By Andrew
The Spearhead has been ripe with discussion over the so-called marriage strike. Some time back Zed argued that the word “strike” does not describe what should be going on. The word “strike” implies this is a temporary arrangement instead of a permanent state of being. He preferred marriage disbeliever or something to that effect, and with the status quo intact, being a marriage disbeliever is justified. However, I think he’s focused on the wrong part of the phrase “marriage strike.” A strike implies not that one day we will just give up and “go back to work” but that once our grievances are addressed, then we’ll consider returning. The problem with the phrase is not the word “strike,” it’s the word “marriage.”
Because marriage no longer exists.
Which is too bad, because most men would at least one day like to get married. Surely they want to “play the field” while they’re young, but survey data , historical evidence and experience tells us that men want to get married and grow old with one partner. Perhaps it’s simply tradition and social pressure, or perhaps our polygamous instincts give way to monogamous ones as we age. Regardless, it’s needless to say men want to get married. They just can’t because marriage doesn’t exist.
The reason marriage doesn’t exist is relatively simple; it’s not a contract so it is thereby nothing. The talk of marriage being a “covenant” or something “divinely ordained” is all well and good on a relational or even spiritual level, but on a legal and political level, it’s nothing more than a contract; A contract that binds two people together, ostensibly for the purposes of raising a family.
Legally speaking, contracts–as all contract law states–must hold both parties accountable to the stipulations of that contract. So if one party violates the contract, the contract is now void and the other party can sue for remittance. If the two parties agree to a dissolution and the terms of that dissolution voluntarily, then so be it. But what cannot happen is for one party to break the contract for no reason and be rewarded for it by the other party. To call such a thing a contract is to commit a vicious act of violence against the English language itself.
And here’s where “marriage,” as practiced today, fails miserably. Today we have a regime of unilateral or “no fault” divorce. One party (usually the woman) can divorce their spouse for no reason and be rewarded for it with the kids, the house, child support and perhaps even alimony. Fortunately for the man being divorced, the courts are usually gracious enough to let him keep the mortgage.
I can think of no better resource on the American family courts than Stephen Baskerville’s book Taken into Custody. He documents how fathers (and occasionally mothers) are routinely separated from their children, forced to pay exorbitant sums of child support, forced to pay for attorney’s, psychotherapists and social workers they have not hired, jailed without trial for being poor (the modern resurrection of debtor’s prisons), prohibited from publicly discussing the trial and an assortment of other outrages.
This process was not agreed upon up front as a method of arbitration, nor is there a stipulation in a marriage contract for it. Indeed, who in their right mind would sign a contract if it was explicit and honest about how the divorce process would go down? Instead, the extraordinarily corrupt family courts do whatever they want through simple fiat.
So in essence, the mother (in the typical case) can break the contract with no reason and be rewarded for it. The father (in the typical case) can uphold the contract and be punished for it. Thus, marriage is not a contract. Marriage is nothing.
Oh, but it is something alright. While marriage is most certainly not a contract under any definition at peace with the English language, it is what I’d like MRA’s to start referring to it as; a Politicized Relationship.
A politicized relationship is like any other relationship that is recorded nowhere other than on one’s Facebook status. Namely, the parties involved are not contractually obligated to each other in any way whatsoever. The difference with a politicized relationship is that the state will decide what happens when the couple breaks up. The courts invade the most personal aspects of your life, not to enforce a contract but to desecrate upon the facade of a contract. How surprising they almost exclusively decide in a way that allows them plunder the father for all he’s worth while standing up as some White Knight who’s protecting women from their broke, broken-hearted and often suicidal ex-husbands.
We cannot strike against something that does not exist. We can be disbelievers if we like, but let’s not disbelieve in the instruction of marriage, but in the politicized relationships that are disingenuously referred to as marriages. We are striking against the regime of unilateral divorce, family court criminals and a vicious gender bias. We are striking against politicized relationships. If marriage–as a legally enforceable contract–were to ever return, I think most of us would be glad to consider it again.
