The Function of Marriage

If you’ve read this blog you know that I am interested in the nature of functions. The contemporary understanding is that items have a function in virtue of possessing a certain history; a history of selection and copying from ancestors. And so to have a function an item must have two features 1. it must be a copy of a previous item 2. it must be selected rather than things missing the feature because the feature produces some effect. Genes, for example, are copies of ones parents' genes, and the genes that produce hearts are selected by natural selection because they produce hearts. Hearts are produced by natural selection because they pump blood, not because they make "lub-dub" sounds, or squish when they are stepped on, or freeze when put into liquid nitrogen, or any of a million other things. Screwdrivers can do a million things, but they are copied from blueprints or a prototype in manufacturing for their ability to turn screws. I can use a screwdriver to do many things other than turn screws, but turning screws is its function. (Actually, it is its "direct" function as opposed to a "derived" function but I don't think I'll have to get into that distinction for this present purpose). Behaviors have a function in this sense as well. Animal mating displays have the function of attracting mates. That is what previous mating displays did that resulted in the genes that produce that dance being copied into successive generations. Learned behavior can have a function too. Each time I switch on a light I am copying a previous behavior for a reason, to illuminate the room. That is the function of light-switch-flipping behavior.

Social institutions have a function as well. It is the function of the police to prevent crime, the function of schools to educate students, the function of hospitals to heal the sick. These functional institutions arise where there is a social problem in need of a solution: crime to prevent, the sick to heal, children to educate. And so the possession of a function is an objective fact, it is not a matter of opinion, or what society says. If someone thinks that the function of the brain is to cool the body they are wrong; no matter how you define "brain," that is not its function. And so I think that the dispute is not a mere disagreement over how do define something, there is a fact about what the function of marriage is.

Applying these results to the controversy over gay marriage gives a different perspective on the argument. The debate has generally centered around fighting over what is the definition of marriage: conservatives claiming that it is defined as the union between a man and a woman, liberals claiming that it is defined as a consensual agreement between two people who love each other. Both sides think that they can declare victory based on their definition alone, and both sides convince no one who wasn’t already convinced. But since this is A Pox on Both Your Houses, of course both are wrong. The question we must ask is not what is the definition of marriage, but what is its function. Functions do not depend on definitions, as we have seen. The function of the heart is to pump blood no matter how you define it. Marriages, like the other examples we have been discussing, have been reproduced for a reason and so have a function, and this is just as much an empirical matter as in these other examples. Mating displays that don't attract mates go extinct, but marriages keep getting reproduced. To say that marriage has a function is to approach marriage the way a biologist would look at a behavior or organ. It is to ask why does marriage exist? Why hasn’t it died out like a fad? Why has it been around for centuries and millennia? What does it do that keeps it getting reproduced over and over? What problems does it solve that makes it so valuable to keep around?

There is a particular widespread, recurring, and important social problem in need of a solution. The problem is that heterosexual intercourse produces children, and once born, chldren require a great deal of attention and care in order for them to survive and mature. Marriage is the functional insstitution with the function to prevent these problems. A vast body of research shows that children raised in single-parent homes are at far greater risk of poverty, school dropout, delinquency, teen pregnancy, adult joblessness, and other problems. Society itself can suffer the problems of many children abandoned to orphanages or the streets. Marriage is the means of preventing these problems. Because gay relationships can not produce a child and hetero relationships can, there are problems that need to be prevented in the case of a hetero relationship that are absent in a gay relationship, namely, the problem of producing a child as a result of sexual intercourse. Thus an institution needs to exist in the case of hetero relationships whose purpose is the prevention of the problems that are created in a world where children are produced and not provided for by their parents. Gay relationships do not solve these problems.

Love is the primary virtue of marriage; it is what allows a marriage to perform its function of providing an environment that is safe, stable, healthy, and nurturing for children to be born into. There are other virtues in addition to love that allow a marriage to perform its function: having the means to support the child, living in a safe environment, having parents who are mature and responsible, and so on. As our understanding of what is involved in raising children changes, the virtues of mariage can change. Also, environmental conditions will affect what is required to raise children successfully: those living in a place where resources are scarce will need to inculcate different skills and character in their children than those who are blessed with plenty, those living in a place where there are many enemies will likewise require different skills than places blessed with peace. Thus we shouldn't be suprised that marriage is very different today than it has been at other times (a point liberals believe carries a lot of weight, but doesn't make the point they think it does).

