Reclaiming Love From Marriage

To the editor:

In general, I have sympathy for arguments in favor of restoring marriage as an institution to America. I have no love for promiscuity, and I believe that the stability of our home environment determines our overall health. And yes, I believe that America’s increasingly sexualized culture is something worrisome and dangerous for American youth.

Nevertheless, reading the op-ed by Luciano E. Milano’14 and James P. McGlone’15 entitled “Reclaiming Marriage” was a shock. They quote “studies” and “research” that have (apparently conclusively) shown that “marriage provides better conditions than any other form of relationship for couples’ well being.” Their claims reinforce faulty stereotypes of non-traditional parents as being violent, drug-affected, low-achievers who have no morals.

First, the authors should have produced some empirical research that backed their claims that traditional households perform better on “a myriad of sociological indices,” preferably not from an institution predisposed to traditional marriage. Apart from the obvious bias, there are definitely confounding variables driving both the rate of marriage and the negative sociological effects the authors identify, giving a false impression of a relationship.

Though the reckless claims are egregious enough to statistical sensibilities, the more serious problem is the admission that marriage is just a front: It is norms (commonly associated with marriage, but perhaps mistakenly so) that promote stable living environments. In that case, what’s the big deal about marriage?

Marriage is no longer the only way to love. The lifestyles some have chosen to embrace are private matters that deserve respect. Arguments castigating them on practical grounds are unfounded, and those that do so upon moral grounds are self-righteous and antiquated. Pro-marriage advocates often promote marriage to the exclusion of all other forms of love; instead, they should promote the norms commonly associated with marriage to advocate for healthier, committed, moral couples…without necessarily being married.

Today, we wage an unnecessary war to promote marriage between individuals of all kinds of sexuality. For those who are told that marriage is not accessible, the idea that marriage is the only legitimate institution for forming a family is an affront. We should be escaping from the pure symbolism of the altar and realizing that love need not be confined to where the law dictates.

Stop trying to reclaim marriage from people who never took it away. Instead, help reclaim love, understanding, commitment, and moral integrity, characteristics that—imagine that!—can and do exist separate and apart from marriage.

Kevin Liu Huang ‘13 is a joint Government-Statistics concentrator in Kirkland House.