I'm going to try my best to clarify why I believe the notion spread by some that marriage must be either "child centered" or "an adult relationship" is a false dichotomy. A few laws of marriage deal with the establishment of the parental relationship, and these laws are certainly extremely important. Incidentally they are extremely important for the children of same-sex couples as well. In comments to another post, commenter Pete directed my attention to a Massachusetts case T.F. v. B.L. where a lesbian couple decided to have a baby using D.I. and subsequently broke up. After a time one of them refused to pay child support, and the court ruled they could not order her to do so. If, however, they had been married she would have been established as parent and had the obligations to support her child. We see yet again here part of the importance of getting married before having children. (Three similar cases are currently before the California Supreme Court). The article notes:
Lambda Legal says that couples who register as domestic partners will have the benefit of presumed parentage for children born into the relationship. That protection is provided by A.B. 205, California's extensive domestic partnership law, which went into effect in January.
In any case while the establishment of parentage or laws establishing custody in divorce are certainly importants ways that marriage benefits children, they are not the primary way marriage does so. That is marriage is not primarily about the direct relationship between parent and children. That relationship should and generally is established and respected even when the parents are not married. [I should note that marriage used to be much more important in these regards. Marriage used to establish which children had a right to inherit and make claims of support and which did not. We have moved away from this idea, and most people would now agree that even illegitimate children should be part of the full parent-child relationship].
I believe marriage is (and should be) primarily about the relationship between the adults. Overwhelming the laws of marriage deal with governing this relationship and establishing and protecting the direct rights and obligations that spouses have to each other. A marriage which ends (through death or divorce) before any children were born did not serve no purpose, nor was it insignificant. A marriage can and should continue to function well after the children are raised (and certainly well after parentage is established). This adult relationship is important, it does benefit society, and it is rightfully governed by family law.
Does this mean I don't think marriage is about children? Of course not. I have just said that overwhelmingly marriage is concerned directly with the relationship between the spouses as opposed to the relationship between parent and children (which exists independently of marriage). The crucial point to remember, though, is that the relationship between a child's parents has an enormous impact on the welfare of the child.
Children generally do better when their parents are married. This seems obvious to me, but studies certainly back me up. Why is that? Is it because a child is then more likely to be raised by his or her biological parents? Possibly, although I would think adopted children would fare better with married parents. Is it because a child of a married couples is more likely to be raised with a father and mother? Possibly, but I doubt this is the main reason marriage is better. For one children do better with marriage as opposed to cohabitation which would also provide a father and mother. Children do better with married parents as opposed to divorced parents even if both are involved in the child's life. Furthermore, studies to date (while necessarily imperfect because of the limited data) support the belief that a child does just as well with same-sex parents.
So, no, I do not believe that the benefit of marriage to children stems primarily from who the marriage provides, but rather the structure it provides. Again given the same two parents, I think married parents would provide a better structure for the children than cohabiting parents. Why should this be the case? The short answer is because the relationship between the parents makes a big difference to the child. Part of that is the love parents show to each other, but there is much more. When the parents have obligations not only to the child, but to each other there is a model that family members have obligations to each other which are serious and enduring. There is also a sense of security in a child knowing their parents have made a solemn commitment to remain together. Marriage makes it easier for the adults to fulfill their obligations even in times of difficulty. This can teach a child on the importance of fulfilling our obligations to each other even through difficult times.
This is not to mention the more concrete ways that the parents' obligations to each other benefit the child. They make it easier for one or both of the parents to sacrifice career interests to put the family first. They make it easier to support each other in times of sickness and other difficulties. Certainly a child is going to do better when his or her parents are well cared for, and who better to care for them than each other.
When we talk about marriage as the ideal for raising children, we do not mean that every couple who gets married makes the perfect parents. Nor do we mean that every couple who gets married is capable of providing everything for their children. What we mean is that a couple who marries is at least doing all that they can to help their future children, in large part because they are doing all they can to establish a committed relationship to each other.
[Again I won't be posting this weekend because of the holiday.]
Overwhelming the laws of marriage deal with governing this relationship and establishing and protecting the direct rights and obligations that spouses have to each other.
As best I can gather from that sentence, you appear to mean that the overwhelming proportion of marital laws deal with governing the adult relationship and the rights and obligations between spouses, rather than benefitting the child. Is that correct? If it is, could you support the statement? Marriage includes an awful lot of laws; have you gone through them and counted which ones seem reasonably likely to benefit potential children, and which rules do not?