Sadly, just like in the case of diseased hearts, many marriages are bad, and for a host of possible reasons lack the virtues of a marriage and thus fail to perform their function. But just a diseased hearts still have the function of pumping blood, the function doesn’t change simply because it fails to be performed. Where the debate goes wrong from the liberal side is in confusing the function for the virtue; love is not the function of marriage. However, liberals are correct that in recent decades marriage has indeed evolved into something of a mere celebration of love. It would not be uncommon to hear the officiant at a wedding say that we gather here to celebrate the love of a couple. Traditionally, there was no question of a couple getting married but deciding not to have children. In an age lacking affective birth control it was assumed that children would soon follow from marriage and need to be supported and nurtured. With the advent of cheap and effective birth control it is quite common for couples to have no intention of raising children, and thus physical love has been spearated from the inevitability of children. This ambiguity is at the heart of the controversy and needs to be disambiguated. It is always possible to create a new social institution of “love unions” or civil unions that serve the function of indicating that a couple love each other and that last only as long as they do. Such an institution would have the benefits of hospital visitation rights and so on, but would be clear on what its function is.

Some might object if marriage has changed as much as I claim, then it now has a different function than it once did. To see why this is wrong take another example of a changing institution. Suppose crime in a city was escalating dramatically because the police department no longer think that it is their function to prevent crime and enforce the law. Instead, the police department has morphed into an organization that believes its function is to produce police officers because police officers get respect, and that no responsibilities as regards fighting crime follow from becoming a police officer. (I use this as an example because I have heard it argued that a reason to allow gay marriage is that homosexuals want the respect for their relationships that hetero relationships have). I say that the reason crime is out of control is because the police no longer perform their function. Someone might claim that the police do perform their function, which is to gain respect. I say we need to get the police force back to enforcing the laws and catching criminals. They say that it is impossible to get the police force back to what it once was. I say that it isn’t impossible as long as we make sure that police officers are once again held to the duties, obligations, and responsibilities they once had. What’s more, despite that the police force currently thinks its function is to produce police officers with respect, it makes sense to say that its true function is to enforce the law no matter whether it currently does.

I think that the misidentification of marriage as a love union rather than the attempt to raise happy, healthy, and virtuous children helps explain much of the problems surrounding marriage in contemporary society. When you understand that you are entering into an agreement designed for the nurturing of children it affects the way you view your “job” as a married person. Love unions on the other hand might have commitment ceremonies, but generally the commitment is allowed to end the moment you no longer feel like being committed--and when you can break a commitment as soon as you feel like it, it can hardly be called a commitment at all. The goal of marriage is not to just enjoy the blessings of love--and so once love has faded you are free to end the union--the goal is to raise children, and this very much involves subsuming your individual desires and altering your self however is necesary to be successful in the larger purpose.

Modern marriages, or "love unions" have the following features:
1. There is no commitment to stay longer than than you want.
2. You enter into it in order to make yourself happy.
3. It’s purpose is to celebrate the love of the couple.
4. It is only the business of the couple involved, society has no interest is seeing it succeed or fail.

Marriage on the other hand:
1. Lasts until your obligation to your spouse and children ends.
2. You enter into it for the benefit of the children you will have.
3. Its purpose is to make sure the children who will result are supported and raised successfully.
4. Society has an interest in making sure marriages succeed because of the negative consequences of having many troubled children.

These differences are significant enough to be describing totally separate things.

