Image: Simon Carrasco
Dear Melanie,
Before I say anything, let me come out of the closet as an admirer of your newspaper columns. It is my respect for your cautious attitude towards social permissiveness which makes me determined to persuade you that gay and lesbian couples should be offered some kind of marriage arrangement to solidify their relationships. I hope you will find my case convincing, because it is based on an outlook rather close to your own.
Quite simply, marriage helps foster stable relationships and stable relationships are socially advantageous-as well as fulfilling to the individuals involved. Dame Sybil Thorndike captured it for me in her response to an enquiry as to whether she and her late husband had ever contemplated divorce. "Divorce, never," she said. "Murder, often." The best relationships involve challenges; they have bad days, sometimes very bad days. But these relationships usually deserve to survive. It is better for the couple to stick at it, despite the ephemeral attractions of independence or occasional temptations of the flesh. And marriage helps relationships survive by making it sufficiently hard to escape from them that the parties will not do so lightly. All the legal hassles, all the embarrassment, the wasted cost of the wedding. You won't throw away your relationship unless you believe it is permanently unviable.
You hardly need reminding of this. You already advocate legal marriage as a far superior arrangement to mere cohabitation for heterosexual couples. All I am saying is that it is a bit perverse to stop gay people from adopting any arrangement except the one of which you disapprove. You might of course argue that stability in straight relationships is more important than in gay ones, because children are more often involved. Fair enough; you and I agree that stability is good for children. But it hardly seems sensible to say that marriage is only about the kids. Surely neither of us would think that childless straight couples-those who are unable to have children or those who are post-menopausal-would do as well just to shack up together, because commitment doesn't matter for them.
Marriage can be about lots of things: looking after each other in old age or in sickness; providing company; preventing the despair which can occur from prolonged isolation. It can be about an efficient division of labour within the household, which allows each partner to specialise in their areas of personal strength, knowing that they will be covered by the partner in the rest. In all these cases, there is no reason to imagine that gay couples are different from their heterosexual counterparts, even if they do not have children.
Even if you accept this argument, I do understand that you might find some other reason to deny recognition of gay marriage. Perhaps you are scared that state-recognised relationships would imply increased permissiveness towards homosexuality in general. Maybe you worry that reducing the stigma of being gay would increase the temptation of "marginally homosexual" individuals to adopt a gay lifestyle, rather than try to live more conventionally. Or maybe you worry that removing the remaining taboos on homosexuality could weaken society's other more useful taboos, against, say, prostitution or adultery.
I find none of these arguments convincing. There is a big difference between the promotion of tolerance towards a small minority within the population (such as those people with same-sex preferences) and tolerance towards a behaviour-type which many people would adopt were there no social restraints on doing so (such as cheating on your wife). Social conservatives should pick and choose their taboos carefully! As for the concern that permissiveness towards homosexuality might "entice" people into the wrong lifestyle, I can only say that this is ridiculous-many more natural homosexual-types struggle hopelessly to live a conventional straight life than straight people strive to live a gay one.
Of course, I would never argue that there are no differences between men and women or, more interestingly, between gay male couples and heterosexual couples. It is not hard to find evidence that gay men-even those in relationships-often behave more promiscuously than those in relationships involving a woman. (My own guess is that all men would behave more like gay men, were they able to persuade women to accept it.) You might want to argue that because gay men are more predisposed to adultery than their straight counterparts, they should not be given equal marriage rights. Fine-give us something close, but call it something different. I still think you should believe in some marriage rights.
Anyway, if it is gay promiscuity you are worried about, why write off all gay men, and deny us even the option to settle into some fulfilling arrangement? Allowing gay men to register their settled partnerships is not likely to create more promiscuity. All in all, Melanie, I hope that you will agree that those of us who see value in marriage should want to extend it-or some analogous institution-to as many people as possible.
Yours,
Evan Davis
23rd February 1999
Dear Evan,
After such compliments, how can I disagree? Without wishing to turn this into a mutual admiration society, may I say that I very much respect your own thoughtful and courageous position. You understand the crucial role marriage plays in promoting social stability, which is vital for the tolerance on which gay people and other minorities depend. I know a number of gay people want their lives to embody values of stable family life: self-discipline, fidelity, trust, putting the interests of others first. In the US, Jonathan Rauch has written that it is better to take out mortgages and buy furniture at Ikea together than to "perpetuate the closet-gay culture of furtive sex with innumerable partners in parks and bathhouses." Amen to that: social inclusion starts at Ikea! I also sympathise with gay people's need to feel fully included in society. No one should be stigmatised on account of their sexuality. So I want to find a way in which I can support gay marriage.
