Excerpts: Women, Equality and [Same-Sex Marriage]By csw, Section Arguments
In some sense, we might characterize historical marriage and the marital family as the only truly sex-integrated segments of our society. While feminists have characterized traditional marriage and the marital family as a site of oppression, marriage and the marital family are actually sites of power and status for women in society. . . .
Excerpts from: Women, Equality, and the Federal Marriage Amendment, Camille S. Williams, 20 BYU J. Public Law 487 (Winter 2006)
INTRODUCTION Marriage and the marital family are arguably the only important social institutions in which women have always been necessary participants. . . . We have no knowledge of any society in which same-sex "marriage" has been practiced, until very recently. We do not yet know the economic, social, or familial impact of recognizing a form of marriage which does not require at least one woman and one man. It is my belief that normalizing same-sex marriage will ultimately devalue the roles of husband and father, too. The focus of this paper, however, is on the potentially negative impact of same-sex marriage on women. In some sense, we might characterize historical marriage and the marital family as the only truly sex-integrated segments of our society, and of most societies of which we have some knowledge. Even in cultures which sharply limited women's role in government, the economy, and education, marriage was dependent upon at least one female available for marriage to one male. While feminists have characterized traditional marriage and the marital family as a site of oppression, marriage and the marital family are actually sites of power and status for women in society. . . . Some ethnographic studies "indicate that women may exercise considerable influence in both marital and community affairs even though norms are explicitly patriarchal." How might legalizing the marriage of two persons of the same sex affect the status of women in the family and in our society, given that we have not yet fully integrated women into all areas of social life? I will argue in this paper that the norm of heterosexual marriage is a necessary--albeit not a sufficient--condition for social equality for women. How the marriage relationship is culturally defined could become a gender representation of relations between the sexes in other areas of society. If those propositions hold true, I contend that the current efforts to legalize same-sex marriage will help normalize and legitimate family forms in which women (or men) are excluded or considered unnecessary. If one sex/gender is considered unnecessary to marriage and family, that new norm will encourage increases in anonymous or casual sex and in transactional procreation. Increases in casual sex and transactional procreation will, in my view, further exploit and devalue women's traditional roles as wives, mothers, and nurturers and will contribute to the contemporaneous slide into one dominant gender role-- that of the stereotypical male . In contrast, if the sexes are seen as fitted to marriage with each other, with equally-valued complementary roles, then women stand a better chance of maintaining, rather than losing, social status in areas outside the family. Further, failure to maintain heterosexual marriage may result in future generations with a decreased ability or desire for men and women to cooperate in families and may ultimately contribute to a new form of gender hierarchy and a new variation of a sex-segregated society. How Does Sex-Integrated Marriage Benefit Women? The actual question shot at me by a somewhat cynical jurist was: "What's marriage ever done for women?" Evolutionary psychologists answer that "the primary benefit that can accrue to women who pursue long-term matings [such as marriage] is gaining continuous access to a man's resources and parental investment." Steven Rhoads suggests that women benefit because marriage makes men better, for "men are less attracted to and less well equipped for marriage than women. Men, nonetheless, need marriage. Communities of unmarried young men are prone to engage in violence and predatory sex. Compared with the married, young unmarried men tend to be lazy and unfocused . . . Marriage compels men to grow up," Rhoads concludes. Because heterosexual marriage increases women's access to material resources and to more help in raising children, and reduces male violence, it is reasonable to conclude that heterosexual marriage can benefit women socially because it increases the cooperation of males with females. The norm of heterosexual marriage is a necessary condition for social equality for women because it requires inter-gender cooperation and it has the potential to increase women's financial, familial, and interpersonal health. Both family-of-origin and marital status have heavily contributed to the social and economic status of individual men and women. This was true anciently and is true today. Kinship sometimes moderated the effects of what was an otherwise gender-stratified society, such as when the social class of the family-of-origin gave a woman more power or authority than women of lower classes could obtain. For women, marital status in some cultures has entitled them to some level of support and to support or property even after divorce or after a husband's death. . . . Click the following link to read the complete paper
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