{"id":13589,"date":"2011-06-28T13:36:43","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T20:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=13589"},"modified":"2011-06-28T13:36:43","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T20:36:43","slug":"reply-to-george-vi-marriage-man-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=13589","title":{"rendered":"Reply to George: VI. Marriage = Man + Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is part of a series analyzing Robert George’s widely-read article, “What is Marriage<\/a>“, which appeared on pages 245-286 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. You can view all posts in the series\u00a0here<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

This is it. This is the meat you\u2019ve been waiting for. This is the next generation of anti-gay talking points. Because this is\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Pages 252-255: In which Robert George tries to prove only a man and a woman can marry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

George gets off to a bad start.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

George writes:<\/p>\n

As many people acknowledge, marriage involves:\u00a0 first, a comprehensive union of spouses; second, a special link to children; and third, norms of permanence, monogamy, and exclusivity. All three elements point to the conjugal understanding of marriage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hmm. That second word, \u201cmany,\u201d is one of the slipperiest in our language. More troubling, though, is why he\u2019s even invoking what \u201cmany people acknowledge.\u201d George holds that marriage is not just whatever we say it is, so why does it matter to him what \u201cmany people acknowledge\u201d? This vague appeal to public opinion feels like he\u2019s trying to get people to buy in for the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

I have a still bigger issue with \u201cAll three elements point to the conjugal understanding of marriage<\/a>,\u201d especially the phrase point to<\/em>:\u00a0 What does it mean?<\/p>\n

To achieve his goal with the article, he must mean that these three concepts are necessary<\/em> for a marriage to be a real marriage \u2014 that a marriage lacking any one or more of these three items is not a real marriage.<\/p>\n

Remember, he\u2019s not just saying that conjugal\/procreative marriage is a<\/em> real marriage. He\u2019s trying to establish that other kinds of marriage are not<\/em> real, that only<\/em> the conjugal\/procreative view is valid.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re seeing some slick PR here. George isn\u2019t being upfront, and it\u2019s easy to see why:\u00a0 This idea of three necessary conditions is a tough sell, especially to elderly folk who can\u2019t have kids but do want to marry. It\u2019s easier to say something meaningless like \u201cpoint to\u201d and thus avoid a situation where even your most traditional readers say, But that doesn\u2019t match my real-life experience<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For George to succeed, then, he has to establish two things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. These three items are necessary conditions for marriage.<\/li>\n
  2. Only the conjugal\/procreative view can meet these conditions; the revisionist\/common view cannot.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you break either of those statements, you break his argument.<\/p>\n

    We\u2019ll break them both. <\/p>\n

    What is a comprehensive union?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s look at his first item, \u201ca comprehensive union of spouses.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Marriage is distinguished from every other form of friendship inasmuch as it is comprehensive. It involves a sharing of lives and resources, and a union of minds and wills \u2014 hence, among other things, the requirement of consent for forming a marriage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    George is on to something here. The problem is that he seems to think he\u2019s saying something precise. He\u2019s not. With one exception (sex) he never defines what he means by \u201ccomprehensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Sharing resources<\/em> may seem straightforward \u2014 joint bank accounts, co-ownership of the home, etc. \u2014 but it gets murkier with resources like time and energy. Sharing lives<\/em> is poetic but inexact. And a union of minds and wills<\/em>? The meaning of that could be beautiful or frightening. At one point, union of wills<\/em> meant a woman subordinated her free will to her husband, even to the point that he could have sex with her by force without breaking the law (marital rape used to be seen as a contradiction in terms, a legal and logical impossibility).<\/p>\n

    So what does comprehensive<\/em> mean? I hate when people invoke dictionary definitions instead of focusing on the speaker\u2019s intent, but George\u2019s vagueness makes it necessary. I found<\/a> it to mean of broad scope or content; including all or much. <\/em><\/p>\n

    Now, George has made it clear<\/a> he doesn\u2019t intend it as all-encompassing<\/em>. That leaves us with broad scope<\/em> and including much<\/em>. That\u2019s vague to the point of uselessness.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s another problem: George never bothers to prove comprehensive union<\/em> is a necessary condition. He merely asserts it, with a nod to what \u201cmany people acknowledge.\u201d (Granted, it\u2019s tough to prove a statement that doesn\u2019t even have a clear meaning.)<\/p>\n