But your arguments do not convince me. I am solely concerned with the impact of gay marriage on heterosexual marriage and behaviour. And I think there is a general misunderstanding about what marriage actually is. Marriage is not merely a public recognition of a private relationship. Nor is it simply a legal contract. Marriage is a public institution of interlocking duties. It creates kinship, the legal equivalent of the blood tie. This is necessary because marriage is principally a union for the procreation and rearing of children. Because it is so important for both parents to stay involved in that process, marriage gives the force of law to a permanent sexual bond with one person, to whom a solemn vow of faithfulness is given. Of course, not all married couples want children. And I know gays and lesbians argue that they can have children through artificial insemination. (I happen to think that it is not desirable for any children to be deliberately conceived through AID, IVF or any other marvels fermenting in Robert Winston's test-tubes, and that goes for heterosexuals, too.) But children are not my main concern about gay marriage. My concern is promiscuity.
Acceptance of promiscuous or "recreational" sex is one of the cultural factors which has undermined marriage. Marriage is a fragile institution which is taking a hammering. The irony is that while heterosexual society is busy junking marriage, gays seem to be discovering it. But unfortunately it is not so easy. You hope that gay marriage would help relationships to survive. Well, marriage is much more than merely a permanent commitment. It is essentially a heterosexual union because it is based on sexual differences, on complementary rather than identical identities and roles. It is a bargain between women and men which hinges on faithfulness.
Men are basically promiscuous. But a man wants to be sure that it is his genes which are being reproduced and not some other chap's. So he needs to be certain the mother of his child is faithful to him. For her part, the woman provides exclusive sex in return for his fidelity and his continuing presence to help rear his children. Infidelity can't be tolerated because it poses the threat that he'll leave her, especially as she grows older and loses her attractiveness. In other words, women are absolutely pivotal to marriage. Because men are naturally promiscuous, two men will stick together as naturally as the two north poles of a magnet. It is not marriage which domesticates men-it is women.
I accept that some gay men live unobtrusively with the same partner for years. But are they not relatively rare? As you yourself concede, promiscuity and casual sex generally figure more heavily for gays than for heterosexuals. If that is the case, then gay marriage would be a sham. And that would undermine marriage itself, precisely because of the insistence that gay marriage should be given moral equivalence. Marriage would effectively become indifferent to sexual betrayal. So gays would be depriving heterosexuals of their rights to an institution which (less and less, I grant you) offers them protection from infidelity and desertion.
I want to find a compromise. So I am attracted to the idea of a registered gay partnership that is not marriage. But what would this amount to? A public affirmation of commitment sounds good. But you would have to convince me that promiscuity was not a significant element in gay relationships. Could you really say that? I would also be worried that heterosexuals would demand similar cohabitation rights, which would give poor old marriage the coup de gr?e. I want to help. But I'm not convinced.
Kind regards,
Melanie Phillips
24th February 1999
Dear Melanie,
I fear that the issue that will forever keep us apart is the very one that undermines so many relationships. Sex. You are clearly obsessed with it. In your view, marriage is always and necessarily a sexual bargain between people of different genders who have different biological motivations. You believe that it makes as much sense for there to be a marriage contract without a woman, as it does for there to be an employment contract without an employer. It is the difference in gender which renders any formal contract useful.
Unfortunately, while biology is excellent at describing human motivation on average, it is poor at describing it in each case. My boyfriend, for example, is not a woman. But he is keen for a monogamous relationship. What is the poor chap to do? Should he not be able to enter something more formal with me than a cohabitation? Are you not guilty of confining him to what you see as the sad gay fate of casual sex and broken relationships?
There is more to relationships than sex alone. Even if I could persuade my boyfriend to have a sexually open relationship with me, who says that there is no worthwhile contract to be struck between us? If he moved to Britain from Brazil (rather tricky, currently, as the Home Office does not recognise our relationship), he would have to give up a good job at home. He may want a commitment from me. Maybe I will support him when he gets here, and thus want a commitment from him. Sexual fidelity is an important requirement for most people, but it is not the only requirement of a life partner.
Your worry is that if gay men start having open relationships, everyone will want them; straight marriage will be further undermined. I disagree. For one thing, there are too few of us to have much effect on straight marriage (possibly 2 per cent of men, 1 per cent of women). And if straight men did try to emulate their fun-loving gay counterparts, they would confront one large problem very quickly: women wouldn't play. As you tirelessly remind us, ultimately it's women who keep straight men on the narrow.
You should be more relaxed about the social impact of sex between gay men. Gay promiscuity does not create unloved children; nor is it associated with violent or anti-social behaviour. It will not pollute straight society. Gay promiscuity is, however, associated with one big problem-HIV. A problem not so much for society at large, as for gay people themselves. And because of HIV alone, gays need every possible means of creating strong and binding relationships. Some kind of marriage arrangement would help provide an alternative to promiscuity for those uncomfortable with it, and may even broaden gay culture beyond its current preoccupations.
I do not disagree with the idea that men are programmed differently from women. I am too streetwise to argue that if gay men were allowed to register their partnerships, they would all settle into monogamous contentment. Many of the most successful and durable gay male relationships are sexually open-or at least they slowly become so, as the initial sexual bond between the two partners weakens. But I can't accept that this disqualifies all of us from any kind of marriage arrangement at all.
