Social Construction Theory and Marriage

PHIL 2250 Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality
with Professor Michael Gilbert

Fall, 2003

“All Social Construction approaches adopt the view that physically identical sex acts may have varying social significance and subjective meaning, depending on how they are defined and understood in different cultures and historical periods” (Vance, 1995.)

Marriage is a concept that has no universal definition. It varies from culture to culture with purpose and form. We have several reasons for marrying in our society, but when you are attempting to persuade someone who doesn’t wish to get married, it is difficult convincing them for any reason; it might be for love, for money, for children or security. Some people feel strongly about getting married and others are strongly adverse to it. What the question is, is what constitutes a good reason or purpose of monogamous marriage, while excluding any forms of polygamous or same-sex marriages by law.

A brief note on definitions.

Polygamy is meant to include polygyny and polyandry. Polygyny is the union of one man to multiple women. Polyandry is the union of one woman to multiple men. Polyfidelity or Pentagamy is used to describe situations in which multiple women are married to multiple men. This can also be called, group marriage or complex marriage. In this essay, marriage is not necessarily considered legally sanctioned, but recognized by the members of a social group. This is only because polygamy is often practiced after is has been made illegal by the government.

I will begin with the assumption that all marriages have some purpose. This is important to state here, because in our legal system, marriage has a very limited purpose that is not sufficient for a true legal definition of marriage. If you are married, you usually share finances, work health benefits, a house and other special privileges like visiting your loved one in a hospital in an emergency. This purpose is not extended to marriages of the same sex. It is also not extended to a man or a woman that wishes to live with two partners instead of one. Therefore, it seems that there must be another purpose for marriage, one that allows heterosexual, monogamous couples to marry, but no others.

The purpose is obvious to many: reproduction. In order to grow well-balanced children, the assumption seems to be that you need a loving mother and a loving father and nothing else to interfere. There are many counter-examples in this situation. Single parents are capable of raising healthy children as well as aunts, uncles, grandparents – and yes – gay people can raise children as well. Some people argue that you do need two parents to care for a child, but by that reasoning, if a child had two mothers and a father, it would receive even more love, nurturing and time.

Many polygynous women claim that they live the ultimate feminist lifestyle. They can have their children and a career because there will always be someone home to cook dinner.

It could be that it is not the quality, but the quantity of children that you have. Our ultimate purpose is often perceived to be to pass on our genes to as many offspring as possible. The problem with this reasoning is that if you want to pass on as much as you could, you would be more likely to take on more than one wife, or womb for that matter. In the Zulu Religion, the Supreme Being is said to encourage men to take ten wives. African religious traditions tend to be more attune with nature. Beliefs that stem from this are the ideas that sex is strongly tied to reproduction and that it is very important to have as many children as possible. Following from this, polygyny is religiously sanctioned and blessed by custom.

Polyandry, although a much rarer form of marriage, arises under very exclusive circumstances. It is most prevalent in the Himalayan region, most notably in India and in Tibet.

Tibetan High Mountain people relied on yak herds for survival; dividing a family’s inheritance meant to divide the herd. This taxing consequence could be avoided if the family stayed closely-knit. This meant sharing a tent, sharing a herd and sharing a wife. The eldest son of a family would choose a wife and when the younger brother matured, he would be married into the relationship. This was also believed to promote group solidarity, discourage rivalry and increase the bond of the family – a working group.

Polyandry was also practiced in India for many economical reasons. The first was that India followed a dowry system that but a cost on brides. The more beautiful brides were more expensive. As well, when brides were in short supply the price raised so parents would save money by marrying two of their sons to one wife.

Just as in High Mountain Tibet, this also acted as a method to keep land together. When the parents are ready to retire, they move onto a small portion of their land, leaving the rest to their offspring. Instead of dividing the land between brothers, they shared the property. In some regions, such as Malabar, this practice is only restricted to blood-relatives such as cousins but in Gallong, only uterine brothers can share a wife. In Ladahk and many other regions of India, agriculture is the foundation of the economy. A polyandrous family was thought to develop an optimal labor force with minimal mouths to feed.

