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Children, Marriage, and Children
As if being a self-hating gay was not enough, I also don't feel strongly about gay marriage, especially for couples who do not intend to raise kids.
For this entry I will focus on one sense of "marriage": as an institution to raise children. We have structured society in an interesting way to accomplish this: first we are children, then we become singles, then we find partners, then we maybe live together, then we get married, then we have kids. That is the societal expectation. Those who deviate from these this pattern are criticised as being selfish and immature. Even though I am subject to them, I think these criticisms have merit.
When we are kids, everything is taken care of for us. We are fed and clothed. Our parents discipline us. And we think we are the centre of the world (which is one reason it is so exhausting to parent a child). Eventually we go through adolescence and rebel against parental control and learn to take care of ourselves. Most people would regard this as "learning maturity".
Being single works for a while, but for most of us it is not until we enter a long-term relationship that we really learn that we are not the centre of the world. All of a sudden there we get emotionally and physically entangled with another person who has needs and desires independent of ours. Dealing with this is hard and painful, but it makes us better people. We learn to empathize with others, and we -- slowly, slowly -- learn that other people have feelings and desires that matter even when they conflict with ours. Although I would hardly label my relationships pleasant, they have certainly helped me grow as a person.
Then comes cohabitation. We have to learn to compromise more, to live with some other person (with whom we are emotionally connected) on a full-time basis. That's even harder than having a steady boyfriend or girlfriend. We have to put up with our partners both when they are dolled-up and when they are stinky, both when they are being charming and when they are (deliberately, it seems) aggravating us with their obnoxious quirks and bad habits. From what I have heard, marriage takes this further even when the couple has been living together already. Many couples do not feel up to the task of living together; I think that is why the divorce rate is so high (and maybe why allowing divorce does as much harm as good).
All of this is preparation for having kids, which starts the cycle all over again. Children are totally self-centred, and parents have to be pretty damn tolerant and empathic to raise them properly. In some sense, I see the institution of marriage as a set of rewards and protections for those who take on the terrible task of propagating the species. That is why I don't think it is so important to extend the full marriage package to those who don't choose to have children.
The institution of marriage serves other purposes, of course. I will discuss those in future entries.
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