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| "Mawage" |
One of my all-time favorite movies is the The Princess Bride (1987), and one of my
favorite scenes from the movie is where the priest with the speech
impediment is beginning the wedding ceremony between the evil Prince Humperdink
and lovely Princess Buttercup while her true love Wesley attempts to rescue her
with his side-kicks Inigo Montoya and Fezzik the Giant.
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| What, specifically, are we protecting? |
Lost in all of the drama and humor and innuendo is the fact
that the priest is discussing that “bwessed awangement” of marriage that
brings them all together that day. His
definition of marriage (or “mawage”) is flowery and relatively useless fluff,
designed to provide humorous background for the scene, but that very question of
“What is Marriage” has become a remarkably hot topic in this day and age. Assuming that many of you live in
California, I hope you were aware of the debate and vote on Proposition 8 a number of years back,
which asked voters to essentially vote in support of the statement that said…
Marriage is between a man
and a woman for the purpose of producing offspring.
Let’s explore that a little in this post, shall we?
My background includes work in an area of Physical
Anthropology called Structural
Functionalism. In a nutshell, this
highlights the fact that, when it comes to studying anatomy, human or
otherwise, you can study adaptations from the perspective of how the body is put
together and shaped (Structuralism),
or you can study it according to the job it performs (Functionalism). I prefer a
third option: Study the human body from
the perspective of how a body is shaped (adapted) to perform a particular role
for the human that possesses it, in other words, how the structure matches or
is adapted to the function of a trait. This approach is called structural functionalism.
For instance, it is useful to understand how the human spine has
developed secondary curvatures in the lumbar region as a means of adapting to
an upright stature in bipedalism, to place the center of gravity over the feet
in a way that allows the spine the optimum stability and flexibility. This is certainly more useful than just
describing the lumbar curvature OR analyzing the strength and flexibility
limits of the spine on their own (at least in my humble opinion).
What does this have to do with marriage? I suggest that the structural functional
approach need not be limited to anatomical adaptations or other physical human
traits. I suggest it is also helpful and
productive to apply it to cultural traits as well. Don’t just describe a behavior or talk about
its function. Talk about how the way the
behavior is practiced is best adapted to the function that it serves a
particular culture. So can we do that
for marriage?
Let’s start by breaking marriage into its structural
functional components and then see if we can find patterns of relatedness that
might help us explore what marriage actually “is”, preferably in a way that
would be applied cross-culturally, not just to our own westernized cultures.
Structure of
Marriage:
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| Polygynous Family |
Earlier in this class you were learning about different forms of
marriage. The two most common are
monogamy (one man and one woman) and polygamy (one individual with more than
one mate). Polygamy is broken into two
primary categories: polygyny (one man
with multiple wives) and polyandry (one wife with multiple husbands). Given these categories, right away we see
that perhaps the “marriage is between a man and a woman” crowd might have some
problems from a cross-cultural perspective, but let’s keep going.
Why do some cultures practice monogamy while others practice
polygyny and a few practice polyandry?
Well, it turns out that humans practice a marriage pattern (or mating
pattern) seen in many of our non-human primate relatives, a pattern called Resource Defense Polgyny. This simply means that whether or not a
population practices polygyny is dependent upon how unequally distributed the
resources are within the males of that population. If resources (such as wealth) are relatively equal among males,
monogamy will be prevalent. Large levels
of unequal distribution? The potential
for polgyny is high. Why? Essentially, resource distribution indicates whether some men can
attract a greater number of mates. If
there is no advantage to females to marry a male who already has a mate, they
will look for an unattached male. If all
unattached males have less available resources than an already mated males,
females (or in the case of humans, their families) will be willing to allow for the status as
second mate (or third, forth, etc.), if there are sufficient resources
to justify the decision.
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| Gorilla family with silverback male |
You see this in silverback gorillas, whose mate number seems
to match their ability to defend resources and his females with their
offspring. You also see it in
orangutans, who are monogamous because they are not territorial and therefore not able
to attract multiple mates. And you see
both patterns in traditional human populations, where populations in chiefdoms
and state societies often have wealthy men with multiple wives compared to egalitarian societies, where resources are
spread more evenly and tend to be monogamous.
(For those paying attention, polyandry tends to occur where families
don’t want to divide resources between sons and so the sons both marry the same woman.)
The exception seems to be our westernized cultures. Who has greater levels of wealth
stratification than we do? Why don’t we
practice polygyny? Well, the easy answer
is that we have laws against it, laws often based upon religions thousands of
years old. Something seemed to have happened
thousands of years ago that caused our cultures to ban polygynous
marriage. It’s not that none of the men
wanted to be polygynous. But for some reason, it benefited society in general to ban the
practice.
