Coontz and Marriage

Thanks to Michael for his posting on Professor Stephanie Coontz’s interesting but defective account of history—particularly within the Christian and western tradition of which she speaks. I have some questions about how she portrays the “state” of the 16^th century, but I’ll put them aside for the present moment. I shall, however, pursue another issue of hers today. She tailors history to suit her purpose (e.g., she confuses the consent given in a Christian marriage by the husband and wife with the “couple’s wishes”), which appears in both the first and last observations she makes. She, and her legal authority, Professor Nancy Polikoff, are attempting to redefine marriage. To substantiate in part my claim, I turn to the American University law faculty profile of Professor Polikoff, which states:

For 30 years, she has been writing about and litigating cases involving lesbian and gay families. Her articles have appeared in numerous law reviews, and her history of the development of the law affecting lesbian and gay parenting appears as a chapter in J. D’Emilio, W. Turner, and U. Vaid, eds., Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, and Civil Rights (2000). She helped develop the legal theories in support of second-parent adoption and visitation rights for legally unrecognized parents, and she was successful counsel in In re M.M.D., the 1995 case that established joint adoption for lesbian and gay couples in the District of Columbia, and Boswell v. Boswell, the 1998 Maryland case overturning restrictions on a gay noncustodial father’s visitation rights. She is currently at work on her forthcoming book, Valuing All Families, to be published by Beacon Press in 2007.

It seems that The New York Times is cooperating in their enterprise. Their tactic (Coontz and Polikoff) seems to be this: first let us forget history and then let us rewrite it the way we approve; second, let us privatize marriage so that whatever relationship someone wants they can have and call it marriage; and third, once the second point has been accepted by society because it is “private”, efforts will be pursued to institutionalize and mandate acceptance of alternative forms of “marriage.” I, for one, do not think that the Coontz-Polikoff schema is to privatize marriage. But if I am wrong in assessing their objective, I ask their pardon. However, I must ask something in return: that Professor Coontz correct her account of Christian marriage so that it will acknowledge what the Church has taught and continues to teach—that marriage is not a purely human institution, but is one established by God and protected by the Church—an institution that takes one man and one woman and brings them into a spiritual and physical union with one another because they were created for one another.     RJA sj