Question
Why is what the state says about marriage important to Western civilization?
Answer
Nothing particularly Western about it. The state can and SHOULD be concerned with the subject, far more than individuals.
Our peculiar pattern of mostly-loyal pair bonding with occasional extremes of polygamy is something that distinguishes us from other apes. That will go on no matter what. Our mating behaviors presumably evolved in the interest of our selfish genes.
Marriage on the other hand is a purely social institution, designed to manage money, not genes. Its entire focus, historically, has been on issues like inheritance, primogeniture, "royal" blood lines, political alliances between warring clans (i.e. a tool for diplomacy). Divorce settlements, dowry customs, child support payments, widow/widower remarriage laws and other financial elements of marriage show just how much of the world's economic activity is mediated by marriage.
In other words, marriage is primarily a means for statecraft. Diplomacy in particular in the past, and primarily tax law today. In the last century, an element of social justice (protecting the rights of women, who have traditionally not been directly compensated for their role in the economy through their work in the home) has entered into the governance of marriage.
Think about it this way: marriage is an institution based on a basic biological drive that happens to be an extremely useful thing to control to achieve the ends of governance, just as the instinct towards violence is also an extremely useful one to control through the creation of armies.
If the State had nothing to say about marriage, we wouldn't NEED marriage.
The idea that romantic love has something to do with the goals of the institution is a very modern one. Historically, "love" is something that was treated with benign neglect in the design of "marriage" structures. If it found room to survive and thrive in the interstices of the laws defining it, so be it. If not, too bad. Steamroller over it.
As for gay marriage. I am in full sympathy with the movement. The champions need to take on the full-blown design of the marriage model though (including it's complete financial impact), not just some subset. To do this, they need to truly understand and manage how the relationship to adoption might work, since without the financial aspects of child-raising and inheritance, it becomes a fundamentally different institution.
But the same conclusion holds. The State SHOULD be interested in marriage, gay or straight. It's interest is what creates the institution like I said.
Our peculiar pattern of mostly-loyal pair bonding with occasional extremes of polygamy is something that distinguishes us from other apes. That will go on no matter what. Our mating behaviors presumably evolved in the interest of our selfish genes.
Marriage on the other hand is a purely social institution, designed to manage money, not genes. Its entire focus, historically, has been on issues like inheritance, primogeniture, "royal" blood lines, political alliances between warring clans (i.e. a tool for diplomacy). Divorce settlements, dowry customs, child support payments, widow/widower remarriage laws and other financial elements of marriage show just how much of the world's economic activity is mediated by marriage.
In other words, marriage is primarily a means for statecraft. Diplomacy in particular in the past, and primarily tax law today. In the last century, an element of social justice (protecting the rights of women, who have traditionally not been directly compensated for their role in the economy through their work in the home) has entered into the governance of marriage.
Think about it this way: marriage is an institution based on a basic biological drive that happens to be an extremely useful thing to control to achieve the ends of governance, just as the instinct towards violence is also an extremely useful one to control through the creation of armies.
If the State had nothing to say about marriage, we wouldn't NEED marriage.
The idea that romantic love has something to do with the goals of the institution is a very modern one. Historically, "love" is something that was treated with benign neglect in the design of "marriage" structures. If it found room to survive and thrive in the interstices of the laws defining it, so be it. If not, too bad. Steamroller over it.
As for gay marriage. I am in full sympathy with the movement. The champions need to take on the full-blown design of the marriage model though (including it's complete financial impact), not just some subset. To do this, they need to truly understand and manage how the relationship to adoption might work, since without the financial aspects of child-raising and inheritance, it becomes a fundamentally different institution.
But the same conclusion holds. The State SHOULD be interested in marriage, gay or straight. It's interest is what creates the institution like I said.