Last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments about the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 have drawn attention to debates about the relationship between “gay marriage” and “traditional marriage.” Gay marriage is well-defined—a marriage between two individuals with the same legal sex. But what is a “traditional marriage” exactly? And is it something worth defending?
In 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that married mothers with full-time jobs do an average of 5.6 more hours of housework per week than married fathers with full-time jobs. Married mothers with no paid employment did an average of 9.1 hours more of housework per week than married fathers with no paid employment. The good news is that we’re gradually trending toward parity in household labor; researchers at Oxford University predict that by 2050, men and women will share the burden of chores equally. Splitting housework evenly is not at all “traditional,” and is in fact, pretty radical and futuristic. I’d pick a “nontraditional” marriage any day.
Traditionally, it was completely legal for a husband to physically force his wife to have sex with him. In fact, North Carolina only outlawed marital rape in 1993. And as aptly put by Gloria Steinem, “When I was growing up, before there was a woman’s movement, there was no word for domestic violence. It was just called life.” A modern marriage where I’m legally protected against violent abuse seems to be a better match for my preferences than a traditional marriage.
Traditionally, both in the United States and most of Europe, married women couldn’t own property and had no claims on their earned income. Harriet Beecher Stowe famously declared, “The position of a married woman … is, in many respects, precisely similar to that of the negro slave. She can make no contract and hold no property; whatever she inherits or earns becomes at that moment the property of her husband. … Though he acquired a fortune through her, or though she earned a fortune through her talents, he is the sole master of it, and she cannot draw a penny. … In the English common law a married woman is nothing at all. She passes out of legal existence.”
In a traditional marriage, my dad would pick out my spouse for me. My dad is awesome, but I’m happier with the more modern arrangement where the decision is up to me.
And how can we forget that, traditionally, marriages in the United States were only legally recognized between individuals of the same race?
The type of marriage I’d like, where my spouse and I are equals in decision-making, is a contemporary invention, only a few decades old with little historical or biblical precedent. You can’t find the type of marriage I’d like for myself in the Bible, but if I wanted a polygamous marriage with a dominant male head, there would be plenty of examples to draw from in the scriptures.
Call me crazy, but I think the last 150 years of innovation in marriage have been a good thing.
I’m happy to acknowledge that not all of the conservative umbrage about the decline of “traditional marriage” is unfounded. I’d agree that teenage pregnancy is something to be avoided. I’d even agree that the outcry over single-parenthood has a reasonable basis; in a society like ours with a weak social safety net, a child with only one guardian is exposed to considerable risk if the single parent becomes unemployed or seriously ill.
Though I don’t want my marriage to be “traditional,” I am interested in a durable monogamous union in which I eventually raise children.
We need to distinguish between “traditional” marriages and “healthy” marriages. Gay marriages aren’t “traditional,” but neither are marriages where men and women are legal and social equals. As we continue to debate gay marriage, we shouldn’t be asking “what were marriages like in the past”; we instead need to ask “what should marriages be like in the future,” keeping in mind how profoundly unjust and destructive the institution of marriage used to be, and oftentimes still is.
Elena Botella is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every Thursday. You can follow Elena on Twitter @elenabotella.
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