Desperate Houseflies: The Magazine

Feel free to pull out your trusty fly swatter and comment on what is posted here, realizing that this odd collection of writers may prove as difficult to kill as houseflies and are presumably just as pesky. “Desperate Houseflies” is a magazine that intends to publish weekly articles on subjects such as politics, literature, history, sports, photography, religion, and no telling what else. We’ll see what happens.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Here's the other one

Since we're not getting anywhere on my slut story, here's the other article I thought of posting yesterday. It's an interesting riff on my gender-roles theory of the opposition to same-sex marriage, minus the feminist perspective. Stanford Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford seems actually heartened that the opposition to same-sex marriage now seems to be not solely based on rank homophobia. But then, according to my view, it never was. Ford doesn't seem bothered in the least by the fact that Americans are clinging with some tenacity to restrictive and overly simplistic notions of gender roles, and doesn't seem to see it as any kind of long-term threat to the right of gay men and lesbians to live safe, valued lives. But there's a reason that the gay rights movement has sunk so much of its resources into the marriage fight. As long as marriage is considered an ideal and privileged status, locking people out of it for whatever reason is consigning them to second-class citizenship. Now, I would personally rather dispute marriage being a privileged status than gays being kept from participating. But that's why I'm more of a radical than a liberal.

7 Comments:

Blogger Al Sturgeon said...

Okay, I'll ask the question: Why get married?

I know there are 1000s of potential responses, but let's narrow it down to the biggies in America (not church, not ideal, not being cynical). What are the "main" reasons people in our country have in their minds when they suddenly think, "I want to get married?"

6:38 PM  
Blogger Sandi said...

I think it's primarily social approval. Ignominiously, that was my reason. That and money -- we got a tax refund for 2004 because we got married. (It's not so much of an advantage anymore, though). So the stereotype goes, women are stigmatized if they reach a certain age without having gotten married. It's social pressure. We can't think outside the box and see what life might look like otherwise. Which is not to say that marriage is unequivocally a bad thing, but the fact that people do it because they feel like they have to can't be good for it. At least not now that divorce is an option.

I think that gay men and lesbians want that acceptance of their relationships, particularly when they have children, and the legal protections that come along with it.

2:40 PM  
Blogger juvenal_urbino said...

Several reasons come to mind, in addition to the ones Sandi mentioned. The enduring romantic fantasy of it still seduces the young. So does the opportunity to have sex nobody disapproves of. Some do it for stability. Many do it because they want children, and want the help of another parent (and want the children to have both parents).

A good many, I think, do it out of sheer weariness with the dating life. And people don't know how to be alone, anymore. Nor is it socially approved. So that's not an option. It's either keep skating around the dating rink, or get married so you can sit down.

And, of course, some unknown number -- perhaps a large one -- do it because they meet someone, fall in love with them, have the remarkable good fortune of that person also falling in love with them, and the two of them want to make a permanent, public, socially/religiously/legally formalized commitment to each other.

(BTW, these verification words are really getting out of control.)

8:25 PM  
Blogger Al Sturgeon said...

In my little brain, I group several of your responses (Juvenal) in with the social approval category (approved sex, dating weariness to some extent, and even the romantic fantasy - if you aren't married, you've failed to achieve the ideal, etc.). I think stability (security) is different enough to be its own category, as well as the desire for a parenting partner.

Since the three of us are the only ones talking right now, we get to set the standards, and I'd offer three big reasons people get married in our society:
* Social approval
* Stability/security
* To have children

The third choice doesn't necessarily require marriage (which is pretty obvious given a quick look-around), and the second choice is really quite bogus unless it delves into the first choice (I can introduce you to a whole lot of unstable/insecure married folk). Which leaves me with marriage as some institution that is a social creation.

So this fascination with the "institution" of marriage as some precious ideal that must be preserved is an interesting one I think. I can deal with it somewhat from a religious perspective (the integrity of keeping love promises, etc.), but outside of that realm, I'm having a hard time seeing what is considered so special about the "marriage institution" that needs protecting or preserving, though I could readily understand an impetus to change its sociological stranglehold.

4:41 PM  
Blogger Beta Bunny said...

Being single is rough. Especially if you're a few thousand miles away from your family.

If I had someone in my life I would want to get married for lots of reasons, I would hope mostly because I loved them, but also because live is just so freaking hard.

When you get bedbugs and you have to haul your effing mattress down 4 flights of stairs, or you're not sure you can make the rent next month, or the dirty dishes or out of control ... you just wish you could make a deal with someone. "I'm going to care about you and do my best to promote your well-being and you will do the same for me."

At the moment that's why I would want to get married. Then I would have "family" - someone I could ask for help without carefully considering the friendship, how much I've already asked for, how much I've given, and what's "too much."

Carrying a bedbuggy mattress down the stairs is definitely too much for anyone but family. I had to ask for help with this and I still feel unhappy about that and wonder that I've put too much pressure on the friendship.

A very personal and non-philosophical answer to the question "Why people want to get married."

1:07 PM  
Blogger juvenal_urbino said...

A footnote to the Cap'n's comment: it's doubtless correct to say marriage is still around because it's proven itself beneficial ("adaptive," in Darwinian terms). However, forms of marriage vary, and polygamy is a common one around the world, and has been for thousands of years. On the Darwinian evidence, therefore, it seems to be equally as adaptive for humans as monogamous marriage.

Polyandry, though much less common, seems to work where it exists. Still other (and much odder, to us) forms of marriage have proven adaptive for the societies that have adopted them. In short, from a Darwinian perspective, the key benefit seems to be the knowing you have someone you can count on, not the exclusivity.

4:01 PM  
Blogger Sandi said...

I'm only a few chapters into Stephanie Coontz's book on the history of marriage, but just what I've read demonstrates that although marriage in some form has been around for a long time, its form and function have changed quite a bit during those years. To take the most obvious example, the idea that marriage is about love is relatively new and was seen as incredibly threatening when it started gaining ascendancy. Of course, as Coontz shows, it was threatening, because marriage based on emotion is for a lot of people unstable.

It's funny that I'm still such a cynic although I am married to the most wonderful man on the planet. I do appreciate him very much, and before I met him, I felt like mystique, although I never had bedbugs. It's nice to have someone help you carry the groceries in. It's nice to have someone you live with who loves and supports you. But on the other hand, like Juvenal I hate the tyranny of coupledom in this society. Just like anything, having this "social advantage" is largely a matter of luck. So neither I nor any happily married person deserves the opprobrium of the nation.

6:08 PM  

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