Towards a Typology of Marriage
January 29, 2008 Society 2 CommentsLove: a temporary insanity, curable by marriage.
Conservatives bemoan the changing nature of marriage, while feminists oppose marriage as subjugating women. Divorce rates were up and now they’re coming down. Single mothers, homosexual marriage, teenage pregnancy, and all other sorts of phenomena are paraded out as threatening the institution of marriage. The general consensus seems to be that marriage is on its way out.
Science fiction provides a wonderful forum for exploring which direction we are heading. However, authors tend to characterize marriages as taking one of either two forms in their works: relatively unchanged from the institutions as they exist now or as being largely abolished, with free love and children communally raised in a créche. Robert Heinlein is one of the few to take an alternative approach to the future marriage. In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, he describes how the Loonies (outlaws sent to colonize the moon, similar to Australia penal colonies) adopted various forms of polygamy including clan marriage, line marriage, and polyamory. While I think such radical changes are unlikely in the near future, as one of the fundamental units of society, the direction marriage takes will substantially determine the way the future will look.
Marriage is often falsely dichotomized as existing in one of two states: its present form or not at all. To correct this tendency, I want to present a typology of marriage in order to frame this discussion. First, I should attempt to define what I mean by marriage. With the existence of live-in boyfriends and girlfriends, as well as increased numbers of children born out of wedlock, the notion of marriage as traditionally defined is less and less useful. I want to talk is as broad of terms as possible, but as I see it, marriage consists a long-term, possibly romantic relationship between two or more people that family structures are built on. Given that, I see marriages as existing along four dimensions:
1. Betsy Stephenson and Justin Wolfers make a distinction between hedonic and productive marriages that I will adopt. A hedonic marriage is based primarily on shared consumption, primarily of experiences and companionship. On the other hand, a productive marriage is based on shared production, emphasizing division of labor. The stereotypical 1950s household, where the husband goes out to work and support the family, while the wife stays home to rear their children and do domestic housework is the primary example of a productive marriage. With the feminist movement and increasing numbers of women in the workforce, marriages in the US appear to have become more hedonic. This trend is likely to continue, as more and more young adults of both sexes are independent, career oriented, and looking for love in a partner, not necessarily someone to establish a household with. A higher standard of living favors hedonic marriages, because individuals are more capable of being self-supporting and able to support a family without intrafamily division of labor. This is not to say that productive marriages are devoid of romance, but love comes at a cost like anything else.
2. Marriages can also be open or closed. The more open a marriage is, the more flexibility the partners have to end the relationship or maintain relationships outside the marriage. While having a girlfriend in addition to a wife is significantly different from serial monogamy, I think both these things reflect the same fundamental thing. The more open the marriage is, the more trusting and independent the partners are. While I think human psychology prevents swinging from becoming a widespread practice, the recognition that marriages can be temporary is more widespread.
3. Marriage institutions can also vary based on the number of people involved. Modern marriages are nearly all monogamous, but polygamy was a standard practice for most the history of the human race. I think polygamy lends itself easier to productive marriage, especially in tribal cultures where joining into a plural marriage can mean better use of available resources and protection from outside threats. In addition, “few societies in history believed that individuals should freely choose their own marriage partners, especially on such fragile grounds as love,” and plural marriages are particularly well suited to maintaining political and economic hierarchies. Because of the shift to a hedonic marriages, marriages involving multiple partners are becoming less and less likely to reemerge. As partners are more independent and mobile, a two-person marriage is hard enough to maintain with the current job market. The one exception I can see to this depends on a staple of science fiction: space colonization. If people are restricted to a small colony and must all share resources, plural marriage might become more attractive. Heinlein’s example of line marriage, in which new partners of alternating sex are added to the marriage at set intervals, allows the marriage to go on indefinitely. This allows the marriage to build up capital useful in establishing a colony. Because the marriage includes partners of all ages, the elderly and those in their child-bearing years can be supported by the labor of the rest. Also because there are multiple partners, the death of a single parent is significantly less traumatic for the children of the marriage. I find this alternative particularly intriguing.
4. The final dimension marriages can vary on is the gender ratio of the partners. Homosexual marriage is being strongly advocated for, and is hopefully achieved within the near future. I am personally astounded by how conservatives think that allowing gays to marry would destroy marriage, as we know it. It seems to me that having gays also be married strengthens cultural support for marriage as a whole. I also hear anecdotes about single mothers living together in order to take part in the advantages that can come from cohabitation. While these relationships are not contractual, and certainly not romantic, I wonder if “marriages” of this sort could become more possible.
Between hedonic vs. productive, open vs. closed, singular vs. plural, and hetero vs. homo, there are potentially 16 different combinations, with many variants in between. While I don’t foresee any dramatic changes in the structure of marriages, except for the continued trend towards more hedonic marriages, I think the full scope of this subject is under-represented in speculative fiction. Because marriage structure is so ingrained in the way we conduct our everyday life, I think it’s easy to forget the potential range of variation. Hopefully the example of this typology shows the range of alternatives outside of the status quo that sit unexplored and unconsidered.
Links:
Marriage and the Market
The Future of Marriage
Group Marriage
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blejkrajli has worn a wedding ring for 18 months. He expects his hedonic, closed, singular, hetero marriage to last much longer.
