The anti-science left and same-sex marriage
by Greg Krehbiel on 29 June 2015
The sexual relationship between a man and a woman has been molded over millennia by biological and cultural evolution. Men and women both “want” a way to ensure the survival of their own offspring. (They “want” it in the sense used by evolutionary biology — not that they consciously desire it.) Men also want to know that they’re expending their resources on their own genes and not some other guy’s. There are lots of deep-seated instincts in human males and females that have everything to do with mating and procreation.
The complicated emotions and desires we live with from day to day were formed against that background, and marriage is an attempt to codify of all those competing interests: the interests of the woman, the man, the children, and of society.
Why should we even entertain the idea that a same-sex relationship is analogous?
Men and women have deep, biological reasons for being jealous of the sexual behavior of their mates. The same simply doesn’t apply to two men or two women. Why should it? There is no evolutionary reason for a man to care much who his male lover is sleeping around with.
This fascinating perspective on the issue links to an old article on “monogamy” expectations among same-sex couples. See Many gay couples negotiate open relationships.
And why shouldn’t they?
SSM advocates are dealing with the whole issue on an incredibly superficial, trite level. For example, they think that since we allow old couples, or sterile couples to get married, that means marriage can’t be about procreation.
That’s such a trite, silly argument. A man’s attitude towards his female mate is formed by thousands of years of evolutionary pressure, all dependent on the fact that men and women have babies. The fact that any particular man or woman is sterile is basically irrelevant. It doesn’t change the underlying emotional baggage.
Another question the SSM advocates often ask is how some guy’s same-sex marriage is going to mess up real marriages (of the opposite-sex variety). Well … read this.
The problem is that since SSM “marriages” are now marriages, we’re going to start importing the radically different rules, assumptions and behaviors of their relationships into this single legal concept called “marriage.” How can it do anything but change the nature of that legal concept?
To illustrate, imagine that we extend “marriage” to include high school kids who are going steady. How could that possibly not affect the legal definition of the term?
If SSM couples are far more inclined to have “open” relationships, then that is going to affect the assumptions that go along with the legal concept of “marriage.” A consequence may be that married people will lose the ability to assert their rights when their “spouse” has cheated on them.
Sexual fidelity is an assumption that goes along with the legal concept of marriage. SSM couples are going to have to live under that regime, and they may rebel against it. Who knows where those court cases will lead us? No matter what happens, it will certainly change the legal status of “married.”
The whole stinking thing is astonishingly stupid from start to finish. Kennedy should take a page from Scalia’s dissent and spend the rest of his life with a bag over his head for the shame of imposing this monstrosity on our culture.
2015-06-29 » Greg Krehbiel
29 June 2015 @ 4:33 pm
Jealousy is mostly psychological. Not biological. Do you think people who are of no longer child bearing age don’t get jealous?
And, while we are on the subject, you have me laughing. When you find a evolutionary psychology reason that fits your preconceived ideas, you have no problem trotting them out…even while you have whole posts on the blog about how evolutionary psychology is bunk.
29 June 2015 @ 4:50 pm
You didn’t read my post very well. Of course people who are past child-bearing age still get jealous because it’s part of how men and women relate to one another.
30 June 2015 @ 6:52 am
I remember when I was about 15 my previous best friend (male of course) was no longer interesting to me. He liked cars and country music. I was listening to rock music and started growing my hair long. He was a evangelical of some sort, whereas I decided that atheism was the best way to go on religious matters. So I found another best friend (again male) who shared my interests and was more sympathetic to my views. But my previous best friend was jealous of the new one. That kind of jealousy and no doubt other kinds as well which have absolutely nothing to do with procreation are not uncommon. In the light of such phenomena you should rethink your claims about jealousy.
30 June 2015 @ 6:53 am
*an evangelical of some sort
He wasn’t really fanatical about it, but the issue did come up from time to time.
30 June 2015 @ 6:55 am
What? Because the word “jealousy” has a wider meaning that just sexual jealousy? Are you serious?
Certainly men can be “jealous” of other men in some senses without being jealous in the same way that a man is jealous of his wife’s sexual behavior.
30 June 2015 @ 7:03 am
To further develop that thought, I would say a lot of marriages are more like cemented friendships than child-producing, child-rearing mechanisms.
30 June 2015 @ 7:09 am
There is also this point.
You say: “They ‘want” it in the sense used by evolutionary biology — not that they consciously desire it.”