I am unaware of any society in history that developed any formal marriage arrangement that was not already aware of the male role in biological paternity, nor am I aware of any groups that had not yet become aware of male paternity, that did not develop some form of formal marriage between man and woman. Since knowledge of male paternity seems to be historically coterminous with the institution of formal marriage, I think that it follows that marriage developed as a means of associating children with a father as well as a mother.
There are many types of nonmarital arrangements, sexual and otherwise. When Plato was talking about his ideal kind of love, for instance, he wasn't talking about what we call "Platonic love." Some societies have had recognized same-sex arrangements, but except for perhaps in the French Prison system, I've never heard of them being confused with marriage before. The Greeks sometimes seemed to value some same-sex relationships as more important than marriage, and Shakespeare wrote poems to the same effect when he was trying to ingraciate himself with the notorious court of James VI. But the Greeks at their most homophylic never confused their same-sex activities with marriage. James VI himself, all-powerful head of the state and of the state church (not to mention the patron of the King James Bible) could easily have, but did not rewrite the laws of marriage to suit his lifestyle.
If marriage really was about a relationship between adults, rather than about how that relationship between adults impacted their potential offspring, then it makes no sense that every enduring paternity-savvy culture in history has defined marriage as between man and woman.
Now if you have evidence that this has changed, if you know of a comprehensive online list of laws regarding marriage, of a law review article that walks through them doing this sort of analysis, then please link me. I think that it was amazingly irresponsible for the Goodridge Court to make conclusory proclamation that the "sine qua non" of LEGAL marriage was "love." What are the legal elements of love? What proportion of the thousand-odd laws tied up in marriage actually regulate love? I've been married 11 years and haven't run into any of them, haven't been pulled over by the love police, or received a letter from the Ministry of Love.
Posted by: Pete | May 01, 2005 at 01:03 AM
To be fair to you Galois, you have said before that you don't approve of the entire Goodridge reasoning. Is the SJC's holding that the "sine qua non" of Legal marriage is "love" one of the points about the Goodridge opinion that embarrasses you? Or do you actually defend that holding?
As for T.F. v. B.L., your Euphemism that the SJC "the court ruled they could not order her to do so" kind of says it all, doesn't it? It was the TF ruling itself that created the problem that only marriage could supposedly fix. Maine recently came to a happier result for a similar lesbian couple, without need for resorting to same-sex marriage. The idea that a technically unrelated adult may take on parent-like rights and responsibilities, has been around for millenia. Maine's solution -- recognize a parent-like relationship -- fits within centuries of common-law jurisprudence. The TF decision on the other hand is a case of swallowing the fly to justify having swallowed the spider.
Posted by: Pete | May 01, 2005 at 01:41 AM
As best I can gather from that sentence, you appear to mean that the overwhelming proportion of marital laws deal with governing the adult relationship and the rights and obligations between spouses, rather than benefitting the child. Is that correct?
Not at all! This whole post was about how those two things are not at odds. A proper statement of my views would be that the overwhelming proportion of marital laws deal with governing the adult relationship and the rights and obligations between spouses, and thus benefits the child.
If marriage really was about a relationship between adults, rather than about how that relationship between adults impacted their potential offspring, then it makes no sense that every enduring paternity-savvy culture in history has defined marriage as between man and woman.
Again those two things are not at odds, but incidentally what culture was not aware of paternity?
Now if you have evidence that this has changed, if you know of a comprehensive online list of laws regarding marriage, of a law review article that walks through them doing this sort of analysis, then please link me.
This brief (pdf) filed by the Boston Bar Ass'n and the Mass. Lesbian & Gay Bar Ass'n as amici curiae in the Goodridge case is probably the sort of thing you're looking for. But as I noted, I do not claim, nor does this brief, that the marital laws do not benefit children. On the contrary it talks about how one of the great benefits to children is the laws which govern the relationship of the parents. (It also discusses presumption of paternity and de facto parenthood, two topics which seem to interest you.)
I think that it was amazingly irresponsible for the Goodridge Court to make conclusory proclamation that the "sine qua non" of LEGAL marriage was "love."...Is the SJC's holding that the "sine qua non" of Legal marriage is "love" one of the points about the Goodridge opinion that embarrasses you? Or do you actually defend that holding?
They did no such thing. The holding of Goodridge was
They did not say anything about the "sine qua non" of legal marriage being love. Nor would I be embarassed by anything the court wrote. I didn't write it.
As for the TF ruling, the could not rule as a matter of "de facto" parenthood as Maine did and as Massachusetts itself did in E.N.O. v. L.M.M.. As the court noted in that case
None of that was true in T.F. where the defendant never even resided with the child. So I'm curious what you would have had the court do in that case?
Posted by: Galois | May 02, 2005 at 07:00 PM
Incidentally they [marriage laws and benefits] are extremely important for the children of same-sex couples as well.