This misunderstandng of marriage as a love union has had tragic yet predictable results. At last count 40% of the children being born in this country are born out of wedlock, up from 2% in the 1950s. This is a catastrophe on a vast scale. It is the primary function of marriage to prevent this current state of affairs. This is its raison d’etre. Marriage performs this function by possessing three obligations that coincide with the three problems it is designed to prevent: first, marriage is an obligation to your spouse that you will not abandon them to raise the child alone, second, marriage is an obligation to your child that you will not abandon them, third, marriage is an obligation to the society at large that you will see to it that your child is raised right and not abandoned. Marriage is a right only insofar as you have the right to take on these three obligations. There are no rights without obligations--for example, my right to free speech carries the obligation that I don’t deny others this right, and likewise for other rights. In the case of gay marriage, none of these obligations follow since there is no child to worry about. Without any obligation, there is no right.

What about the case where a gay couple wishes to adopt? I am in favor of gay adoption, but there is no need for marriage here because there is no problem to be avoided by such a marriage. Gay couples do not run the risk of creating a society with massive numbers of out of wedlock children. Preventing this is one of the functions of marriage, and, just as the fact that if you don't have something whose function is to pump blood you don't have a heart, if there is no societal problem to be avoided, there is no marriage.

For example, suppose that the purpose of the army is solve the problem of how to defend the country from attack. When you join the infantry you take on certain obligations, say you need to be able to carry a certain amount of weight, run at a certain speed, and fire a gun accurately. You do have a right to try out for the infantry, but if you can’t do these things you will be unable to fulfill your obligations and so you do not get to join the infantry. There is no unjust discrimination in preventing someone from taking part in a functional practice when they can not perform the function. Suppose someone still wants to help defend the country even if they are unable to join the infantry. We should be very happy to receive their help, but still, they can’t join the infantry. Likewise, the purpose of marriage is to prevent the societal problems that result from the production of children who are born and either abandoned or raised by a single parent.

Gay marriage does not solve the societal problems I’ve mentioned because there are no such societal problems caused by gay relationships because there are no children that result and need to be cared for. Whatever reason a homosexual couple might have for wanting to get married, it is not to prevent certain problems that might arise from their sexual intercourse. However, if homosexuals wish to help resolve the problems caused by others by adopting a child we should welcome their help. Adoption has a different function, it is to take care of children that have already been abandoned. Whereas marriage is preventative, adoption is curative.

Finally, in discussions of gay marriage you almost always will hear the claim that marriage can have nothing to do with the producing and raising of children because there are lots of heterosexual marriages that do not produce children. This objection highlights the difference between teleological approaches and essentialist ones, and the way that essentialism permeates every debate. See Teleology and the Death of Liberalism for an overview of teleology, and On Being Real for a quick discussion of essentialism. The main difference betwen the two approaches is that an item can have a teleological function and yet never perform it, whereas essential characteristics must always be present. For example, the fish swimming in a fishtank, let us suppose, have certain innate behavioral mechanisms whose function is the avoidance of predators. But because of their present protected environment, these functions will never be performed. Or a coffee maker may never actually be used to make coffee, although it could if was given the right inputs (assuming the rest of it is in working condition). And yet making coffee remains its function despite that fact that it is never performed. So the objection that marriage can have nothing to do with childbirth since there are many heterosexual couples that never have children is asuming an essentialist argument that does not apply when approaching it teleologically. Heterosexual couples are in this position, they could perform the reproductive function even though they don't, whereas homosexual couples could never perform this function.

Likewise, a relationship between infertile heterosexual couples is still marriage even though they can not produce children. On our current, somewhat unfortunate, metaphor, an infertile couple is like a broken coffee maker, something is preventing them from producing children. Yet it is still the function of a broken coffee maker to make coffee even if it can not do it. A gay relationship, on the other hand, has some completely different function. The state is in the position of discering these functions because the state gives benefits to married couples due to the benefit they provide to society. But suppose the state was giving tax breaks to farmers. An individual who makes cars decides to claim this tax break. The state is justified in excluding this individual from the tax break because he is not a farmer, he is a car-maker. Even if society humored this car-maker by calling him a farmer so as to not hurt his feelings, he would not thereby be a farmer. Were gay relationships granted the title "marriage" it would be like humoring this car-maker by calling him a farmer. It would be unjust because he is receiving a benefit for a function he does not have.

_____________________________ (1) Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories, p. 33.