"Marriage has a specific meaning!"

Great Debates
1

One often hears the argument made by opponents to same-sex marriage that the word “marriage” has a specific meaning, and that meaning does not encompass same-sex unions, and that therefore, same-sex unions, if they’re allowed at all, ought to be called by a different name.

Now, it’s true, of course, that the word “marriage” has a meaning, but a simple test will demonstrate that that meaning does, in fact, apply to same-sex couples. Namely, if I refer to a same-sex marriage, everyone knows what I mean. If I say that Bob and Frank are married, everyone knows what that means, too. Some folks might say that Bob and Frank shouldn’t be married, or that in the eyes of God or of the government they aren’t married and that my statement is therefore incorrect, but it’s still clear what it means to say that they are married.

Compare this to other words: If I say that a table is orange, you’ll understand me (though, again, you might think that the table shouldn’t be orange), but if I say that gravity is orange, you would ask me what in the world it means for gravity to be orange, and that I’m not making sense. From this we see that the word “orange” encompasses things like tables, but does not encompass things like gravity. If someone tried to pass a law permitting orange gravity, I’d oppose that law because it was ridiculous.

In short, the purpose of words is to communicate, and a word that successfully communicates something is a valid use of that word. “Same-sex marriage”, or the word “marriage” used in a same-sex context, clearly communicates, whereas “orange gravity” does not. Therefore, even though some words can’t be sensibly applied to some situations, “marriage” as applied to same-sex unions is not one of them.

2

This is a lovely argument against that particular point of view. I don’t think it will convince anyone who isn’t already on your side, but that’s the nature of the beast. Reason isn’t what their side is about.

I personally prefer the argument that governments should get out of the marriage business. Let churches control marriages in whatever way they want. The state should be in charge of all civil unions, and all civil unions should be equal, and open to any two people. If you want to be recognized by your church as a couple, get married. If you want to be recognized by the state as a couple, get a civil union. Simple.
Roddy

3

I have used this argument before - the fact that people understand the term “same-sex marriage” indicates that “same-sex” is a linguistically comprehensible modifier of the word “marriage”, and (therefore) that “same-sex marriage” is a linguistically correct subclass of the set of things called “marriages”.

Of course none of this applies if one is speaking of “marriage” as a legal term of art - but legal terms-of-art have arbitrary meanings anyway, and so could be ‘expanded’ to include same-sex marriages without any problems other than hammering out any tantential parts of law that rely on the assumption of the sex of the participants.

I am interested in seeing what counterarguments are made in this thread.

4

What would be your response to “I agree utterly - except that it already happened decades ago. And the state should keep calling their civil unions “marriages”, because there is no reason not to, and to avoid having to change the term in all the existing related laws.”

5

The government has a legal institution called “marriage.” That has nothing to do with anyone’s religious marriage. The government doesn’t care whether or not your religious institution recognizes your marriage, all it cares is that a set of specific legal requirements are met. All you are doing here is changing the legal term “marriage” to the legal term “civil union.” This is like proposing that the government start using a different word to refer to corporations or that the government start using a different word to refer to estates. What’s the point?

6

I’m an atheist. Does that mean I can’t get married?

7

Well, the “same sex marriage” argument doesn’t hold water since you had add “same sex” to make it clear. And to many people, if you say “Bob and Frank are married”, they will assume one of the two is a woman. Further, one can argue that it’s the legal meaning of the word that matters, not the vernacular. I might say that Bob is married to his TV, but everyone knows that a different sense of the word-- a vernacular sense, not a legal sense.

n.b.: I’m fully in favor of SSM. I just don’t think this particular argument works. By extension, it would also mean that polygamous marriages are OK, too. Which is fine by me, but not by most people. In reverse, you might argue that we used to recognize polygamous marriages, but not any longer. That was a change in the legal meaning of the word.

8

Inflaming anti homosexual hatred by creating a propaganda opportunity to claim that “see, they really are out to destroy marriage!” Or at least that would certainly be the effect regardless of the intent. Millions of people would be very angry to be told that their marriages have been downgraded to civil unions.

9

No, it wouldn’t mean that polygamous marriages are (legally) okay - it would just mean that the word “marriage” applied to polygamous marriage too. That is, when we see a cheezy 30’s adventure movie where a white guy in a turban indroduces his seven “wives” whom he has “married”, we don’t all look at the screen in consternation and say, “I have no idea what sort of a relationship he’s referring to with those women.”

I’ll add that if all the anti-SSM marriage people simultanously admitted, “Okay, okay, the word ‘marriage’ has meant so many different sorts of pairings and groupings that it makes our heads spin and our stomachs clench up”, that wouldn’t in the slightest obligate them to declare same-sex marriages legal.

