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 Peg's
Polemic
Every
month, philosopher Peg Tittle casts off the calm, measured and qualified
style of her profession to deliver her opinionated and impassioned
column, exclusively for the TPM philosophy café...
Number
24. Marriage
Marriage,
by its very (traditional) definition, is a sexist affair: it involves
one of each sex, one male and one female. And I suppose this is
because, traditionally, the purpose of marriage was to start a family
- to reproduce, and raise the results. Now of course this view is
fraught with questionable assumptions, glaring inconsistencies,
and blatant errors. I'll give one of each. The connection between
reproducing and raising children is not at all necessary, hence
the 'one male and one female' is not at all necessary. If the purpose
of marriage is to have a family, why do couples who do not intend
to have children nevertheless marry - and why don't couples routinely
divorce once the children are raised? The marriage contract goes
well beyond family concerns; indeed, it barely approaches family
concerns - one pledges to love and honour one's spouse, not one's
children.
However,
the very mistaken connection between marriage and family is not
my concern here. Rather, I'd like to suggest another reason for
the sexism in marriage. Assuming that marriage entails love, and
love entails 'looking after', sexism makes things 'easier'.
Consider
this: needing to be looked after suggests one is a child or perhaps
an invalid; if both people are looking after each other, well, how
can a child look after - another child? (Rather makes marriages
like the blind leading the blind.) (Not an entirely unapt analogy.)
There has to be a difference, some sort of distinction. The distinction
is - surprise - sex: the husband is the father, he looks after his
wife with respect to the male domain - he fixes things for her,
he tells her stuff; the wife is the mother, she looks after her
husband with respect to the female domain - she feeds him, clothes
him, reminds him.
This
sexist division also avoids a second problem: without it, they'd
each feel, as indeed they are, treated like a child. How does a
wife feel when her husband lets her know what colours go together?
How does a husband feel when his wife changes the spark plugs? Inadequate,
insulted, put down. No doubt responding with an eight-year-old's
"I know that!" or "I can do it!" The sexist
division of labour justifies ignorance and incompetence within a
certain domain; it therefore allows people to remain children, without
embarrassment, within a certain domain. And this enables the other
to take care of them, in that domain, without offense. (I suspect,
therefore, the more whole a person is - the less feminine or masculine
- the worse they fare in a marriage. And if women tend to be more
whole than men, well, that would explain why men need marriage more
than women do - I'm thinking of happiness/suicide studies - aren't
unmarried men the worst off?)
Now
of course one wonders, how do same sex couples look after each other?
Do they negotiate some sort of butch/femme split? Or - and wouldn't
this be simpler, wouldn't it be healthier - does their concept of
love between adults not entail, not require, such nurture?
.
Peg's
Polemic will next be updated early January 2003
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