For some time there’s been a fair amount of criticism of the lack of “action” amongst men who are fed up with the status quo as regards the family, marriage, relationships with women and fatherhood. It’s actually a fair point, but I’m not sure very many people could offer examples of action that would have a lasting, positive effect. Lashing out violently, for example, is unlikely to result in any long term benefits, and it might simply lead to more drastic laws and heavy handed police measures. Ordinary political activism along the traditional lines (i.e. special interest lobbying) does work, and is already having some positive effects, but it is limited by the fact that it’s simply an extension to the current system and cannot fundamentally change the paradigm, but rather reinforce it.
However, there is the potential for revolutionary change without violence, especially where sexual politics is concerned. And why not? Men and women do not want to literally go to war with each other, because, despite the eternal reality of sexual tension, they want very much to join together — it’s a biological imperative.
Given this compulsion, we have to stress the fact that the current feminist family law regime is nothing natural at all. Take away the draconian laws surrounding domestic relations, the incentives for wives to leave their husbands, and the subsidization of promiscuity, and something approaching traditional marriage will return on a wide scale without any additional effort. However, changing the institutions and laws would be an uphill battle that would take too long for our purposes. So what can be done?
Having personally dealt with the consequences of a disastrous marriage, I’ve been mulling over the idea of marriage reform for some time. As it turns out, I’m not the only one. As the rest of the country slides into the abyss of single motherhood and unstable partnerships, the upper classes have been strengthening their marriages and enjoying the lowest divorce rate in decades. What is the key to their success?
Aside from the fact that they tend to be better at seeing the negative consequences of divorce, they have begun to regard the institution as a contract, and have been arranging their marriages as exactly that.
Some might be surprised to learn that the idea of marriage as a legal contract is actually very old. The first example of the widespread existence of written marriage contracts is the Ketubah, a Jewish marriage contract that lays out the terms for marriage and divorce. Ketubot (pl.) apparently originated during the Babylonian captivity, where the highly legalized nature of Babylonian society and mobility of Jews combined to create the need for a well-defined, legally binding marriage. Religious obligations were naturally included as well, and over the centuries the Ketubah came to be seen as an essential element of a stable marriage. Ketubot fell out of favor for some time during the libertine 20th century, especially in heterodox forms of Judaism such as Reform, but have made an amazing comeback in recent times.
Whether written down or not, marriage has always been seen as a binding contract, and it is only in recent times that this universally accepted basis for marriage has been undermined and rejected in favor of the modern civil marriage, which cannot be called a marriage at all, but rather more of a tax classification. Marriage does still exist, but none of its conditions are fulfilled by what is known as marriage under Western civil law. It is the only contract that rewards a party for unilaterally breaking it: a wife is under more of an obligation to fulfill the terms of a cell phone contract than to fulfill her marriage vows.
However, too many of us assume that there is no solution to this problem; that the problem lies with marriage itself rather than the backward, ill-conceived mess known as civil marriage. This is not the case. Marriage is the natural state of relations between men and women who cohabit and engage in sexual relations, and has been for thousands of years across a wide variety of cultures, races and faiths. It comes in many different forms, but in all cases there is a contractual element, and the needs and feelings of each spouse are taken into account.
Although laws surrounding domestic relations – VAWA and other incentives to accuse in particular – present some obstacles to marriage contracts, prenuptial agreements could remove some of these incentives and remain enforceable. Men and women can still enter into legally binding agreements under civil law, efforts of feminists notwithstanding, and many of the incentives to unilaterally break promises and vows could be removed with well-conceived contracts.
Furthermore, in the free societies of the West, contractual marriages could render the arguments over the definition of “marriage” moot, as the state’s role in defining the institution would decline as people increasingly defined it themselves. Lawyers who now profit from dissolutions could turn their efforts toward strengthening marriage and defending agreements, therefore contributing to families’ well-being rather than living off their destruction.
A transition from a society in which standard civil marriage is seen as the norm rather than a contractual, natural marriage may take time, but it is already happening. Civil marriage was unnatural and anarchic from the beginning, and represents a return to savagery rather than the progress it promised. Its time has come and gone, and now we have the opportunity to move on.
Because I’d like to offer something positive and constructive here at The Spearhead, I’m going to devote a page (and ultimately much more) to resources for those interested in restoring some sanity to domestic relations. I truly believe that contractual marriage, while it cannot solve all our problems, can make a big difference in coming years as we move away from the anarchic, transitional 20th century and toward a more civilized mode of existence.