10

And if it does have a specific meaning, so what? Meanings change over time. If we were discussing the marriages of ancient Romans, or of kings and queens in medieval Europe, it would mean something very different from what it means in Western society today, which is a voluntary relationship between equals. If anything adding gay couples is a less radical shift in the meaning of marriage than the introduction of love or romance.

11

Changing our entire law code isn’t simple. But I don’t think thats what this is really about, it isn’t about protecting the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, it’s about limiting the power of sinners.

12

Quoth John Mace:

Well, but adding the term “gravity” didn’t make “orange gravity” any clearer. And for the latter, let’s say that Bob and Frank are known to the person I’m addressing, or that I said that Mr. Bob Smith and Mr. Frank Jones are married.

Quoth Marley23:

Of course, it’s silly to try to carry the argument back to the ancient Romans, anyway, since the word “marriage” didn’t mean anything at all to them. They’d have “matrimonia” or something instead.

13

The same is true for any other specific type of marriage though, like “interracial marriage”, “arranged marriage”, “happy marriage”, “open marriage”, etc. They’re all still marriages, though.

I guess some people would think that, but I’d consider it a lot more likely that the speaker was talking about a gay couple than that there was a woman named Bob or Frank. I think most people would draw the same inference.

My real reason for posting is to share this anecdote: A couple of years ago the university where I work held a sort of mock trial event where students were supposed to decide who was morally (not legally) culpable in a murder. They had been given a description of the scenario ahead of time and were asked to write a response, and then they saw actors give “testimony” about the events leading up to the crime. Anyway, two characters involved were a married couple named Pat and Chris, and the story involved Pat cheating on Chris. I think the genders were left ambiguous in the written scenario because the actors hadn’t been recruited yet, but the organizers were also curious to see what kinds of assumptions the students would make about the gender of the cheating spouse.

As it turns out, a lot of students assumed Pat and Chris were BOTH men and were surprised when a woman came onstage as Chris. This assumption wasn’t limited to students who were particularly gay-friendly either. Some of the written comments said it was no surprise Pat was cheating on Chris since gay men were all promiscuous anyway and that just goes to show why gay marriage is a mistake. So at least among younger people I think it’s pretty common for it to be understood that a “marriage” can involve two people of the same sex even if it is never described as a “same sex marriage”.

14

If we could just ignore for a moment the political consequences of taking a position on the issue of what is implied by the word “marriage” you have to admit that until a few years ago, the expectation of who would be involved in a marriage contract was a one man and one woman.
Your argument is not really convincing today, although if you keep it up it might change in a generation or two. What ever, you won’t convince a contrarily minded person today on that basis.

That is not to say we’ve lost the reason to legitimize gay style marriages. The most serious reservations are based on simply the protection of the institution.

That is why I have found this article in Canada’s most conservative national newspaper reviewing the impact of 5 years of gay marriage, (55,000) to be very interesting reading

15

The weird thing to me is that it all seems to hinge over a definition of a word. Who cares? The word isn’t magical; it doesn’t have mystical powers. We can have it mean whatever we want it to mean. Why does it bother someone what word someone else uses?

And that’s ignoring the fact that the meanings of words change with usage. So even if someone could somehow manage to conclusively demonstrate that the word “marriage” meant exclusively “opposite sex marriages” - so what? Now it doesn’t. Why does it matter?

16

But strong gravity does mean something just as orange marriage doesn’t mean anything.

But my stronger argument was the legal meaning of the term vs the vernacular. Words in the vernacular change meanings all the time, but we don’t change the legal meaning willy-nilly.

17

I think you’re generalizing your own liberal views onto the majority of Americans. “You mean that Bob and Frank are married? How can two men be married?” That’s a lot more common than you think.

18

Because some words such as “marriage” have ramifications in legal code.

I don’t know of anybody intelligent on either side of the argument that believes words don’t change meaning. Anybody who has struggled through Beowulf or Shakespeare understands that.

For example, a long long time ago, the word “silly” used to mean “blessed” but now means “feeble in mind” or “foolish.”

However, if you research the entire 22 million words of the USA Code of laws, there’s no statutes or legal issues that are affected by the word “silly” changing its meaning. We could all change our minds tomorrow and say “silly” now means “genius” and no existing laws would have to be reinterpreted.

The word “marriage” is a different ball of wax. Other words with deep legal cross references are “property”, “person”, and “life” – you get the picture.

19

What do they call it when two men get married in one of the many locations in the world where same-sex marriage is legal?

20

I’m not really sympathetic to the “marriage is a sacred bond between a man and woman” but your test would basically mean whatever people want it to mean. Polygamous marriage, interspecies marriage, polyamorous marriage, etc.

If the majority of voters don’t want it to mean gay marriage, then your argument doesn’t really change the outcome very much.

Gay marriage is going to have to have its day in the supreme court.

Personally I think we should get rid of the term altogether and simply call everything a civil union. Let people call themselves married, its not like the word police are going to come around and stop you from saying that.