Economic differences bring about vast differences in marriage. This becomes most apparent when contrasting the Tibetan and Indian polyandry to the polygyny in Africa. “During the Pre-colonial era in Africa, the economic activities were centered around subsistence farming. This type of farming requires lots of manpower.” (Nyanseor, 2003) Also called split farming, a man was obligated to provide each of his wives with a farm. If a man had three wives, he would have three farms. The wives would then take care of the farms while the husband traveled around, helping where he was needed.

In either case, it would pose the argument that it is not the production of children but the care and nurturing. This cannot be done in a marriage that has more than one husband or more than one mother. But there is nothing to say that a family with more than one mother and more than one father wouldn’t be more beneficial. More loving parents or ANY loving parents. Even if there are only two fathers.

2.

Because most marriages are sanctioned by religion, it is a very important influence on it. Arguably, if religion was not a concept, marriage wouldn’t be either. Family units would still exist, but would take on a very different form according to economic needs of a society.

Although Christians are the strongest advocates of monogamy, it is very difficult to discern the specific root cause for this belief. There are few, if any references in the New Testament which condemn or even reflect on the practice of polygamy. The arguments in support of monogamy are weak and unclear. One of the most common is an analogous argument between marriage and Christ. Jesus left his father when he was born on earth. He left his mother when he was crucified and he marries into an exclusive relationship with the church. When a man marries, he leaves his mother and father and enters an exclusive relationship with his bride. (Maillu, 1988. p45) Another argument against polygamy is that God made only Adam and Eve. If he wanted Adam to have many wives, he would have made more women.

Many great figures in the Bible are polygamous. Abraham, Solomon and King David are just a few examples, but there is no link between polygamy in the Old Testament and the absence of it in the New Testament. Neither is there any strong biblical references condemning polygamy. Nonetheless, White Missionaries that traveled through Africa had an astounding effect on the polygamous systems in many regions of the continent. As Christianity spread, monogamy followed. In Ghana, for example, indigenous men were allowed as many wives as they could afford. Muslim men, according to their faith could have up to four wives, while Christian men had only one. (Dogbe, 1978).

Celibacy is seen to be the ultimate Christian lifestyle. When a woman’s husband dies, her sexuality dies with him. She is expected to mourn his loss and wait for their reunion in the afterlife. In Africa, if a woman’s husband dies, his brother would inherit her along with any other wives he may have had in order to relieve his extended family of economic burden.

One of the most famous examples of religiously endorsed polygyny is in the Mormon faith. Mormonism was developed in 1830, by Joseph Smith as an attempt to restore traditional values. Smith was familiar with many of the figures in the Old Testament, such as Abraham, whose wife, Sarah urged him to marry their servant, Hagar because she was unable to conceive a child. “Smith saw polygyny as a lifestyle that righteous men, under God’s guidance, could adopt because it was like that of the biblical patriarchs.” (Altman, 1996. p24)

Later on, the government stepped in and made clear that anyone practicing in or performing polygamous marriage ceremonies would be subject to punishment under the law and Mormons either stopped practicing or practiced in hiding. Others migrated to Mexico or Canada, where bigamy laws were not enforced; this a major reason that the Church of Latter-day Saints has prospered in many areas across North America.

There are many other factors that influence the structure of marriage. Religion, economy and demography are just a few. Progress in science and evolutionary biology, the emergence of Biodeterminism, geography and even our views about the purpose of sex itself are all factors in the social construction of marriage. Increasingly, many people choose not to marry at all, as protest to the church or to the government. Many don’t find it is necessity and see it only as a means of embarrassment in front of a large group of family and friends.

My conclusion is this, if you are going to sanction marriages that are only heterosexual and monogamous, you must give good reason for doing so. None of the labeled purposes of marriage are able to offer good reason to both suggest that marriage is for a purpose and that it can also exclude plural marriages and same-sex marriages.