American Marriage Ministries, I’m not sure that they are ignorant or dumb, but rather that they are inclined to ethnocentrism. In fact, it is quite common for very intelligent people to fall into believing that their world view is the view of the world. It is common in academia to run into it, in fact.
American Marriage Ministries
September 14, 2009 at 4:45 pm
You make a solid point and I agree with you. Many of the people who oppose same-sex marriage are probably aware of this. These people aren’t necessarily dumb or ignorant, they just don’t want things to change and feel threatened when they do. Ultimately we all need to have a common dialog about the real issue of providing people their civil rights. You are on to something because distilling “traditional marriage” from the civil contract of marriage is important for people to understand.
Terence Weldon
September 14, 2009 at 1:50 pm
This is a point we need to stress constantly. “Traditional” marriage is a new invention, which was not even treated by the Catholic Church as a sacrament until comparatively modern times. Indeed, for many centuries the church provided liturgical rites for blessing same sex unions, and buried same sex couples in shared graves, with share memorial stones and monuments, inside church buildings in exactly the same way as married couples.
Rome too does not the pattern required.pattern: same sex marriage as clearly legal: at least two Emperors (Nero and Elegabulus) publicly married men.
Where “traditional” marriage did exist in historic times, it was as much about making arrangements for property inheritance and family alliances as about “lurve” – and only mattered to the rich. The poorer people with no property often didn’t bother.
(See queeringthechurch.wordpress.com for more)
dave
September 14, 2009 at 11:33 am
I totally agree that anti-gay conservatives bowdlerize history to promote a racist, classist, sexist, and homophobic definition of marriage. However, I feel like same-sex marriage would only accomplish a slight expansion of rights to a small segment of the population (namely, those queer people who are willing and able to get married.) I recognize that queer people want to get married to receive access to the countless benefits it provides: filing taxes jointly, hospital visitation, sharing your partners health benefits, etc. And for that reason I would support and vote for any legislation that would extend those rights. However, I feel like by focusing only on gay marriage, we’re leaving out groups of people who don’t stand to benefit from this change– non-monogamous people, people who don’t want to get married for personal/cultural reasons, asexual people, and the list goes on. That’s we need to abolish marriage altogether- for queers and straights- and focus on directly giving people the rights they need and deserve. For example, pass universal health care directly, rather than doing it indirectly for the small segment of the population who have good enough jobs to receive coverage from their employer. And why should people have to be in a romantic/sexual relationship to file taxes jointly or visit loved ones in the hospital? We all deserve the universal rights to choose our loved ones, and live in whatever kind of family we choose to create. Focusing on marriage just clutters the issue.
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