What Is Marriage? By Robert George / Conceptual Outline

Front 1

What does the traditional view believe that marriage is?

Back 1

"Marriage is the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together. The spouses seal (consummate) and renew their union by conjugal acts—acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction, thus uniting them as a reproductive unit. Marriage is valuable in itself, but its inherent orientation to the bearing and rearing of children contributes to its distinctive structure, including norms of monogamy and fidelity. This link to the welfare of children also helps explain why marriage is important to the common good and why the state should recognize and regulate it."

Front 2

What does the revisionist view believe that marriage is?

Back 2

"Marriage is the union of two people (whether of the same sex or of opposite sexes) who commit to romantically loving and caring for each other and to sharing the burdens and benefits of domestic life. It is essentially a union of hearts and minds, enhanced by whatever forms of sexual intimacy both partners find agreeable. The state should recognize and regulate marriage because it has an interest in stable romantic partnerships and in the concrete needs of spouses and any children they may choose to rear."

Front 3

*Structural Questions (Chapter 1): Why is it that the book begins with a discussion on the nature of basic human goods?

Back 3

Because one of the fundamental mistakes that the revisionist position makes, is that it seeks to conceal the following facts:

1) Revisionists consistently conceal the fact that they are attempting to redefine a basic human good.

2) Revisionists seek to pretend that there are little to no destructive consequences that follow from redefining the basic human good of marriage.

Front 4

According to the authors, why does it matter that the basic human good of marriage is being redefined by revisionists?

Back 4

"The more people internalize this misunderstanding of marriage, the less positioned they are to live out the real thing" (Loc. 258).

Front 5

*Cite a number of basic human goods:

Back 5

1) Friendship

2) Organized sport (such as football)

3) Employment

4) Marriage

Front 6

*What central features belong uniquely to friendship and distinguish it from other basic human goods?

Back 6

1) A demonstrated commitment to the mental and physical well-being of another.

2) The spoken or unspoken consent of another to willingly initiate or remain in a relationship of mutual kindness.

3) The ability to communicate care for another.

Front 7

*Can you remove or marginalize any of the central features of a friendship and still call this basic human good a friendship?

Back 7

No. For example if using another person were central to the basic good of friendship and mutual kindness only peripheral, you will have effectively redefined friendship.

Front 8

*What central features belong uniquely to the organized sport of football and distinguish it from other basic human goods?

Back 8

1) The football itself.

2) The end-zone.

3) The rules that define the way in which the football relates to the players and the field of play.

Front 9

*Can you remove or marginalize any of the central features of the organized sport of football and still call this basic human good football?

Back 9

No. For example, if you trade the football for a baseball and allow the players to peg one another with the baseball, you have redefined the very nature of football and are not playing football any more.

Front 10

*What distinctive features belong uniquely to employment and distinguish it from other basic human goods?

Back 10

1) Workers are paid a wage for their work that is based on the hours worked or the nature of the task performed.

2) The degree to which the employee is able to retain their status in the relationship depends on the degree to which they can competently complete the task for which they are being paid.

Front 11

*Can you remove or marginalize any of the central features of employment and still call this basic human good employment?

Back 11

No.

Front 12

*What distinctive features belong uniquely to marriage and distinguish it from other basic human goods?

Back 12

1) Marriage involves a permanent and exclusive commitment.

2) Marriage involves an organic bodily union that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together.

Front 13

*Can you remove or marginalize any of the central features of marriage (permanent & exclusive; organic bodily union) and still call this basic human good marriage?

Back 13

1) Marginalize a permanent and exclusive commitment? No. If you want to construe marriage as inherently transient and open to multiple sexual partners, then you might be describing a boyfriend / girlfriend relationship, or the relationship between a pimp and a prostitute, but you would not be describing a marriage.

2) Marginalize organic bodily union? No. Then you would have a kind of pseudo-right to sexual expression without participating in the responsibilities that marriage itself is fundamentally and uniquely suited to protect.

Front 14

What three common principles do advocates of traditional and revisionist marriage share?

Back 14

1) The state has an interest in regulating some relationships

2) That interest exists only if the relationships are sexual

3) That interest exists only if the relationships are monogamous (Loc. 259)

Front 15

Why do the three common principles shared by traditionalist and revisionists become a problem for the revisionist position? Explain your answer by contrasting marriage as an emotional union with marriage as inherently ordered to family life.

Back 15

"If marriage is centrally an emotional union, rather than one inherently ordered to family life, it becomes much harder to show why the state should concern itself with marriage any more than with friendship. Why involve the state in what amounts to the legal regulation of tenderness? The revisionist proposes a policy that she cannot give reasons for enacting" (Loc. 313-14).

