A Preface from the Author:
Greetings once again, dear readers! It is good to be back again! I should probably mention now that while I alluded to absences, I ought to explain the conditions of my hiatuses with greater precision. While I intend to deliver content as regularly as possible, under circumstances of extreme commitment such as finals weeks or show weeks I will most likely be absent, as such commitments are of a greater priority. In addition, it shall be known that any scheduled academic breaks a week or greater in length (spring break, summer break, Thanksgiving break and Christmas break) are officially out of season, and the end of each semester will mark the end of one volume of collected essays (for those who are looking to edit my works post humorously). Thus we begin Bluh Bluh Something Clever Vol. II, (the Electric Boogaloo).
Today I am going to expand from my more esoteric topics of political and theoretical philosophy and talk about a hot button issue which I believe that many people care about for the wrong reasons. The topic, of course, is marriage and while I will begin with the more popular romantic and spiritual aspects of it, I will mostly elaborate on its functions as a social mechanism. I would ask now for both sides of the gay marriage debate to put down their torches and pitchforks now, because honestly I find that these issues are the least interesting and least socially relevant (meaning pertaining to the interests of society as it functions).
Now to begin with, we must think of what marriage is good for. "Nothing!" some of you japesters may jest, to which I say sit the fuck down and pay attention, this'll be on the test. Marriage is good for three things: psycho-spiritual satisfaction, procreative conjunction and pedagogical alliance. The first is where the debates regarding gay marriage chiefly fall under, as the second and third have proven to be of little consequence in this regard.
Psycho-spiritual satisfaction is a very wide reaching and subjective item, which varies greatly among both populations and individuals. Deriving mostly from social conditioning, though no doubt some natural urge as well, the psycho-spiritual satisfaction fulfills the desire for a ritual consummation of a relationship, so that the community and (for the spiritually inclined) God may recognize the relationship as legitimate. Among the more socially minded, this declaration of legitimacy can ease the tension of competition as it grants a social barrier to any would-be competitor, as well as liberating the couple from the more esoteric notions of modesty from the more traditionally minded members of the community. For reasons entirely independent of romance that I will discuss later, these marriages are largely intended to be for life. I myself consider a lifelong marriage of romance to be a rather absurd idea, and though this may be accused as cynical, I would protest that 1): the divorce statistics back me up on this and 2): it is not because I am unduly pessimistic about love. Passion waxes and wanes and often times, as lovers grow as individuals, the aspects of each other's personalities which inspired the love mutate inspiring the oft heard "It's like I don't even know you anymore." While I certainly don't doubt that lifelong love is possible, I don't think it terribly likely under most circumstances, and I find that the rigidity of marriage (especially legal marriage) stifles the necessary separation of two former lovers and often times breeds a lifelong resentment, rather ironically, so that an ex-spouse is generally held in greater contempt than an ex-lover.*
However, it would be preposterous to suggest that there is no utility to marriage at all. After all, a function that had little benefit and caused a great deal of suffering would hardly last long in the real world. The actual purposes of marriage are the two social benefits, procreative conjunction and pedagogical alliance which are the key factors in any society's greatest asset: children. Now I will admit procreative conjunction and pedagogical alliance are very similar, especially in our society, but the primary difference is that procreative conjunction is chiefly economic and deals with the ability to raise a physically healthy adult (an economic affair) while pedagogical alliance is the ability to raise a psychologically and intellectually healthy adult (an economic, educational and psychological affair).
The current model of legal marriage has leveled its sights almost entirely at the procreative conjunction. Because raising a child to even the minimum physical standards of healthy adulthood has always been a strain on the resources of all but the most affluent, legal marriage was designed to join the economies of two individuals so that the strain of child rearing may be more easily shared. Because a steady supply of young individuals is so important to the well being of a society, often the state will provide incentives to couples to get married and therefore in theory be economically secure enough to raise children. I suspect that the reason that only monogamy is supported by the invisible hand of the state is that any larger union has diminishing returns of children and therefore a bad investment. It is only in this regard that legal marriage is of any utility. As I discussed above, it is often stifling to the loveless couple (and divorce and necessary the re-division of assets is a delicate and expensive process, especially when the parties are contentious).
However, the biggest failure of both legal and romantic marriages is in pedagogical alliance. While the proverb "it takes a village to raise a child" may be a bit excessive, I would argue that their ought to be at least half a dozen consistent adult influences throughout a child's life, who come from at least three distinct backgrounds. While this may seem puzzling to some people, the reasons are quite sound. I have found that as a child, the lack of agency can be one of the most psychologically damaging things to them, because the helplessness can lead to desperation, resignation or misinformation which are essentially the primary psychological causes of many developed mental illnesses, such as codependency, depression, anxiety, and physical, sexual, substance and emotional abuse. However, if a child finds him or herself facing any abuse at the hands of one of the adults, he can seek to find comfort and reinforcement from the others. Granted, it's not foolproof, but the inclusion of a greater number of adults decreases the possibility that all of his available resources of adult agency are abusive, while not overwhelming the child with an adult presence.
Of course, some people may argue that the two individuals provided from a romantic or legal marriage provides sufficient adult agency for a child, this claim is laughably naive. Because both romantic and legal marriage require a certain degree of unity between the spouses, a child seeking the protection of one of them from the other would find himself either being spurned, the parent preferring the spouse to the child, and without any support at all or the unity of the relationship disrupted, causing only more chaos through which the child is helpless (do not doubt the volatility of an abuser called out on their misconduct: hell hath no greater fury).
The failing of the modern pedagogical alliance is quite stark. While in earlier times children had access to the community of tribes, villages or for the wealthy, a retinue of nursemaids and tutors, in addition to extended family members, the organization of families today is quite atrocious. The rigid separation of the private life to nuclear families (or as is unfortunately common today, bi-nuclear families, semi-nuclear families and belligerent bi-nuclear families) and the public life of professional educators, spiritual counselors and psychologists is to the detriment of the child; most children receive no adult support other than their parents and teachers, the former attempting to balance their own unities, or warring with one another for dominance and custody rights, the latter strained in their own right, and in the unfortunate cases when they are abusive, very difficult to get rid of (owing to a mixture of the administrative fear of negative publicity, the rights of teachers to tenure, and school's intrinsic mistrust of students). Pastors and psychologists are often of little help to most as well: the former is often useless or even counterproductive due to the more esoteric and conservative aspects of theology and dogma, while the latter are expensive and have a public mistrust owing to the difficulty of the trade. In the words of the resplendent Andrew Hussie: "Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands."
Sincere Regards,
Michael Coffey
(*For those who insist that I take a stance on the Gay Marriage debate, I say this: for legal recognition, it is obvious that gays ought to be able to wed. To insist otherwise is discrimination of a prenatal disposition, pure and simple. For those who insist that God abhors it, let Him. Last I checked however, God has little interest in the temporal affairs of American law.)
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