The Privileging of Affection

The Supreme Court's recent Windsor decision striking down a part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional is the latest instance of government explicitly granting privileges to a social institution based on .... Affection.

This is a strange, perhaps unprecedented, development.

Marriage was originally privileged because of society's interest in encouraging behavior that encourages social capital formation including (a) healthy social development of children and (b) avoiding the violence and chaos that always accompanies unrestrained sexual expression (jealousy, inheritance confusion, etc).

To shift the basis of this formal privileging to Affection speaks volumes about a fundamental cultural shift in emphasis from the protection of vulnerable individuals to the promotion of individual self esteem.

Some context ...

Governments traditionally granted privileges based on self interest - whatever would allow them to maintain and increase their hold on power - which is why most governments in most times and places were and are fundamentally corrupt.  This is the norm, though most folks in the West have never experienced it.  The emergence of the concept of equality under the Rule of Law was a significant departure from the normal 'might makes right' approach.

When coupled with such concepts as private property, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion, there emerged a few private social institutions that were formally granted certain privileges (with associated responsibilities) by the government, including:

• churches
• publishers
• corporations (as economic 'persons')
• banks (especially with regard to printing currency)
• families

The justification for these privileges with respect to marriage included the protection of vulnerable individuals (women, children) from predatory males, the healthy social development of children (especially young males), and the establishment and enforcement of property rights (especially with respect to inheritance).

The government formally recognized and protected these privileges by various laws, including those that outlawed adultery, prostitution, pornography, homosexual behavior, pedophilia, and divorce.

Even with those protections, women and children suffered abuse, though less than in societies without them.  The past few decades has seen this protection steadily erode in the West.  Social changes are always complex, but here are a few contributing factors:

• Technology that decoupled sex from reproduction.  Although obviously imperfect, ineffective in preventing STDs, and incapable of addressing the emotional fallout of sexual license, the birth control pill revolutionized sexual behavior in the West.
• Economic parity between men and women.  As knowledge work displaced manual agricultural and industrial work, women gained an economic independence unprecedented in human history.  Although this is a welcome change since it makes women less vulnerable, sinful individuals will inevitably use it to undermine the oneness God created.
• Nature displaced God as the source of all Law.  Initially this occurred for the physical world as (mostly) Christian scientists established that a Universe created and sustained by an orderly Creator was fundamentally orderly (not chaotic as all other cultures, including Greece, believed).  The success of this project (which we now call 'modern science') eventually led to a similar effort by (mostly) non-Christian philosophers to establish a Moral Law based solely upon Nature.
• The emergence of radical forms of individualism and egalitarianism.  Individualism of some sort  underlies any democracy, but is tempered by various mediating institutions (family, church, etc).  As these institutions shrank in the West, a radical form of individualism took hold.  Similarly, when envy and jealousy are mixed with equality (traceable back to 'image of God' theology) in a democracy, it's inevitable that many folks will find reasons why they are a 'victim' that deserves state intervention to compensate them for a perceived harm they've suffered.  Throw in a dash of opportunistic 'some animals are more equal' politicians, and equality before the law begins to undermine key mediating institutions including the family.

So, what to say in summary ... here's my current reaction:

With regard to the family, we have shifted from The Privileging of Marriage to The Privileging of Affection.

We are more concerned about validating an individual's socially constructed identity than we are protecting vulnerable women and children.

We have traded the sacrifices inherent in marriage and parenthood for the tyranny of desire.  

The recent mainstreaming of homosexual activism is only one facet of a multi-decade trend that includes widespread sexual promiscuity, declining marriage rates, and declining fertility rates.  

On almost all fronts, social capital is steadily eroding ... when compounded over multiple generations, the ultimate effect seems likely to be unpleasant and long lasting.