As long as you continue to promote that legal fiction ("children of same-sex couples") then you can justify pretty much anything you want to.
It's still fiction.
Posted by: Marty | May 02, 2005 at 07:27 PM
Excuse me Marty, but that statement you just made is extremely ignorant.
By LAW (thus by definition not a legal fiction) our daughter is the legal child of both of us (same-sex couple that we are).
In fact, of the dozens of families I know, most of the children of same-sex couples are well.. legally children of both partners of a same-sex couple.
your 'legal fiction' is a legal fact.
Posted by: trey | May 03, 2005 at 03:04 PM
It is a "legal" fiction. A purely social construct. Your daughter KNOWS that you are not her real parents, as does everyone else. It may be legal, but it's still fiction. Pity too. What happened to the girls mother?
Posted by: Marty | May 03, 2005 at 06:33 PM
Marty believes that a sex act is what a parent makes, except that what he really means is that empregnating a woman is what a man makes. This is ghetto mentality.
Posted by: arturo fernandez | May 03, 2005 at 09:45 PM
Nice (lame) try Art. Impregnating a woman is what makes a CHILD. In fact, there is no other way to "have children" now is there? Legal fictions aside, of course... Now pipe down and lets see what trey has to say.
Posted by: Marty | May 04, 2005 at 12:01 AM
Trey's daughter has two Dads. She is lucky that way.
Posted by: arturo fernandez | May 04, 2005 at 12:53 AM
I've already responded to this idoitic idea that parents who adopt aren't "real" parents before in this post, and these follow-ups last year.
Posted by: Galois | May 04, 2005 at 01:06 AM
The idea behind this dispute seems to be what we call parents. Well its not all that complicated really. As a society we put value on certain things. In this case society has deemed the natural family (man + women + their natural children = family) .
In the case of adoption we try an approximate the natural family. We value a child having a mother and a father as a model. This hardly seems idiotic.
Single women having children out of wedlock is below the standard. This is something we rightly deplore. A single women or man raising a child (ala Murphy Brown) is rightfully condemned as selfish and unfair act to the child. I know plenty of single women who desperately want a child – but have no intention on simply getting pregnant and raising that child without a father. They are not that narcissistic to put there selfish wants over the well being of children. (even though they could easily put themselves in that position in order to “play house”)
Two good friends raising children would not be anymore tolerated as a parenting model, as me and my brother adopting a child and starting a household would. Group marriages also are considered as below our standards for childrearing. Groups of people from Mormons to Arabs to polymorists are considered a unfit model for child rearing. They are put under legal and social pressure to abandon this model.
Well…as we all no these are our societies model for parenting.
Some are attempting to change this, there efforts are centered around the proposition that all family forms are equally valid.
This is simply not the case.
Imposing a new and arbitrary legal standard that says all family forms are equally valid destroys are ability to discourage (both legally, politically & socially) illegitimacy, divorce, cohabitation, single parenting, fatherless ness and so on.
It’s a sad and selfish movement that puts its own need for normative acceptance above the welfare of children.
Posted by: Fitz | May 04, 2005 at 02:01 PM
There are several problems I see with your position Fitz. First of all, as a society many states (and almost all children's welfare advocates) value adoption by same-sex couples. While there is no shortage of couples wanting to adopt white, healthy, infants, there is a great need for adoption of children who did not fit all three of those criteria, and many same-sex couples are doing a great act of kindness to fill in that need. So to say that same-sex parenting is invalid, may be your view but it is not that of society.
More importantly, marriage is not a stamp of approval that marks all its bearers as being equally good parents and superior parents to all others. Rather marriage itself makes the parenting situation better. A man and a woman raising thier natural children do not automatically become married. They must make the conscious decision to take on the obligations of marriage, and that decision is to be valued. That structure that marriage provides makes it a better place to raise children, as I have explained before.
Nor is marriage prohibited to couples in less than an ideal situation for raising children. For example, a couple that has a child that they cannot afford to care for does not have their marriage dissolved. A couple with a parent is prison does not have their marriage dissolved. Even a couple who neglects or abuses a child, while they might and should have their childen removed, they will not have their marriage dissolved.
It is the denial of same-sex marriage which promotes cohabitation. A same-sex couple, even one raising children, is forced to cohabit or separate. How can we do that unless we say that marriage makes no difference on their welfare or the welfare of their children? Marriage does make a difference and it is better for the children than cohabitation. (This is not to mention the fact that as long as ssm is prohibited there has been and will continue to be initiatives to treat cohabitation more like marriage or to offer non-marital structures, often open to opposite-sex couples, that compete with marriage.) We should be encouraging same-sex marriage, not prohibiting it.
