Sex and Marriage

1. Sex and Marriage Scott Stewart: PHIL 2103

2. Must marital partners be Sexual Partners? • Yes and No • No laws, but expectations • Western Norm of Sexuality • Ancient Greece: an obligation to marry and have children • Women vs. men on sex and the dual view of women • Changing views of sex within marriage • Recent changes to gender roles and of husband and wife

3. Who Should be Allowed to Marry? • Traditional view: one man and one women • Calls for change: John Corvino and “marriage equality” • “… it is better for human beings to commit to someone else to have and to hold, for better or for worse, and so on, for life. It is good regardless of whether they happen to be straight or gay. It is good, not only for them, but also for their neighbors, because happy, stable couples make happy, stable citizens. And marriage helps sustain this commitment like nothing else.”

4. Arguments against Same-Sex Marriage • Gallagher: • Definitional Argument – “treating same sex marriages as marriages … is not true.” • Nominal vs. real definitions • Natural kinds • Analogies: ‘Mother’ and ‘giving birth to a child’ • Problems: (1)‘Mother’ is broader than this, (2) people who marry need not commit to (or even be capable of) having children

5. Arguments against Same-Sex Marriage • Gallagher: Consequentialist arguments • (1) Emboldening Argument • (2) Message Argument • (3) Stretching Argument

6. Emboldening Argument • Extending marriage to same-sex couple would encourage or embolden them to have children. • Problems: (1) begging the question. We can’t assume same sex marriage couples having children is bad form the outset – that’s what has to be proved. • (2) Empirical evidence of the harm to children of same sex marriage? Stable couples most important. Lesbians as parents. Variance within groups. Licensing parents.

7. Message Argument • Children best raised in a family consisting of biological parents. Men often walk away from their families. We need to discourage this and insist that children need both their mother and father. If we allow same sex marriage we “enshrine in law a public judgement that the desire of adults for families of choice outweighs the need of children for mothers and fathers. It would give sanction and approval to the creation of a motherless or fatherless family as deliberately ‘good.’ It would mean the law was neutral as to whether children had mothers and fathers. Motherless and fatherless families would be deemed just fine.” Gallagher

8. Message Argument: Problems • See above: Children do not need a biological mother and a biological father but a good stable loving family environment. • Ideal does not entail legal or moral requirements. • Marriage is not restricted to one message.

9. Stretching Argument • Extending marriage to same sex couples will change norms of marriage and some things, like fidelity, will no longer be thought a core part of marriage. E.g., Gay males more promiscuous and adulterous and this will lead to more straight married couples doing the same. • Problem: More swingers than gay male married couples. Has this changed the norm of marital sexual behaviour?

10. Slippery Slopes as Stretching Arguments • Santorum: Allowing same sex marriages will lead to acceptance of, e.g., bestiality, incest, polygamy, etc. • Problems: Evidence? • Groups that accept polygamy are least likely to accept same sex marriages.

11. Polygamy/Polyamory • History • Mormonism & Warren Jeffs: sexism, child abuse, etc. • Calhoun: “Gender inequality is a contingent, not a conceptual, feature of polygamy. • Elizabeth Emens and polyamory: great variety of groupings

12. Monogamy • Biological base to monogamy or promiscuity? • Monogamy: bi-parental care; reciprocity and cooperation. Attachment theory, neuroplasticity, mirror neurons, hormones. • Plato, Aristophanes and being rolled into one and made whole.

13. Monogamy • At least as much scientific evidence for promiscuity over monogamy: rare, males passing on traits, females receiving extra goods • Supermonogamy? Vs. Serial mongamy?

14. Polyamory • Jealousy: Friends vs. lovers • “Key reason for the opposition to polyamory is … the pervasive or potential failure of monogamy.” I.e., because we so often actually do engage or think and fantasize about behaving non-monogamously that we construct all sorts of safeguards, including laws, against it. • David Brooks and marriage making us better and indeed making us one. Nozick and changes in a loving relationship: happiness, autonomy, identity

15. Polyamory • Not for everyone • Polyamory typically involves commitment and fidelity even though it’s not a commitment to sexual exclusivity. • Intimacy, privacy, sex and marriage • One vs. two/many – i.e, identity • Polyamory not about casual sex • Monogamy (let alone supermonogamy) is not workable for lots of people. Poly this offers those people a way to have a committed relationship without deceit and infidelity.

16. Should adulterers be Subject to Criminal or Civil Penalties? • Wasserstrom and the immorality of adultery • (1) promise breaking, (2) deceit • But poly doesn’t do either of these. • History of laws against adultery: negatively impacted women far more negatively than men. • Changing divorce laws: no-fault divorce: better or worse?

17. Does Arranged marriage Violate Sexual Autonomy? • Forced marriages vs. arranged marriages • Forced marriages should NOT be tolerated a democratic, liberal state, but this leaves open the acceptability of arranged marriages if they are consensually agreed to by the potential marriage partners. • Group vs. individual rights • Overlapping consensus and John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. • Finding commonalities between different ethical traditions. Catholicism & Religious Freedom example. • Experiences of people, especially women, in arranged marriages.

18. Is Virginity valuable in a potential spouse?