Is Marriage Worth Fighting For?

By Courtney E. Martin, The American Prospect. Posted July 31, 2008.

First it was my history professor friend from Indiana -- "We're heading to CA for a friend's wedding (and while we're there ... we're getting married, too!)" she emailed me, using an uncharacteristic amount of exclamation points throughout. Then it was a colleague from Austin -- "busy summer with planning a San Francisco wedding in July :) (hurrah for the CA Supreme Court)." Now it looks like Massachusetts will become the next summer vacation state of choice for gay couples looking to tie the knot; last Tuesday the state senate voted to repeal a 1913 law that kept out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying there.

I'm happy for them. I really am. But part of me can't help but feel a little confused by the whole affair. You see, I'm a 28-year-old feminist who apparently wears a sign on my forehead that says, "Ask me when I'm going to get engaged." For the past eight years, I've been in a relationship with a great human being who happens to be male. We share taste in movies, a rascally kitten, and a mutual discomfort with the institution of marriage. I've spent more time than I'd like to remember in the past three or four years explaining to family, friends, and perfect strangers why I'm not dying to walk down the aisle (note: he has spent at least half as much time doing so, an incredibly irritating discrepancy). Usually my answer goes something like this: 1) I don't want to participate in an institution that's been historically sexist and currently discriminates against my gay friends, especially considering that my partner and I couldn't have been married in some states just 40 years ago (we're miscegenators), and 2) I'm uncomfortable with the "till death do us part" rhetoric that seems to suggest that two people parting ways is an inherent failure, rather than, as is so often the case, a necessary moment of growth and change.

For the latter explanation, I usually get a pitying look and an onslaught of romantic counter-argument, as if I am a princess in a fairy tale who has suddenly lost faith in the glass slipper. (Never mind the cold, hard fact that over half of marriages end in divorce.) For the former, I get little more than skeptical silence; people always suspect that the political argument is just a big cover up for my boyfriend's frozen feet.

Public reaction aside, I'm starting to doubt my own justifications. What am I to make of my commitment to not participate in a sexist, historically racist institution when my own gay friends are flocking to the coasts so they can join in the gift registry and the white-dress hoopla? Of course they deserve all the legal protections and economic benefits of a legalized marriage; according to the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, there are over 1,400 state and federal rights guaranteed by marriage, while there are only 300 state benefits and no federal protection for civil unions. But do these rights really trump the woman-as-property history and discriminatory present (on a state by state basis, of course)? Why do so many of my gay friends have such faith that they can transform the institution when I'm still so unsure?

I've always been partial to Audre Lorde's insight that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." But professor of Chicano/a studies, Lisa Justine Hernandez, who is getting married this month, sees the radical potential in marriage. "I think it works both ways," she told me. "Jane and I are being transformed by the outpouring of love and support from our families. Our marriage has opened positive conversation and also transformed others."

Loved ones often try to counter my resistance to marriage with the plausible argument that marriage is what you make of it. My own father repeated that old wisdom to me recently. "There are as many kinds of marriages as there are married couples," He said. Okay, I get it. I have faith in my partner and my capacity to re-imagine lots of things. He's never brought me flowers; instead our idea of romance is silly dancing on Saturday mornings before we go out and get our bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. I think we have a good a chance as any two creative people of making marriage over in our own image.

See more stories tagged with: gender, marriage, gay rights

Courtney E. Martin is the author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body. You can read more about her work at www.courtneyemartin.com.

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