On the Meaning of Marriage

Every now and then I get to visit Chicago, and I usually stop in for a Guinness at Kitty O'Shea's, a faux Irish bar on the ground floor of the Chicago Hilton. Katherine O'Shea was the lover of the great Irish politician Charles Stuart Parnell, the "uncrowned King of Ireland." Unfortunately, O'Shea was her married name, and the exposure of Parnell's adultery led to his political demise and his death from exhaustion.

It turns out that morality matters. If you don't believe me or Parnell, ask the uncrowned king of everything, John Edwards. While Edward's wife was being treated for cancer, and he was preparing a run for the Presidency, Edwards had an affair with one Rielle Hunter. The mainstream press did what it does best: paper over the indiscretions of Democrats, and so it was up the National Inquirer to blow Edwards' cover and expose the existence of Hunter's love child. The scandal almost certainly put an end to any political ambitions this smarmy man might have held onto, and just recently resulted in his wife's humiliating reappearance in public on Oprah and elsewhere. I am not sure quite what she I playing at, but it isn't going to be Edwards 3.

Dee Dee Myers has a pretty honest evaluation of the monkey business in Vanity Fair:

Elizabeth Edwards has refused to name her husband's mistress, Rielle Hunter. And in a cringe-inducing moment on Oprah, she said that she didn't know if the baby was John's, but that "it" didn't look like her children. How could she not know? How could he not know? The mystery is easily solved—and the consequences of "yes" are profound.

As my friend and former Edwards speech writer Wendy Button pointed, John made fighting poverty a central cause of his presidential campaign. And, as he knows, "one of the leading causes of poverty for women with children is a negligent father." He owes it to himself—and to the cause he championed—to step up, confirm whether or not the child is his, and, if she is, to do what he must.

He also owes it to the family of his former assistant, Andrew Young, a married father of three who implausibly claimed the baby was his. Why on earth would Andrew do such a thing—unless John asked him to? Could it be that the then presidential candidate believed the baby was his, and was trying to keep his world from crashing down around him?

But more than that, both John and Elizabeth owe it to their children to face the truth. I have no doubt this is an excruciating dilemma for Elizabeth. If the baby is John's, his former mistress—a woman she understandably loathes—will have a permanent call on her husband, and the other woman's baby forever will be connected to Elizabeth's children, a half-sibling about whom they will surely be curious and to whom they will surely feel a connection, despite the circumstances of her conception. It might seem easier not to know.

You don't have to look further than this to understand marriage. It arises from facts of nature that we humans share with many other species. In most species, males invest little or nothing in the rearing of offspring. Where males do invest, a moral problem arises: males have to be sure they are investing in their own offspring, and females have to be sure that the promised investment will be forthcoming. Both sides are tempted to cheat, and so both seek (more or less consciously) means of verification.

Marriage is an artificial institution designed to solve this problem. The rules are simple: the male will take responsibility for his spouse and children, and the spouse will give him every reason to believe that the children are his. This is the foundation of civil societies. When it works, most children have the support of two parents. When it fails, that is always accompanied by every kind of social dysfunction. Myers is right to think that, in betraying his wife, John Edwards was betraying the causes he stood for.

That is the point of marriage, and any thinking about protecting, reforming, or extending the institution must bear it in mind. I am guessing that same sex marriages generate some of the same dramas as traditional marriage. While children are not usually the issue (forgive pun), jealousy and infidelity probably feel much the same. If marriage is to work for anyone, it needs a social sanction. We ought to demonstrate the same indignation toward adultery as we due towards racism and other forms of intolerance. If you really believe in gay marriage or any other kind of marriage, that indignation is what it means.

Comments

[A.I.]

While what you write may be true, it seems a rather narrow, sterile and utilitarian view of marriage. How about love, passion and romance--do they count for nothing?

Perhaps the biggest downside to the definition-of-marriage discussion is we're analyzing the institution to death. That might be understandable for those of us 25-plus years into marriage (I"m quite sure that includes you KB), but what's the deal with near-newlywed JS?

[KB]

A.I.:

If what I write is true but "narrow, sterile, and utilitarian," does that mean that the broad, fruitful, and elevated view requires self-deception? I hope not.

There is a room in my house called a kitchen, and it is there because of two closely related reasons: human beings need, and way our food is treated has a great deal to do with how much fun it is to eat it. A range of great culinary cultures have grown up around the storing, preparing, and consumption of food. I cook Indian, Chinese, Mexican, French and Italian on occasion, and of course my native cuisine, Southern grill and barbecue. There is an almost infinite subtlety in food culture: recipes and romance go hand in hand. Does it do anything to diminish the art of cooking to point out that it would not exist at all if not for the two aforementioned, biologically rooted facts? I think not.

Nor does it diminish the romance of marriage to point out that it would not exist if human beings did not mate like other mammals, and if human males and females did not face different problems when trying to make sure that their respective investments in reproduction are not wasted. The capacity of men and women to love one another, like the capacity of a mothers and fathers to love their children, is an adaptive trait. But that doesn't mean it is any less genuine because it has an evolutionary function. Men do not love their genes, they love their lovers. Mothers do not love their chromosomes, they love their babies.

I'm all for love. I highly recommend it. We get much more out of it than successful reproduction. But it is helpful to know why it exists.

Homosexual love is obviously something of a mystery from a Darwinian point of view. But it is so common across cultures and history that surely does have biological roots. Among many animals, some individuals sacrifice their own reproductive opportunities for those of other (usually closely related) individuals. One theory is that male homosexual love is an adaptive trait to encourage warriors to stand next to their lovers and defend the clan. Another theory is that is a byproduct of other evolved dispositions. There is no way at present to test such theories. But whatever it's etiology, I see no obvious reason it can't be productive of beauty and even nobility.

I have been married for more than 25 years, but I still remember exactly what it feels like to be young and in love. Seeing marriage and romance for what they are hasn't hurt that a bit.

[Miranda]

I agree with Dr. Blanchard that something can be both useful and beautiful.
Shoes, for instance, are made to protect our feet, but they come in all sorts of styles and some are remarkably beautiful. Over time, though, shoes lose their beauty as they are covered in dirt and worn down.

Marriage's beauty suffers similarly. Stress and disagreement have a way of wearing spouses down. And if the only things couples want in marriage are beauty and passion, it's no wonder that marriages have begun to fail so often. It's like
buying a pair of shoes, then discarding them once they aren't pretty any more.

That pair of shoes probably becomes more valuable if you're standing barefoot in a sea of barnacles. At that point, it's easy to see their usefulness. I think
it works the same way with marriage. It's a lot easier to hold onto - even if it isn't as beautiful or fun any more - if you can see that it helps protect your
children.

Of course, I haven't been married for anywhere near the number of years either of you has, so this is the guess of a newbie.

[KB]

Thanks for the beautiful comment, Miranda.

Yes, a marriage can be worn down by the weight of time and trouble. Obviously, some marriages a worn through. But the beauty of marriage (when it is beautiful) is more analogous to that of the human body or the body of Christ (i.e., the Church). The latter are useful precisely in so far as they restore themselves. I suddenly remember a snatch of T.S. Elliot.

THE BROAD-BACKED hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The ’potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

This is only part of the poem, and I have never really understood it. But it continues to fascinate me.

Anyway, every lasting marriage is one thing from start to finish, even if husband and wife barely recognize themselves. There is beauty in that.