    So there\u2019s no standard here. That a fatal problem for Robert George. If he were more empirical, he might take this insight \u2014 this appealing hunch \u2014 and flesh it out by looking at real-life marriages. But George is a rationalist: he\u2019s going to treat this idea of marriage as a comprehensive union<\/em> and build a logical case on it, as if it he\u2019d clearly defined this starting point and proved it beyond doubt.<\/p>\n

    But he hasn\u2019t. That will haunt him. For now, just keep in mind that comprehensive<\/em> in no way means all or nothing<\/em>. Because Robert George certainly forgets it when he talks about sex.<\/p>\n

    Only a man and a woman can have a comprehensive union.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    <\/a>George starts this out by saying that marriage, as a comprehensive union:<\/p>\n

    also includes organic bodily union. This is because the body is a real part of the person, not just his costume, vehicle, or property. Human beings are not properly understood as nonbodily persons \u2014 minds, ghosts, consciousnesses \u2014 that inhabit and use nonpersonal bodies. After all, if someone ruins your car, he vandalizes your property, but if he amputates your leg, he injures you. Because the body is an inherent part of the human person, there is a difference in kind between vandalism and violation; between destruction of property and mutilation of bodies.<\/p>\n

    Likewise, because our bodies are truly aspects of us as persons, any union of two people that did not involve organic bodily union would not be comprehensive \u2014 it would leave out an important part of each person\u2019s being. Because persons are body-mind composites, a bodily union extends the relationship of two friends along an entirely new dimension of their being as persons. If two people want to unite in the comprehensive way proper to marriage, they must (among other things) unite organically \u2014 that is, in the bodily dimension of their being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    I\u2019m sympathetic to the general thrust of the argument, as long as we boil it down to Marriage typically involves some sort of physical union.<\/em> Of course, that\u2019s a much weaker version of what he\u2019s claiming, and won\u2019t take him to the conclusion he wants.<\/p>\n

    Here\u2019s where his argument breaks down:<\/p>\n

    Likewise, because our bodies are truly aspects of us as persons, any union of two people that did not involve organic bodily union would not be comprehensive \u2014 it would leave out an important part of each person\u2019s being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    He can\u2019t make this claim because he hasn\u2019t defined comprehensive<\/em>. It\u2019s a fuzzy, ill-defined term that offers no clear dividing line to say: This<\/em><\/strong> is comprehensive but that<\/strong> is not<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Accordingly while I\u2019m intuitively<\/em><\/strong> inclined to accept that physical contact is a key<\/em><\/strong> component of a healthy<\/em><\/strong> marriage, I\u2019m skeptical of George\u2019s ability to prove<\/em><\/strong> that it\u2019s essential<\/em><\/strong> to a real<\/em><\/strong> marriage. (Sorry for all the emphasis in that sentence, but the differences are worth highlighting).<\/p>\n

    Unfortunately, George wants to prove far more than that: Not just that marriage requires some sort of physical union, but that it must be \u201corganic bodily union\u201d \u2014 which is his academic, genteel way of saying penis-in-vagina.<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s one hell of a project.<\/p>\n

    Tennis. Um, what?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    George writes:<\/p>\n

    This necessity of bodily union can be seen most clearly by imagining the alternatives. Suppose that Michael and Michelle build their relationship not on sexual exclusivity, but on tennis exclusivity. They pledge to play tennis with each other, and only with each other, until death do them part. Are they thereby married? No. Substitute for tennis any nonsexual activity at all, and they still aren\u2019t married: Sexual exclusivity \u2014 exclusivity with respect to a specific kind of bodily union \u2014 is required. But what is it about sexual intercourse that makes it uniquely capable of creating bodily union? People\u2019s bodies can touch and interact in all sorts of ways, so why does only sexual union make bodies in any significant sense \u201cone flesh\u201d?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    I\u2019ll admit this paragraph baffles me. What\u2019s he proven here? Almost nothing.<\/p>\n

