Summary on October 12, 1999 meeting - Marriage - What for? - by Steve
Palmquist.
Steve asked that we now focus our attention on the philosophical
meaning of marriage. He suggested that, if we can come up with a set of
conditions that must be true in order for a marriage to be genuine, then
we could use these to assess individual cases. It might turn out that two
people who seem to be just "living together" are actually married, while
two people who possess a marriage certificate may not actually be married.
Several people objected that the boundaries are simply too blurred for
such a definition to be possible. Steve was therefore asked to share his
own philosophical definition of marriage. After a reluctant pause, he expressed
surprise that nobody had mentioned the relationship between marriage and
sex up to this point. With that in mind, he proposed the following, tentative
definition: Marriage is a publicly known agreement between two people whereby
they willingly exchange sexual pleasures as an expression of a relationship
they intend to keep as a life-long commitment. Moi Ying pointed out that
unmarried lovers are often better at pleasing each other sexually than
married partners are. And Frances protested that there is much more to
marriage than sexual pleasure: communication, shared values, common goals,
etc. Steve agreed on both points, adding that the latter could be regarded
as philosophical conditions that ought to be fulfilled before two people
ever agree to begin a sexual relationship.
Moi Ying then raised the issue of monogamy. Tom claimed that marriage
must be monogamous, because including others would decrease the value of
the relationship. Alex pointed out that true love and marriage are not
necessarily the same thing. Roy asked whether Steve's definition would
imply that public adultery is a type of marriage, as in so-called "open
marriage". Steve agreed that this would fit his definition as previously
expressed. Louisa claimed that exclusivity cannot be included in a definition
of marriage, because there are too many exceptions in various cultures.
Steve mentioned Kant's way of defending exclusivity in marriage: the exchange
of sexual pleasures can be compared to an exchange of property, which can
only be owned by one person at a time. Tom defended a qualified form of
exclusivity by pointing out that even in a polygamous marriage, the agreement
between the multiple partners excludes those who have not entered into
the agreement. One person claimed that Steve's definition will not work
for gay people in many societies, because they cannot make their relationships
public without being condemned. Steve responded that this simply means
that those people choose to hide their relationship rather than living
as a married couple. Alex concluded this part of the discussion by charging
Steve's definition with being "highly subversive"--a charge to which Steve
willingly pled guilty.
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| Posted with permission of the author. Hi-Tech Development Co., Ltd., 1999. All rights reserved. |