Defining Marriage is Problematic
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| Sat, 02-07-2004 - 10:49am |
Commentary, William O. Beeman,
Pacific News Service, Feb 05, 2004
Editor's Note: Legislators' attempts to codify marriage as "between a man and a woman" won't work, writes PNS contributor William O. Beeman. Like it or not, there is no single, clear biological, psychological or cultural definition of "male" and "female." Already, courts are faltering on the ambiguity of gender.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court advisory, stating that nothing short of marriage for same-sex couples would satisfy the state constitution, has sent legislators throughout the nation as well as President Bush scrambling to define marriage as between "one man and one woman."
These legislative attempts are doomed, because there is no clear, scientific and strict definition of "man" and "woman." There are millions of people with ambiguous gender -- many of them already married -- who render these absolute categories invalid.
There are at least three ways one might try to codify gender under law -- biologically, psychologically and culturally. On close inspection, all of them fail.
Biologically, one must choose either secondary sexual characteristics -- things like facial hair for men or breast development for women -- or genetic testing as defining markers of gender. Neither method is clear-cut. Some women show male secondary characteristics, and vice versa. Before puberty, things are not necessarily any clearer. A significant proportion of all babies have ambiguous gender development. It has been longstanding -- and now, increasingly, controversial -- medical practice to surgically "reassign" such babies shortly after birth so that they will have only one set of sexual organs.
Sometimes doctors guess wrong, and children are "reassigned" and raised as males, when they are genetically female, and vice versa.
In one condition, androgen insensitivity syndrome, genetic males are born with a genetic immunity to androgens, the hormones that produce male sexual characteristics. Though they are genetic males, these children typically grow up looking like females, although they have no internal female organs.
Although figures are imprecise, experts in intersexuality, such as Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling of Brown University, estimate that persons born with some degree of ambiguous gender constitute approximately 1 percent of the population. This means that there are 2 million Americans who may be biologically ambiguous.
Psychologically, another dilemma for those who seek to codify gender is the condition known as gender dysphoria, in which a person feels that their true gender is the opposite of that in which they were born. These individuals are often referred to as "transgendered." Some experts estimate as many as 1.2 million Americans are transgendered. Gender dysphoria is a matter of personal identity and has nothing to do with sexual orientation. A male-to-female transgendered person may be attracted to women or to men.
Finally, human societies around the world recognize individuals who are culturally female or culturally male no matter what their physical gender. The "berdache" is an umbrella term used by Europeans to designate a man who is culturally classified as a woman, and who may be a "wife" to another man. The practice is perhaps best known among the Zuñi Indians of Arizona, but is widely seen in other tribal groups as well. Outside of North America, the hijra of India, a cultural "third gender," is important in ceremonial life. Hijra are classified as "neither man nor woman," but they may marry males. These examples of cultural gender ambiguity are only two among dozens throughout the world.
If the United States tries to enact a national law defining gender conditions for marriage, it is only a matter of time before the law falters on one of these rocks of ambiguity. There are undoubtedly existing marriages where the wife is a genetic male or the husband is a genetic female. In a medical examination, if it is determined that this genetic fact is discovered, is the marriage then voided? When post-operative transgendered persons wed, whom will they be allowed to marry -- persons with the opposite set of chromosomes, or people with the opposite set of genitalia?
There has already been one Texas decision where two "women" were allowed to marry, because one of them had originally been a male. We can expect far more stories like this should this legislative circus proceed.
PNS contributor William O. Beeman (William_beeman@brown.edu) teaches anthropology at Brown University.
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=d3362852002e314524ffb9ac8eac3c91

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Welcome to the "In the News" board.
1.As a secular government, in so far as our government does not ascribe to the beliefs of a particular religion, should the government be in the business of "marriage" at all? As marriage is traditionally a religious rite of passage, why is the government involved?
I suppose the answer to the above question is because goverment confers benefits to families, a husband and wife and resulting children. Traditionally, men provided for the family and specific benefits for his dependants needed to be accounted for.
Therefore if the government's involvement in marriage is to assure the correct and legal allocation of benefits for familial dependants, shouldn't all "marriages" be called civil unions- for BOTH straight and gay couples - at least in the eyes of our government.
This would eliminate the government's meddling into the business of marriage, would alleviate the rhetorical discrepancy between the rights of gays to marry, and would solve the current debate of civil unions being seperate but equal.
I just don't understand how currently Catholics, Jews and Unitarians, etc. each have different ideas about what constitutes a marriage - and yet the state does not become involved in their specific nuances. Why now?
To make a long story short, in the eyes of government all marriages should be considered civil unions (nothing more) and anyone regardless of sexuality, religion or race should be allowed to marry anyone they want.
Edited 2/25/2004 2:56:37 PM ET by andybol
>"To make a long story short, in the eyes of government all marriages should be considered civil unions (nothing more) and anyone regardless of sexuality, religion or race should be allowed to marry anyone they want."<
That makes too much sense. Plus Bush would have to find another issue to please the RR & use as a smoke screen to avoid discussing issues such as the economy, Iraq situation, the "no child left behind" failure.......ect.
No, actually, inequality is what causes hate and discontent, and that's what we're dealing with now. It has never been characteristic of the majority to defend the rights of the minority. That's what the courts are for- think about it. If the majority could be depended upon to correctly decide who deserves what rights, women wouldn't have suffrage and blacks wouldn't be citizens. It doesn't make sense for gays to be denied a right because straight people don't think they should have it. Providing rights to one group does not detract from the rights of another.
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