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| John Edwards -- NOT monogamous |
But another answer is to ask another question: Are we really monogamous? No, from a biological perspective, we
aren’t. We have what is called serial monogamy, where
many people marry, have kids, divorce and remarry. We also have plenty of extra-marital
relationships, enough to keep Jerry Springer a very wealthy man. We may be legally monogamous, but we are effectively polygynous, matching our
wealth stratification. So there seems to
be ways of describing the structure of human marriage patterns in a predictable way. It isn’t completely random or culturally
determined. It has a basis in
biology.
The Function of Marriage:
Well, that one is easy, right? The function of marriage is to form marital
units and produce offspring. In fact, in
some cultures, with their emphasis on virginity, the primary function of
marriages seems to be the production of offspring with a guarantee that the new
husband will be the biological father of the new wife’s offspring, avoiding the
threat of cuckoldry. Marriage = Reproduction. End of story?
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| Arranged Marriage |
Given the section in your textbook on the Yam Complex of the Trobriand
Islanders earlier in this course, I hope you see the problem with
jumping to this conclusion. This is
indeed one function of marriage, but it is one of many. In our westernized cultures, where we have
adopted a very romantic vision of marriage, a marital union is the joining of
two people (a man and a woman) who love each other and want to start a
family. Visions of white weddings,
little chapels, and receptions with grandmothers dancing the Funky Chicken
abound, right? But in many cultures,
marriage has not only a reproductive function but also an economic, social, or
even a political function. In
traditional societies, you are not marrying two people but two families. The families arrange this, with the wishes of
the bride and the groom not always taken into consideration. Marriages are evaluated based upon the
economic and social gain of the two families.
Does it improve the social status of the families? How will dowry or brideprice change
hands? Is it a balanced exchange or does one side have an advantage? And for individuals in positions
of power, politics often come into play in marriage. Think of the weddings of the ancient kings of
England, France and Spain. Did they
marry for love? No, they tended to marry
for territory, or protection, or to gain a military advantage. How romantic.
So is it fair to say that marriage has a purely reproductive
function (which is one of the arguments against gay marriage)? Far from it.
It is one of many functions and sometimes not even in the top five. In heterosexual marriages, there is no guarantee
that children will result or even that the couple will want to reproduce. Reproduction is a common function but not a
required component of marriage. So, a
cross-cultural perspective reveals that identifying the creation of a
reproductive unit is an extremely limited and culturally unaware way of
describing the function of marriage.
Let’s summarize what biological and cross-cultural comparisons
tell us about the structural functional role of marriage in human populations,
and let’s be careful to try to produce an unbiased description that broadly covers as
many structures and functions as possible:
Marriage is an adaptive union of two or more humans in a arrangement
that exhibits one or more functions, including those of social, economic,
reproductive, political, and even religious natures, the structure of which can
be influenced by both the biological and cultural environmental conditions
unique to a particular culture.
Notice the word “adaptive” in there.
Marriage can necessarily adjust as required to the needs of a population. This doesn’t mean change will come readily or
will be welcome, but given the changing nature of the world around us, and
given the wide variation cross-culturally in the concept of marriage, it is
apparent that marriage has changed and will change if it serves the culture to
do so.
Discussion question:
Given that extensive
background, let’s ask a different question.
Why resist the change? If
marriage can vary and can change in response to changing needs and conditions,
what is the purpose and function to resistance to this change? Specifically, from a cultural and social
standpoint, why do those who make the claim above that “Marriage is between a man
and a woman for the purpose of producing offspring” feel the need to defend this stance? What cultural
purpose does the resistance serve? There
are two options in how you respond to this series of questions. In one comment you can either:
a. Express the opinion that you feel
these individuals are correct in their claim that marriage
is between a man and a woman for the purpose of producing offspring. But for full credit on the bonus points, you
must present a logical, supportable argument against all of the biological and
cross-cultural evidence presented in this post.
OR…
b. You can argue that those who
view marriage within this particular limited scope are incorrect in their view AND
offer a possible explanation as to why they resist a change in this specific
cultural definition of marriage. This
explanation could have a basis in society, economics, religion, politics,
biology or any other aspect of culture.
Just offer a possible supportable benefit the proponents of this stance
might receive in return for resisting change in the definition of marriage.
Then for an additional 5 points, respond to a comment by
another student. This could be
supportive, offering additional evidence for their argument, or you could
challenge their argument and offer opposing evidence that falsifies their
stance. Either way, let’s keep in mind
that this can be a hot button topic that inspires strong emotions. Make sure the conversation stays civil and
academic, using evidence and reason, not personal opinion and emotion.
So what do you think?
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