Posted by: Galois | May 04, 2005 at 03:25 PM
Marriage does make a difference and it is better for the children than cohabitation.... We should be encouraging same-sex marriage, not prohibiting it.
I'll grant you that something is better than nothing, when it comes to children of already broken homes. This is why gay adoption/fostership is so widely accepted by child-advocates. It is also why gay parents who have children from previously heterosexual relationships (oops!) want the right to marry their same-sex partners. In either case, kids will suffer because of the choices of adults.
It's one thing to take a bad situation and make it better -- even if that is less than ideal. It is quite another to create broken familys from scratch -- much less to encourage it by granting the inherently broken "same-sex family" the legal license of marriage.
I'm still hoping Trey will return and explain what happened to "parent" number three -- just so we'll know which camp he is in.
PS: Did you really ban John Howard from this blog? Did he make you uncomfortable or something?
Posted by: Marty | May 04, 2005 at 07:03 PM
Marriage does make a difference and it is better for the children than cohabitation
Lets take a hypothetical. This is not a trick question -- i honestly do now know how you would answer it, so i will ask it in good faith.
Generally speaking (no anecdotes or worst case scenarios please), is it better for a child to to be raised by his own UNmarried mother and father, than by one or more biological strangers who have a licensed legal union?
Posted by: Marty | May 04, 2005 at 07:07 PM
Marty,
Let's start with your last question first. I assume you mean that in the latter situation the "biological strangers" have firmly established legally their parent-child relationship and the "licensed legal union" of which you speak is at least substantially a marriage with all the protections, obligations, and rights that entail. It certainly depends on the situation, but since you ask for a generally speaking, I would go with the couple that not only has the legal ties to the child, but to each other as well. That is I think, in terms of benefit to the child, the value marriage provides outweighs the value shared genetic material provides.
And yes I really banned John Howard. That was the first time I ever banned someone, and as you know I've put up with a lot of shit on this board. His idea that permitting same-sex couples to marry must mean the licensing of bizarre and unethical human experimentation was a bit crazy to begin with, but I allowed him to rant on about it for quite awhile. He began to push the envelope though with his obnoxious badgering. He finally crossed the line when he called me a monster and attributed to me horrible beliefs which I clearly do not hold. I'm a firm believer in free speech and he is free to blather on about his wacko ideas on his own blog (although I think some of what he has wroten is libelous. I certainly do not need to allow him to libel me on my own blog, though.
Posted by: Galois | May 04, 2005 at 10:44 PM
Oh, and as for your question about Trey and his family, you could just read his blog where he describes in detail about how Emma came to join their family and how she has grown up.
Posted by: Galois | May 04, 2005 at 10:47 PM
Galois answered you Marty..
i'm not going to subject my family to your or Fitz's bigotry with any further answer. Galois does an excellent job of answering, I'll let him continue.
Posted by: trey | May 05, 2005 at 01:20 AM
Thanks for the answers. So you beleive that the socialy constructed family bond is stronger than the natural bond created by God. That water is thicker than blood. That's all i really needed to hear.
And i know what you mean about John. He can get on your nerves alright -- but i still think he's probably got you pegged and you haven't come to terms with it yet.
As for trey's blog, well, it's downright scary. So many pictures of women who cannot tolerate men, and men who cannot tolerate women, and the happy little kids who are pawns in this adult game of activist intolerance. John Howard will be proven right, in the end, because of people like trey.
Posted by: Marty | May 05, 2005 at 06:28 AM
No Marty:
Hating women means defining your masculinity by empregnating women, which is what you obviously idolize. Gay men get along very well with women; better than straight men, I must say.
Posted by: arturo fernandez | May 05, 2005 at 12:59 PM
"He finally crossed the line when he called me a monster and attributed to me horrible beliefs which I clearly do not hold."
Is that a new rule, Gabriel? Or does it only apply when people do that to you, as opposed to someone else? I seem to recall being viciously attacked when I was posting here, and it didn't seem to bother you one bit.
Let's consider Marty's treatment in this short thread: Trey has called him a bigot, you've called his ideas (and mine) idiotic, and Arturo has accused him of having a ghetto mentality. If this continues, will you eventually have to ban yourselves?
Posted by: Ben Bateman | May 05, 2005 at 04:18 PM
First of all, Ben, although I would like all discourse on these comment sections to be conducted with a bit more respect I am more likely to do something about it when it is done to me. If you don't like someone's comments about you, you could either stop reading the comment section here or at least stop reading comments by said person. I do that on other blogs all of the time. I would like to be able to read every comment on my own blog, though. So if I reach a point where I'm going to stop reading comments by a certain person there is no need for them to be posting here. John has his own blog where he can spew his lunacy, he doesn't need to be doing it here.