Yours,
Evan
28th February 1999
Dear Evan,
You are right. Sex is going to divide us. The whole point of marriage is that it regularises and regulates a sexual union. Your Brazilian boyfriend appears to realise this, because you say he is very keen to have a monogamous relationship. In other words, he knows that marriage is basically all about throwing a kind of cordon sanitaire around a sexual union.
He appears to believe that if you and he got married this would enforce monogamy on both of you. I certainly don't want to condemn him to a lifetime of heartless liaisons. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to chuck a box of confetti over you both. My point, though, is that merely signing a contract claiming to be marriage wouldn't protect either of you from the other's infidelity. This is because marriage is not merely an agreement but an interlocking arrangement of mutual interest which enforces sexual fidelity, crucial to each partner for the different reasons I outlined in my first letter. Among heterosexuals, this deal is now under strain because sex has become detached from marriage, along with any children it may produce. Toleration and even encouragement of out-of-wedlock births and serial sexual relationships among single people have both played a big role in undermining marriage.
Of course marriage is about far more than sex. But without sex, can there really be a marriage? You argue that marriage is the best way to encourage monogamy and yet, in the next breath, claim that monogamy is no big deal anyway. Make up your mind! How can marriage possibly mean anything if it isn't a commitment by two people to permanent fidelity? Or, to put it another way, why should you or your boyfriend be entitled to a share of each other's worldly goods if you're not faithful to each other? Where are the responsibilities that go with the rights?
That is why promiscuity is one of the most important problems with the idea of gay marriage. If gay marriage knowingly winks at promiscuity, how can it be anything other than a farce? You yourself appear to think an "open" marriage is no problem. Oh, come on. Sexual jealousy is the oldest and strongest emotion there is. Open-ended encounters may be ten-minute flings, but they all obviously carry a threat that they may develop into a deeper relationship which will bust the marriage. Open marriage may have worked occasionally in Bloomsbury, but I doubt it would hold up in Bury or Balham.
As for the tiny numbers involved, that is not the point. If gay marriage, despite its (presumed) acceptance of promiscuity, is considered morally, legally and intellectually to have absolutely the same status as heterosexual marriage, then by definition the latter must adopt the same set of values. Gay marriage may not directly create unloved children, but further down the heterosexual line it will.
Yours,
Melanie
3rd March 1999
Dear Melanie,
We agree on what a typical heterosexual marriage needs to consist of in order to be fulfilling and sustainable to man and woman. We also agree that men and women are different, so we agree that a gay marriage may differ in the way it satisfies man and man or woman and woman. In particular, a gay male marriage may involve different arrangements involving sex.
The disagreement is over your view that this difference provides a ground for denying any recognition of any same-sex arrangement at all. Even lesbians are excluded from any formal relationship, despite more closely adhering to the monogamous ideal than any other category at all.
The differences between types of people only provide grounds for slightly different types of marriage arrangement. Aspects of a gay or lesbian marriage (such as whether the relationship is sexually open or not) would be left to the privacy of the two people involved, just as aspects of heterosexual marriage (such as how often the couple have sex, or whether they have children) are discreetly decided between a man and a woman.
But in my world, a gay marriage arrangement would mimic marriage in offering special privileges such as immigration, inheritance and tenancy rights; it would provide gay couples a tax subsidy equal to that given to childless heterosexual couples; and it would bestow automatic social recognition in the hundreds of daily situations where married couples are recognised as a single unit. In an ideal world, it would also bind the partners to each other by imposing some penalty on whoever walks out on the other. And it would, for example, give my boyfriend a share of my worldly goods, irrespective of the particular sexual path we follow.
Of course, relationship recognition would not come free: gay couples would have to show that they are serious. We have to think of ways of screening the passing crush from the lasting love. This should not be an insurmountable problem.
Finally, Melanie, remember that gay people are arguably the last enthusiasts for marriage left. My hope is that if society can provide sound arrangements for solidifying gay relationships, we would be providing a tonic, not a toxin, for the traditional institution.
All the very best,
Evan
4th March 1999
Dear Evan,
Your argument seems to be that gay marriage may be different in certain respects from heterosexual marriage, but that wouldn't alter its validity. Well, I really think you are trying to have this all ways. These differences are not minor, or trivial. Marriage is not like ice cream, to be served up in a variety of flavours. Nor is it like a tube of glue, to be used to stick together any type of relationship which happens to be in vogue. It is a unique institution and its terms are not negotiable.
Fidelity is essential to its meaning. You haven't given me a clear answer to the question of gay promiscuity; indeed, you appear to think it is not important. But fidelity is crucial because of the issue of children; which is why marriage is a vow, not a contract, and why children are implicitly, if not explicitly, the point of the thing. If sex were to be regarded as small beer compared to, say, shopping at Ikea together, then there would be nothing to stop the "marriage" degenerating into one "passing crush" after another.
I sympathise with gays' longing for social approval. And I am cheered to discover that they are enthusiasts for marriage. They are wise to be so, because social tolerance of minorities will vanish if marriage goes down the tubes. I look forward, therefore, to trenchant gay support in the battle against all those who want to see marriage destroyed.
With warmest wishes,
Melanie
