[PLUG-TALK] What is Marriage?

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 01:25:55AM -0800, David Mandel wrote:
> Dare I add to the flames?
> 
> Sometimes I wonder what marriage is.

I like your ideas, but I think marriage is many things.  In the most
fundamental sense, a marriage shelters children, and since children
become citizens, the state arguably has a role in protecting the
system that produces the product.  Since artificial insemination is
available to lesbians, and adoption is available to all that society
approves, there is nothing inherently heterosexual about that, merely
cultural norms (that some choose to worship or hijack).  

I think a couple works better for raising children, though some cultures
do well with extended families.  Again, cultural norms.  The sexes of
the individuals forming the couple is not nearly as important as their
behavior.  Although a child's character is mostly formed by genes and
peers, mutually supporting parents who focus on the home rather than
selfishness provide an excellent example for their kids - it demonstrates
to kids how they might raise grandkids.  The one woman plus one man,
then another man, then another man model that is so prevalent these
days, sucks compared to a committed couple with whatever plumbing.
If we really cared about children, we would focus a lot more effort
on helping couples build and maintain healthy marriages, and a lot less
time doing prenuptual plumbing checks.

The Old Testament that people wave in my face often depicts marriage as
one man and many women.  That makes the women married to each other. 
Were they lesbians?  Were they allowed to touch each other?  Where? 
I guess the Old Testament is not very useful in this debate, unless
you like polygamy and cannon fodder, or allege that morality is
defined by writings you haven't bothered to read and understand.

But back to the relationship between married individuals.  My wife and
I chose not to have children.  That makes us goddamned perverts.  Our
friends and family include many childless couples, as well as couples
with children.  And, unfortunately, quite a few single moms whose
husbands disappeared after the kids were old enough (2 or 3 yo) to
behave more maturely than their fathers.  Helping these single parents
is our way of contributing to "family values".

In spite of not having kids, my wife and I were still allowed to wed. 
Since the same Testament thumpers castigate women who have children who
are not yet married ( they are very big on castigation, it is how you
tell that they hate Jesus), it seems that it is all right to wed
without kids, and in fact the cultural norms prefer childless weddings.  


So, I think I must reluctantly remove children (birthed or adopted)
from the definition of marriage or I run into a causality problem. 
What's left?

The most important aspect of a marriage is allegance and mutual support,
in many, many forms.  A partner that you trust and care for, in sickness
and in health, for richer and for poorer, yada yada is an important part
of our survival and growth.  Sometimes my wife drives me nuts, but for
the most part she keeps me sane.  In many ways she is quite different
than I am, but in all the deep and important ways we have grown into
each other.  I am a much better person because of our life together,
and all the hard-won lessons we have learned.

Yes, it helps to have power of attorney, share insurance and rental cars
and do our taxes together.  That is pretty minor stuff, and achievable
in ways without government involvement.  On the down side, either of us
could make a mistake that we are both responsible for - if she shoots
somebody, I'm expected to help bury the body, then later go to prison
as well.  Still, the legal bennies and the relative lack of judgmental
fools allows us to devote more resources to nurturing each other and
building a strong marriage. 

It is nice to be able to partake of the "standard contract" and all the
bennies that come with it, as long as those are used to grow closer
rather than as weapons against each other.  The downside of civil unions
is that you are much more vulnerable if your partner turns on you (or
vice versa).  If I wanted to punish the promiscuous and infantile, 
I would marry them to each other.  My only objection to gay marriage
used to be that I thought men (gay or not) were more promiscuous, so a
marriage that included two of them would be more vulnerable than a
marriage that has only one (or zero!) guys in it.  My experience has
shown that marriages undertaken as a deep commitment can even survive an
excess of testosterone.  I still have problems with people of whatever
gender getting married to make a political point - marriage is about
building a life together, not about making a statement.

Our friends include many couples in committed relationships who happen
to be of the same sex.  They face many of the same issues we do, but
they also get dumped on by the judgmentalists.  One couple moved to
Canada, where much more of the community accepts their marriage.  We
still visit each other, but we sorely miss their week to week
presence, and we resent the people that drove them away from us.

Being accepted isn't the point - learning how to grow together requires
ideas and support from all over.  Every marriage is new, and not quite
like any other marriage, but we can learn from the examples of other
successful marriages.  When unconventional relationships are forced
into the closet, we lose some cultural continuity, and we cripple other
couples by removing vital sources of information.  I will never be in a
same-sex marriage, but my wife and I are unconventional enough in other
ways that we can learn a lot from couples that face censure every day. 
Primarily, we learn the courage to face censure and persist in doing
what is right.  If you open yourself up to that way of thinking, you
will find a lot of it in the christian bible.  Jeremiah was not
speaking for the Silent Majority.  Jesus was crucified for telling the
Romans that military power would not make them gods.

I will end this overlong posting with a quote that I've always held as
a core ideal (which I often fall short of):

  Judge not, that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye
  judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it
  shall be measured to you again.  And why beholdest thou the
  mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the
  beam that is in thine own eye?  Or how wilt thou say to thy
  brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and,
  behold, a beam is in thine own eye?  Thou hypocrite, first
  cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou
  see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. 
  ( Matthew 7:1-5 KJV )

If a person can't see the beam in their own eye, the problem is myopia,
not perfection.  If the ratio of self-judgment to other-judgment is not
greater than the the ratio of beam to mote (50kg to 50mg?), then they
should stop judging others for a while and save their own damned souls. 
After 20 years of self-judgment, a person earns the right to spend ten
minutes judging others.  I need to live another 10,000 more years to
work off all the excess other-judging I've done ...

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs