Definitions of Marriage

[Spartacus]

I didn't say I disagreed on that, Spartacus. Of course it is. Just asks the Mets during their first year.

Is the baseball team defined by its victories, or by the fact that it has all the necessary players in all the positions? It's a baseball team if it's able to play the game, regardless of whether it happens to "succeed". With respect to permanence, I think most teams will tell you that there's more to it than having the highest concentration of individual skill; there is a lot to be said for having players who know how to work together, and that's something that can only come from having a great deal of experience playing together. For the most teleologically successful marriages, having a great deal of experience with and trust for the other person is a key component: why is permanence, an indispensable key to the success of the best marriages, disposable in less successful ones?

Do you see the tension there?

[Outis]

Is the baseball team defined by its victories, or by the fact that it has all the necessary players in all the positions? It's a baseball team if it's able to play the game, regardless of whether it happens to "succeed". With respect to permanence, I think most teams will tell you that there's more to it than having the highest concentration of individual skill; there is a lot to be said for having players who know how to work together, and that's something that can only come from having a great deal of experience playing together. For the most teleologically successful marriages, having a great deal of experience with and trust for the other person is a key component: why is permanence, an indispensable key to the success of the best marriages, disposable in less successful ones?

Do you see the tension there?

Spartacus, I will come back to this later. Other interactions have my anger and stress levels pretty high, and I want to be calm and clear-headed when interacting with you and not take that anger out on you. Probably later tonight, maybe tomorrow.

[Outis]

Is the baseball team defined by its victories, or by the fact that it has all the necessary players in all the positions?

This, I think, is the crux of the issue. Both define a baseball team.

You see, Spartacus, that's the fundamental flaw both with your baseball analogy and with your marriage analogy. Both a baseball team and a marriage can have multiple teloi. To insist on defining either by a single telos is to insist on an unrealistic definition.

Just going on the baseball team analogy, the _primary_ purpose of a baseball team is to play the game, which hopefully involves getting hits, getting runs, preventing the opponents from getting runs, winning games, having fun, exercise, and maybe even making money for the team owner. If you insist, in your analogy, to define the telos of playing solely by getting hits, you miss many of the multiple purposes of playing the game.

Marriage is the same. A marriage is still a marriage even if no children are born: children are not, and have never been, the sole telos of marriage.

[Spartacus]

This, I think, is the crux of the issue. Both define a baseball team.

You see, Spartacus, that's the fundamental flaw both with your baseball analogy and with your marriage analogy. Both a baseball team and a marriage can have multiple teloi. To insist on defining either by a single telos is to insist on an unrealistic definition.

Just going on the baseball team analogy, the _primary_ purpose of a baseball team is to play the game, which hopefully involves getting hits, getting runs, preventing the opponents from getting runs, winning games, having fun, exercise, and maybe even making money for the team owner. If you insist, in your analogy, to define the telos of playing solely by getting hits, you miss many of the multiple purposes of playing the game.

Marriage is the same. A marriage is still a marriage even if no children are born: children are not, and have never been, the sole telos of marriage.

Is it a baseball team if you have two catchers or two pitchers instead of one of each?

My argument doesn't depend on children being the sole telos of marriage. I don't think I ever even made that specific argument. If I recall correctly, I argued that it distinguishes it from other relationships.

[Outis]

Is it a baseball team if you have two catchers or two pitchers instead of one of each?

Remember who sits in the dugout, friend. The analogy breaks, badly, at that point.

I know, you meant "Two pitchers on the field at one time."

My argument doesn't depend on children being the sole telos of marriage. I don't think I ever even made that specific argument. If I recall correctly, I argued that it distinguishes it from other relationships.

But it is the sole telos that you acknowledge in your argument, and is logically the basis for your argument. If child-bearing is not the sole telos, and if childless marriages are still valid marriages, then your argument goes from "incoherent" to "nonexistent.

[Spartacus]

Remember who sits in the dugout, friend. The analogy breaks, badly, at that point.

I know, you meant "Two pitchers on the field at one time."



But it is the sole telos that you acknowledge in your argument, and is logically the basis for your argument. If child-bearing is not the sole telos, and if childless marriages are still valid marriages, then your argument goes from "incoherent" to "nonexistent.

I believe George, Girgis and Anderson argue that marriage is a good in itself, and that government has a particular interest in it because of its childbearing capacities.

[Outis]

I believe George, Girgis and Anderson argue that marriage is a good in itself,

Marriage is a good in and of itself _for the state_. As an agnostic, of course, I cannot take a position on "intrinsic" good.

and that government has a particular interest in it because of its childbearing capacities.

Government does have a particular interest in marriage because of childbearing capacity ... among other reasons. Again, if childbearing capacity was the sole reason, the government would be perfectly justified if it chose to dissolve marriages that were childless, or to refuse to allow those who were past childbearing age to wed at all.

Specific to the US, our courts have decided that freedom to marry is a fundamental right (Loving v. Virginia is the classic citation). We are seeing the process of same-sex marriage equality being accorded equal status (despite the arguments of some, which oddly resemble the arguments against miscegenation). This is not "special status" or "special rights"--this is nothing radical, unless one argues that it is radical to treat all citizens equally.

Spartacus, from where I sit, it seems your argument is deceased ... but I am not unbiased in this issue. Do you see any point I have not rebutted? Do you see any point I have rebutted, but have not rebutted sufficiently?

[Spartacus]

Marriage is a good in and of itself _for the state_. As an agnostic, of course, I cannot take a position on "intrinsic" good.

They call it an intrinsic human good. I'd say that this is dependent on an Aristotelian moral ethic that is not necessarily incompatible with agnosticism.