Front 16

Why do the three common principles shared by traditionalist and revisionists become a problem for the revisionist position? Explain your answer by critiquing the way in which the revisionist position denies that marriage must necessarily be inherently ordered to family life.

Back 16

"...on the best accounts on which two men or two women can marry, marriage consists of emotional union and domestic life. But as pleasing and valuable as emotional union can be, there’s nothing about marriage so understood that also requires it to be dyadic, sexually closed, or even sexual at all" (Loc. 345).

Front 17

*Structural Questions (Chapter 2): Why is a discussion of comprehensive union important at this point in the discussion?

Back 17

Because only traditional marriage unites the spouses in a comprehensive union. "Same-sex marriage" advocates want the public to belittle, ignore, or dismiss that fact that in "same-sex marriage," no comprehensive union is taking place.

Front 18

Give 3 ways that conjugal marriage unites spouses.

Back 18

"First, it unites two people in their most basic dimensions, in their minds and bodies; second, it unites them with respect to procreation, family life, and its broad domestic sharing; and third, it unites them permanently and exclusively" (Loc. 376-80).

Front 19

Why should relationships that lack the capacity for organic bodily union not be considered a marriage?

Back 19

"Relationships of two men, two women, or more than two, whatever their moral status, cannot be marriages because they lack this inherent link to procreation. Any sexual acts they involve, in addition to not being organic bodily unions, will not be ordered to procreation; so they will not embody a commitment ordered to family life: a marital commitment" (Loc. 471-73)

Front 20

Why is marriage only possible between two members of the opposite sex?

Back 20

"Marriage is possible between only two because no act can organically unite three or more, or thus seal a comprehensive union of three or more lives" (Loc. 503).

Front 21

If marriage (according to the revisionist) is essentially an emotional union, why does the pledge of exclusivity become hard for the revisionist to explain?

Back 21

"Finally, the conjugal view better explains why spouses should pledge sexual exclusivity at all. If marriage is, as the revisionist must hold, essentially an emotional union, this norm is hard to explain. After all, sex is just one of many pleasing activities that foster vulnerability and tenderness, and some partners might experience deeper and longer-lasting emotional union with each other if their relationship were sexually open. But the conjugal view distinguishes marriage by a certain type of cooperation, defined by certain common ends: bodily union and its natural fulfillment in children and family life. So it is not at all arbitrary in picking out sexual activity as central to the vow of exclusivity" (Loc. 522).

Front 22

How do the authors illustrate the following axiom: "Any kind of voluntary bond begins with people’s consent to cooperate—to engage in activities aimed at certain shared goods. These are the activities that most distinctively embody or seal their specific form of relationship, and thus their relationship. The commitment governing that relationship—the set of norms that they should pledge to observe—is in turn fixed by, and serves, the relationship’s goods and activities." (Loc. 545-48).

Back 22

"...a scholarly community exists whenever a group of people consents to cooperate in activities ordered toward the good of gaining knowledge (research, publication, etc.). So their specific kind of bond is made concrete and built up—it is made most present and real—whenever they engage in those activities. The norms of academic integrity that they observe as part of their commitment—for example, to disclose all relevant findings, even when inconvenient—are in turn fixed by the demands of knowledge, the aim of research" (Loc. 549-52).

Front 23

*Structural Questions (Chapter 2): Why is a discussion of voluntary bonds and activities aimed at shared goods important at this point in the discussion?

Back 23

Because the shared activities expressed and embodied by the revisionists (homosexual acts and shared domestic life), in themselves have no necessary connection to marriage as a basic human good. Thus, the revisionist insistence that they should be allowed access to the rights and privileges of marriage, is similar to a band of committed, yet athletically flabby theologians insisting that they have the right to play on an NFL team because they can read.

Front 24

Summarize the theme of the first two chapters.

Back 24

"The conjugal view better describes what distinguishes marriage from other human goods...marriage is a bond of a special kind. It unites spouses in body as well as mind and heart, and it is especially apt for, and enriched by, procreation and family life" (Loc. 572).

Front 25

Why does the state regulate marriage and not friendships?

Back 25

"...friendship does not affect the common good in structured ways that warrant legal recognition and regulation; marriage does...These relationships alone produce new human beings. For these new and highly dependent people, there is no path to physical, moral, and cultural maturity without a long and delicate process of ongoing care and supervision—one to which men and women typically bring different strengths, and for which they are better suited the more closely related they are to the children" (Loc. 583-90).

Front 26

Why is it virtually impossible to abolish civil marriage?

