Marriage – Cultural, or Biological Imperative?

Sylvia came down to visit with us New Year’s eve. Cheryl and I have know her for almost40 years now, so visiting with her is sometimes like seeing a sister.

She’s worked in an STD clinic for decades. In Seattle, this means she spends a lot of her work time with men who have sex with men. So she’s learned a lot about the ins and outs of gay culture, at least as it pertains to sex and its repercussions.

“No, really, most gay couples – even men who have gotten ‘married’, have an open relationship. And that leads to a lot of bad behavior, at least what I see.”

I didn’t want to hear that. I wanted marriage to mean something, or else why would it be such an aspiration among gay activists. “I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, there must be studies about this, but maybe it’s just the case in a hip urban environment like Seattle. What about all the gay couples in the heartland, in Des Moines [Iowa, not the Des Moines in WA state] or wherever?”

“OK, you believe what you want, AAAl. I just know what I see.” Sylvia has a way of drawing out the first part of my name for a little sardonic emphasis. I don’t see how that can be done, what with only two letters in my name and all, but, she manages.

This was a new train of thought for me. I had bought the party line, that gay marriage was not a threat to the institution of marriage. I have a very idealized notion of marriage, but it’s really kind of fuzzy. I’ve been married for 33 years to the same person, and we still seem to get along, don’t see any reason to give it up or go “outside”.

On the other hand, I read a lot, and I observe the world around me, and it’s obvious that, given the chance, many men (just a tad fewer women) would not settle down or necessarily take on responsibility for kids or relationship maintenance if there weren’t a whole bunch of social, legal, and cultural norms around.

So we spent the next 45 minutes or so going all around this issue.

First, I scanned a few supposedly scholarly studies from around the world about gay relationships, and discovered that Sylvia is probably right. Sexual exclusivity does not seem to be a cultural norm among gay men; rather, the opposite may be true.

Then, I pondered the history of marriage. Anthropologists speculate that it arose to meet several needs: provide some measure of assurance to fathers that the children they were accountable for were indeed theirs; reduce the spread of potentially deadly venereal disease; support labor specialization between the genders; ally separate families, or even tribes.

As societies coalesced, proto-governments and social institutions, such as religions, both developed views about the value of marriage and created structures and rituals to support marriage as a value to human groupings.

While this package of cultural norms and pressure is certainly not perfect, without it, who knows what life would be like among the 95% plus of us who are heterosexual.

And in the absence of any state or church interest in the value of monogamous homosexual relationships, we end up with the relatively high rates of VD in the population of men who have sex with men. Which, given how our health care system works these days, ends up being expensive for all of us.

Besides, the randy behavior of gay men as a group (not all, but a larger proportion than heterosexual men) gives those inclined to have a visceral dislike of the activity a platform to stand on to hate and persecute.

That seems to be why a noted conservative lawyer and Solicitor General in the Bush II Administration, Ted. Olsen, took the side of those advocating for gay marriage in the CA state supreme court case recently. He’s the guy who famously asked a proponent of banning gay marriage, “Who would be harmed if gay marriage were legal?”, and having the supposed expert say, “Well, I can’t think of anyone.”

Here’s what he said: “We believe that a conservative value is stable relationships and stable community and loving individuals coming together and forming a basis that is a building block of our society, which includes marriage.” In other words, society should provide as much normative cultural pressure on gays to marry as it does on the rest of us. Or at least to have stable, monogamous relationships.

For individuals, there is a value in having a relationship recognized as “marriage”. Tax rates are lower, insurance coverage is provided for partners, laws recognize inheritance. In Vermont, 300 different benefits accrue to those who enter into a civil union. This is the main argument put forward to endorse gay marriage.

An equally powerful argument could be made as to the value to society when gay individuals are encourage to form stable dyads. Maybe, over time (generations, not years) such encouragement would have the same effect as it does for heterosexuals: cultural norms beginning to override biological ones. In this case, the override is not to discourage homosexual behavior outright, but to channel it into avenues which are beneficial to society, or at least not dangerous.