    Here\u2019s his claim: Tennis exclusivity (or any non-sexual exclusivity) is not a sufficient<\/em> condition for real marriage, therefore sexual exclusivity is a necessary<\/em> condition for real marriage.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m sorry?<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s just note: George doesn\u2019t prove that you need more than tennis exclusivity to make a marriage. Yeah, I\u2019m inclined to accept that intuitively, but my intuition also tells me that same-sex marriage is \u201creal\u201d marriage. George can\u2019t rest his argument on my intuition, because my intuition disagrees with him elsewhere.<\/p>\n

    Ultimately there\u2019s no chain of reasoning here. I don\u2019t know why he drops in the issue of exclusivity \u2014 of any sort \u2014 at this point in the argument. I don\u2019t know why he jumps from sufficient conditions to necessary conditions. I don\u2019t know why he thinks he can assert that sexual exclusivity is a requirement.<\/p>\n

    Whether you personally believe it’s a requirement isn\u2019t the issue. George is promising in this piece to reason<\/em> his way to his conclusions, no matter how intuitively or emotionally appealing they may be. Do I have that wrong? Is he perhaps not trying to reason here, but to offer analogies that illustrate a self-evident truth. But that doesn\u2019t fly \u2014 I\u2019ll just claim my own set of self-evident truths, and there conversation ends. No need for a forty-page academic paper published in a law journal.<\/p>\n

    Finally, there\u2019s this:\u00a0 why does only sexual union make bodies in any significant sense \u201cone flesh\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n

    Whoa. Nice introduction of Christian poetry to a non-religious argument. I imagine he wants us to read that poetry and think of procreation. But remember it\u2019s only poetry. He hasn\u2019t established that his undefined comprehensive union requires a literal merging of DNA (and he doesn\u2019t believe that, anyway<\/a>).<\/p>\n

    Your spouse is like a stomach.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Moving on, regarding sexual union:<\/p>\n

    Our organs \u2014 our heart and stomach, for example \u2014 are parts of one body because they are coordinated, along with other parts, for a common biological purpose of the whole: our biological life. It follows that for two individuals to unite organically, and thus bodily, their bodies must be coordinated for some biological purpose of the whole.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Oh my. We really need to pick this apart. What does he mean by \u201cIt follows that\u2026\u201d? He can\u2019t mean the second sentence is a necessary logical implication of the first. He\u2019s just setting up an analogy, and as he well knows<\/a>, analogies can illuminate an argument, but they aren\u2019t arguments themselves.<\/p>\n

    Furthermore, his analogy fails. Organs coordinate toward a biological purpose because they are purely biological entities. But a wife is not a stomach and a husband is not a liver. Spouses are not purely biological. They are spiritual, emotional, and intellectual as well. And so is their union. It does not follow that bodily union must serve a biological purpose. It\u2019s enough that it serve any sort of purpose essential to the well-being of the whole.<\/p>\n

    And sex does (or can do) exactly that. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn\u2019t understand that sexual intimacy can create emotional intimacy and deepen the commitment of two loving partners. Granted, that\u2019s a subjective experience \u2014 if you don\u2019t know what I mean, I can\u2019t prove it you. But if you don\u2019t know what I mean, then I suspect our experiences are so different that we\u2019ll never come to agreement on the nature of sex at all.<\/p>\n

    Moreover, I worry over his phrase, \u201cbiological purpose.\u201d Once again, we\u2019re stumbling over an ill-defined term. This isn\u2019t the middle ages: We don\u2019t live in an era where the body is one thing and the mind is something completely separate. This mind\/body distinction hasn\u2019t survived recent discoveries in neuroscience or research into the impact of brain injury on the ability to think and feel. We have much to learn, but we know at least enough to say that \u201cbiological purpose\u201d is not a cleanly-cut and well-defined concept, separate from reason and emotion.<\/p>\n

    Actually, with that in mind, I have to revise what I said earlier. Your digestive organs don\u2019t just serve a biological purpose. Try not eating for a day, and see how well you can think. Try not eating for a week, and see how well you can meet your responsibilities as part of a comprehensive union. Even biological organs don\u2019t just serve our biology.<\/p>\n

