Marriage, Sexuality, and GenderMarriage, Sexuality, and Gender examines contemporary debates about the meaning and value of marriage. The book analyzes arguments for traditional marriage, including those of neonaturalists, utilitarians, and communitarians or virtue theorists. The volume also considers a range of feminist, welfarist, and liberationist arguments for ending the institution altogether. It evaluates two major reform movements: one focused on expanding marriage to include same-sex couples and the other focused on the use of law to render marriage more internally just. The book concludes with a plea to activists to redirect "marriage equality" movements toward the creation of an entirely secular "civil union law" that would respect a broader range of private life-long commitments, including but not limited to same- and opposite-sex couples, without threatening the role of religious marriage in the lives of those who embrace it and without penalizing nonparticipants. |
Contents
A Look in the Rearview Mirror | 1 |
In Defense of Marriage When Im SixtyFour | 57 |
Marriage and Its Critics Lets Call the Whole Thing Off | 104 |
Copyright | |
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adults argued argument benefits Bradley and George caregiving labor choice citizens civil marriage civil union cohabitation commitment communitarians constitutional coverture criminal defined dependents divorce domestic violence economic egalitarian ending marriage equal protection equality practice family law federal feminist formal equality fundamental interest gay and lesbian gay marriage Gender Goodridge heterosexual homosexual husband Ibid individual injustice institution of marriage intimate John Finnis justice legitimate lesbian less liberal likewise lives marital rape marriage law marriage movement marriage promise married partners Mary Becker means moral mothers nature norm one's parents participants Peter Edelman pleasure point of marriage political poor poverty promote reason regarding relations reproductive responsibility riage role same-sex couples same-sex marriage second shift sexual social society spouses state's interest status supra Supreme Court traditional marriage unconstitutional understanding unmarried persons utilitarian virtue wage welfare reform wife wives woman women York