Government does have a particular interest in marriage because of childbearing capacity ... among other reasons. Again, if childbearing capacity was the sole reason, the government would be perfectly justified if it chose to dissolve marriages that were childless, or to refuse to allow those who were past childbearing age to wed at all.

Regardless of whether they ever become mother and father, they are husband and wife, which is a relationship that is by its nature not to be dissolved except in extreme circumstances.

Specific to the US, our courts have decided that freedom to marry is a fundamental right (Loving v. Virginia is the classic citation). We are seeing the process of same-sex marriage equality being accorded equal status (despite the arguments of some, which oddly resemble the arguments against miscegenation). This is not "special status" or "special rights"--this is nothing radical, unless one argues that it is radical to treat all citizens equally.

Are husband and wife coherent concepts in relation to each other?

Spartacus, from where I sit, it seems your argument is deceased ... but I am not unbiased in this issue. Do you see any point I have not rebutted? Do you see any point I have rebutted, but have not rebutted sufficiently?

My angle might not be perfect, but I think there is still a point to be made. If the husband/wife relationship, with or without children, is distinguishable from a life partner situation, or any of the other relationships encompassed by the redefinition of marriage, then my argument survives.

[Sam]

My angle might not be perfect, but I think there is still a point to be made. If the husband/wife relationship, with or without children, is distinguishable from a life partner situation, or any of the other relationships encompassed by the redefinition of marriage, then my argument survives.

I've been reading all the posts, though not scrutinizing them. Could you give me a run-down on exactly what necessarily distinguishes a husband/wife relationship from a life partner situation?

[Outis]

They call it an intrinsic human good.

Such a statement does not allow for individual situation or individual choice. Marriage is NOT for everybody. Some people choose to be unmarried their entire lives: I cannot see these people as being "less good" than those who choose to marry.

I'd say that this is dependent on an Aristotelian moral ethic that is not necessarily incompatible with agnosticism.

I have a whole passel of objections to the Aristotelian moral structure (and to the related Thomistic structure as well), but that's a topic for another thread.

Regardless of whether they ever become mother and father, they are husband and wife, which is a relationship that is by its nature not to be dissolved except in extreme circumstances.

The same, with different terminology, is true of same-sex marriage. Indeed, the same is true of polygamous families.

Are husband and wife coherent concepts in relation to each other?

Coherent, yes. They are not, however, exclusive of other coherent definitions.

My angle might not be perfect, but I think there is still a point to be made. If the husband/wife relationship, with or without children, is distinguishable from a life partner situation, or any of the other relationships encompassed by the redefinition of marriage, then my argument survives.

That's precisely the problem, Spartacus. You have asserted that it is, based on teleology--I demonstrated that your teleology is incoherent. Religion would be a coherent basis, but it is not an appropriate basis for constructing secular law. (It is certainly an appropriate basis for constructing canon law within a church, which is a perfectly appropriate format for it.)

You must come up with a different, and coherent, basis, or your argument is nothing but an unsupported assertion.

[Bill the Cat]

There's no need to sanction (yay words with opposite meanings) any event if the desired outcome is more or less inevitable.

It's far more than that. It is being encouraged by the state as the most desirable situation for a child to be reared in. It goes beyond mere inevitability to being encouraged.

It may stand to reason that most marriages will produce offspring, but if that's the goal there's no need to specially promote it.

Sure there is, because it is also possible to produce offspring outside marriage. The ideal though, is being encouraged by the state in sanctioning opposite sex marriage, as I have been saying.

You could say the same thing of all male/female relationships. In short, I claim BS on the idea that the government sanctions marriage to promote offspring.

You have the right to claim BS, but that does not negate the several SCOTUS decisions that support the procreation/opposite-sex conflation.

They might promote child-development, but that could be handled in a completely different manner that avoids the risk of exploitation.

That risk is unavoidable.

The privacy statement sounds like a cop-out.

Again, you can claim that, but it is wholly consistent with current law.

I'm all for not intruding on privacy, but claiming to promote a biological fact while refusing to actually check up on it is talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Not really. Again, an ideal is what is promoted, and the only way to identify someone failing that ideal is through an invasion of privacy.

It's lip service to an ideal it wishes to uphold without actually being held accountable if the ideal is not met.

That's the problem. How would the government know that the couple failed to meet the ideal without invading the couple's privacy?

You also asked "how so" in regards to the mechanism being doomed to fail. The system as described rewards people for taking advantage of benefits they would otherwise not receive, and it is helpless to prevent exploitation by any and all. Small wonder that those outside the general category wish to take advantage of the same benefits.

Their jealousy at possible exploitation by others is insufficient grounds upon which to allow them to participate.

[Outis]

It is being encouraged by the state as the most desirable situation for a child to be reared in.

That's funny. R. D. McIlwaine III made exactly the same argument.

Now if the state has an interest in marriage, if it has an interest in maximizing the number of stable marriages and in protecting the progeny of interracial marriages from these problems, then clearly. there is scientific evidence available that is so. It is not infrequent that the children of intermarried parents are referred to not merely as the children of intermarried parents but as the 'victims' of intermarried parents and as the 'martyrs' of intermarried parents.

[Bill the Cat]

That's funny. R. D. McIlwaine III made exactly the same argument.

That's not the same thing.

[Outis]

That's not the same thing.

Betcha the courts will note the similarities, even if you can't or won't see them.

[Bill the Cat]

Betcha the courts will note the similarities, even if you can't or won't see them.

I'm less than impressed with today's sorry excuse for a court system, TBH, but that's a personal beef...