    By the way, I\u2019ll note too that he never defines what it means to \u201cunite organically.\u201d Previously he\u2019s spoken of uniting comprehensively, though he never defined that either. Does he mean something as lofty as uniting as one organism? That\u2019s impossible \u2014 even if two parents contribute portions of their DNA to create a child, they still exist in their marriage as two organisms. Or is it more mundane, like the uniting our bodily organs? Either way, he\u2019s sneaking in a new, unjustified, and ill-defined \u2014 heck, un<\/em>defined \u2014 concept.<\/p>\n

    In any case, George has failed to establish that the \u201ccomprehensive\u201d (?) union necessary for a \u201creal\u201d (?) marriage requires a physical union serving a \u201cbiological\u201d (?) goal.<\/p>\n

    And frankly, even if he did, it would land him in big trouble later when he tries to defend the \u201creal\u201d marriages of infertile heterosexuals.<\/p>\n

    Our bodies, ourselves<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    George writes that:<\/p>\n

    individual adults are naturally incomplete with respect to one biological function: sexual reproduction. In coitus, but not in other forms of sexual contact, a man and a woman\u2019s bodies coordinate by way of their sexual organs for the common biological purpose of reproduction. They perform the first step of the complex reproductive process. Thus, their bodies become, in a strong sense, one \u2014 they are biologically united, and do not merely rub together \u2014 in coitus (and only in coitus), similarly to the way in which one\u2019s heart, lungs, and other organs form a unity: by coordinating for the biological good of the whole. In this case, the whole is made up of the man and woman as a couple, and the biological good of that whole is their reproduction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    And a bit later:<\/p>\n

    But two men or two women cannot achieve organic bodily union since there is no bodily good or function toward which their bodies can coordinate, reproduction being the only candidate. This is a clear sense in which their union cannot be marital, if marital means comprehensive and comprehensive means, among other things, bodily.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    This highlights a bigger flaw in his argument: George\u2019s comprehensive union is a strangely fractured union. <\/em>He views it as a bunch of different unions tied together with string:\u00a0 There\u2019s a bodily union and (presumably) a mental union, a spiritual union, and an emotional union. But, for no good reason, the bodily union has to have a purely bodily effect for it to count. George cuts it off from other types of union and treats as a separate thing.<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s especially odd, given that George has said \u00a0elsewhere<\/a>, \u201cMoreover, sexual acts have a tendency, in most people at least, to create a strong feeling of bonding and an expectation of a deeper, noninstrumental relationship.\u201d\u00a0 We\u2019re just swimming in contradictions here.<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s sum this up.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    George fails to prove marriage requires an opposite sex couple:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. He has yet to define what a comprehensive union is.<\/li>\n
    2. He wrongly splits bodily union apart from other forms of union, creating a strange, disjointed notion of \u201ccomprehensive union.\u201d<\/li>\n
    3. He wrongly argues that in order to contribute to a comprehensive union, bodily union must serve a biological function.<\/li>\n
    4. He wrongly and narrowly defines \u201cbiological function\u201d to exclude mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.<\/li>\n
    5. There is therefore no reason to view reproduction as \u201cthe only candidate\u201d for the bodily good of a bodily union.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      George\u2019s argument is like broken staircase. Every time you climb a step, it breaks. And if you ignore that and leap to the next one, it breaks too.<\/p>\n

      For all these errors, I do like one notion he\u2019s introduced:\u00a0 That in exploring \u201cWhat is marriage?\u201d we should look at things that neither partner can achieve alone, that they can only accomplish together. And I will tell you \u2014 once again, as a subjective truth \u2014 that a sexual union with my partner (which can be simultaneously mental, emotional, and spiritual) gives me entrance to an existence whose richness I cannot achieve by myself.<\/p>\n

      I\u2019ll call that an organic bodily union.<\/p>\n

      Next: \u00a0George stumbles badly over the connection between procreation and marriage.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      [This post is part of a series analyzing Robert George’s widely-read article, “What is Marriage“, which appeared on pages 245-286 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. You can view all posts in the series\u00a0here.] This is it. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-george-what-is-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13589"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13592,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13589\/revisions\/13592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}