I don't recall you being viciously attacked. I have generally tried not to get involved in spats between two other commenters, although perhaps I should. I had figured if you were offended by something you could handle it. If that meant that you just wouldn't comment at this site, that was not my intention, but it wouldn't distress me. Again you have the opportunity to express your views elsewhere, you don't need my blog to do it.
As for Marty, Trey called him bigot after Marty belittled his relationship with his daughter. That line from Marty about Trey's daughter knowing that he is not her real parent was not only wrong, but so amazingly offensive I just don't know what to do. I certainly don't blame Trey for calling him a bigot after that, especially after Marty kept up his little taunting. He wanted a response, he got one.
I don't know that I've actually called anyone's ideas "idiotic" before, but I certainly do think many of your ideas and his are idiotic. I also have no problem with someone calling my ideas idiotic. I don't know if I would have even had a problem with someone calling me a monster. What was outrageous was him calling me a monster for holding views that I do not hold and that I would find horrific. That was libelous. For example he claimed I support intrusive fertility testing. That is absolutely and clearly false. I want a couple to be able to marry regardless of their ability to procreate. If I came to your house and started putting up signs on your lawn that said you were a monster who believed that blacks should be enslaved, wouldn't you remove the sign and remove me from your home? Just because I don't want to have to start moderating arguments between people, that does not mean I have to sit here and let someone libel me own blog.
Posted by: Galois | May 05, 2005 at 06:01 PM
That line from Marty about Trey's daughter knowing that he is not her real parent was not only wrong, but so amazingly offensive I just don't know what to do.
What, like she won't be able to figure it out by the time she's 8? Was that so wrong of me to assume? Is it amazingly offensive of me to suggest that a little girl is capable of understanding that it is completely impossible for two men to have a child of their own?
If the truth hurts, is it MY fault for pointing it out? Or yours, for living in such defensive denial with a thin skin to boot? I certainly meant no offense -- adopting a child, even by a gay couple, is admirable. Still, it's a pity that the girl will never have a mother of her own -- much less her own mother. And whose fault is that if not the adults who made these choices on her behalf? Forgive me for thinking she deserved better.
Posted by: Marty | May 05, 2005 at 06:45 PM
PS: i'd expect a law professor to be just a bit more judicious about throwing the term "libel" at commenters on his blog. Banning John is one thing, threatening him with a lawsuit is quite another. (And i wouldn't even mention this if you were not a lawyer yourself. The difference is akin to me saying "i'm going to call the cops" versus a policeman putting his hand on his weapon)
Posted by: Marty | May 05, 2005 at 06:49 PM
Is it amazingly offensive of me to suggest that a little girl is capable of understanding that it is completely impossible for two men to have a child of their own?
If you had said that it would not have been offensive. I think it's also fair to assume that she realizes her skin color is not the same as her parents. If you had said that she will understand at some point that she was adopted, that would have been fine. You said, though, that she knows that they are not her real parents. That's false. She knows they are her real parents. She knows that she can turn to them for love, comfort, protection, and sustinence. She knows they would do anything for her, that they put her needs before their own. She knows they have taken on the obligation, legally, morally, and in their hearts and soul to care for her and raise her. You say now that it was admirable of them to adopt her, but you have constantly belittled their relationship with her and don't seem to care about seeing that their family has the protections of marriage. She does deserve better. She deserves to have her parents' marriage recognized.
As for your PS. I'm not a law professor, I'm a mathematician. Nor did I ever threaten him with a lawsuit. I said he libeled me and he did. He printed false statements that could be damaging to my reputation. I never threatened to sue him, though. The difference is akin to someone slapping me and I then throw him out of my house. When asked why I say it was because he assaulted me. That doesn't mean I am going to call the cops, but I am certainly justified in throwing him out.
Posted by: Galois | May 05, 2005 at 08:07 PM
"If you don't like someone's comments about you, you could . . . stop reading the comment section here."
That's exactly what I did, Gabriel. I haven't read your blog for months. I just stopped by today out of curiosity, to see if you had developed a sense of responsibility for the tenor of the conversation here. It seems that little has changed.
Since the only person capable of enforcing any rules of discourse refuses to do so, those most willing to resort to puerile insults will drive out the rest. And so the liberals will appear to win the debate, congratulating themselves on their intellectual virtuosity.
It's a microcosm of the modern university: Don't try to understand those who disagree with you. Just abuse them until they go away.
Posted by: Ben Bateman | May 05, 2005 at 08:47 PM