Back 26

"Strike the word “marriage” from the law, and the state will still license, and attach duties and benefits to, certain bonds. Abolish these forward-looking forms of regulation, and they will only be replaced by messier, retroactive regulation—of disputes over property, custody, visitation, and child support. What the state once did by efficient legal presumptions, it will then do by burdensome case-by-case assignments of parental (especially paternal) responsibilities" (Loc. 621-24).

Front 27

*Structural Questions (Chapter 4): Why is the question of harm important at this point in the discussion?

Back 27

Because traditionalists are often pressed to explain how the existence of "same-sex marriage" would harm anyone.

Front 28

What three basic ideas to the authors present that help explain why "same-sex marriage" is harmful?

Back 28

1) Law tends to shape beliefs.

2) Beliefs shape behavior.

3) Beliefs and behavior affect human interests and human well-being. (Loc. 819-23)

Front 29

According to the authors, what will an unsound law of marriage breed?

Back 29

"...an unsound law of marriage will breed mistaken views—not just of marriage, but of parenting, common moral and religious beliefs, even friendship—that will harm the human interests affected by each of these" (Loc. 823-25).

Front 30

Cite 5 practical ways that a false view of marriage will harm a culture?

Back 30

1) It will make real marriage harder to realize.

2) It will erode marital norms.

3) It will imply that a mother or a father is superfluous.

4) It will threaten moral and religious freedom.

5) It will undermine friendship. (Chapter 5)

Front 31

*Structural Questions (Chapter 5): Why is the question of infertility important at this point in the discussion?

Back 31

It is often charged that "proponents of the conjugal view cannot give a principled basis for recognizing infertile couples' unions that would not equally apply to same-sex unions" (Location 1122).

Front 32

According to the authors, what is the principled basis that distinguishes an infertile union from a same-sex union?

Back 32

An infertile couple still possess and expresses the capacity to engage in an organic bodily union that is ordered to procreation (and therefore engage in a marital act), while those in a same-sex union cannot (Location 1159).

Front 33

Cite 2 benefits that infertile unions possess.

Back 33

1) Infertile unions have none of the costs associated with recognizing non-marital unions.

2) Infertile unions can or do have many of the same benefits as fertile unions (Location 1159).

Front 34

Cite 2 reasons that prohibitions of "same-sex marriage" is not analogous to prohibitions of interracial marriage.

Back 34

1) The reasons for prohibitions were and are radically different: the prohibition of interracial marriage was to preserve white supremacy, while the refusal to recognize same-sex marriage is to preserve the very nature of marriage.

2) The refusal to recognize same-sex marriage is not intrinsically motivated by animus (Location 1193-1217).

Front 35

*Structural Questions (Chapter 6): Why is the question of cruelty important at this point in the discussion?

Back 35

"...the objection... [to the conjugal view] charges that traditional marriage law harms the personal fulfillment, the practical interests, and the social standing of same-sex-attracted people. Each of these claims has been, at some point or other, the primary public argument for same-sex civil marriage" (Location 1250).

Front 36

What issue does the author(s) raise in responding to the following charge by Andrew Sullivan: "It also seems to me to be important to ask George what he proposes should be available to gay couples. Does he believe that we should be able to leave property to one another without other family members trumping us? That we should be allowed to visit one another in hospital? That we should be treated as next-of-kin in medical or legal or custody or property tangles? Or granted the same tax status as straight married couples? These details matter to real people living actual lives."

Back 36

"...the benefits cited have nothing to do with whether a relationship is presumed to be sexual." Additionally, "People can normally secure these benefits...through the power of attorney" (Location 1268).

Front 37

How do the authors respond to the charge that the conjugal view stigmatizes same-sex couples because their marriages are not recognized while the marriages of others are?

Back 37

This objection can only be pressed if the romantic relationship of one's choice ought to be recognized as a marriage. "Whatever the state says, in other words, no same-sex or group relationship will include organic bodily union, or find its inherent fulfillment in procreation, or require, quite apart from the partners' personal preferences, what these two features demand: permanent and exclusive commitment. Nor can sheer legislative will make these differences meaningless, or make disregarding them harmless to the common good" (Location 1290).

Front 38

How do the authors respond to the charge that the conjugal view deprives gays & lesbians of the following goods: "In a highly mobile age, we want continuity. Our spouses, permanent breakfast partners, reliable sources and objects of interest and affection, anchor us…We want knowing consolation and informed advice...We want the security of a first responder in emergencies, ready counsel in our distress, de facto company in defeat, and, for every personal victory, a two-way tie. Spouses typically provide all these goods."

Back 38

"But traditional marriage law does not deny these companionate ideals to anyone. It does not discourage them or even prevent people from encouraging them. It makes many of these ideals easier to find outside marriage. And even if companionate bonds would be impaired without some public status, it does not follow that they would be impaired without legal status" (Location 1337).