I haven’t read any of the literature on that topic, but it sounds like nonsense to me to talk about wanting in any sense other than conscious desire. If someone claims that there are wants that are not conscious desires, I would have to see a clear-cut case of that.
30 June 2015 @ 7:24 am
I think you are missing my point about jealous. I am suggesting that jealousy among spouses in many instances is a lot like jealousy among friends. A man could feel jealous when his wife is cavorting with another man, because he is losing her as his best friend.
30 June 2015 @ 7:25 am
Yes, I am very serious about that.
30 June 2015 @ 7:40 am
@Robin, a few points. “Want” is a bad term to use. I wish there was a better way to express it. The idea is similar to how a plant “wants” its seed to land in fertile ground, or how a reptile that abandons its eggs “wants” at least some of them to grow to maturity.
It certainly has no conscious desire for that end, but its whole nature is oriented towards that end.
Sometimes thinking about that stuff makes you wonder if you need to be an aristotelian to make it work, but … lots of people seem to make it work … somehow.
It makes me uncomfortable because I don’t know how to express the idea that a plant “wants” its seeds to grow, but at the same time there is clearly something there that needs to be expressed. The plant is the way it is because it’s been fine-tuned for that goal.
So then, about jealousy. Certainly there are lots of types of jealousy, and many of them are at play in a marriage.
When it comes to sexual jealousy and “mate guarding,” there is a very clear evolutionary pattern here. To address SM’s concern that I’m inconsistent about my use of evolutionary psychology, there are things in evolutionary psychology that are well established across multiple species, in many different environments, and are on very solid ground. Then there’s some silly conclusion in a new study about finger nails, or … whatever.
There are a lot of different reproductive methods and patterns in the world. In some creatures, the female displays when she’s in estrus. In others, they hide it. But in both situations, it’s very common for males to guard their mates, and it’s very clear why — they want the female to raise their kids.
If you want to read way too much on the topic, get The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature.
This is not just an emotional thing about losing a friend, or other senses of “jealousy.” This is about what drives life, i.e., passing on your genes.
And there is simply no way that a same-sex relationship is going to have the same dynamics as an opposite-sex relationship — any more than, say, an inter-species relationship would. If somebody could “marry” a chimp, I’m sure there would be elements to their relationship that would mirror (or mock) what takes place in a marriage, but the same dynamics would not exist.
30 June 2015 @ 8:01 am
My basic response to all this is 1) conscious wants are not a trivial or negligible aspect of human beings, and 2) that the comparison between human and animal behavior needs to be grounded in real observations.
As to the first of these points, I observe that human beings often consciously not only want but actually choose to engage in behavior that is contrary to their own interest or the interest of a larger social unit (or indeed the whole species). We can, as it were, override nature. In this respect I find Aristotle’s philosophy of man deficient (though he at least acknowledges “second nature”, which is a step in the right direction.
As to the second point, if I were to accept the view that jealousy among spouses is motivated by some kind unconscious desire (drive or whatever) to procreate and protect one’s own offspring, I would need to see solid and extensive empirical evidence of that. It will not suffice to say that other animals are like that (for the above-stated reason). Suppose man is told by his wife that she is going to mate with another man simply because that other man wants a child (maybe to rear with his gay partner). I wouldn’t be surprised if nowadays a lot men would be okay with that. They would only be jealous if she was intimate with the other guy.
I cannot say what kind of effects SSM will have on society, but what I have heard so far from its opponents seems to be very speculative.
30 June 2015 @ 8:08 am
Your objections are not unreasonable, but I don’t think “solid and extensive empirical evidence” is going to meet you at the coffee shop. You would find a lot of it in The Red Queen.
30 June 2015 @ 8:15 am
If I find the time, I might well take a look at that. But I am skeptical. In the meantime I would recommend that you take a Vulcan attitude towards SSM: It will be an interesting social experiment. 🙂
30 June 2015 @ 8:31 am
Yes, a Vulcan perspective would be very good.
1 July 2015 @ 6:42 am
This author to some extent expresses my misgivings about evolutionary biology.
http://chronicle.com/article/EvolutionExistentialism/137715/
1 July 2015 @ 7:07 am
It’s a good article, but my primary objection to evolutionary psychology — as it is applied to humans, anyway — does not have to do with “meaning” but with the fact that we are less driven by instinct than other animals. EP works because a behavior is passed on mechanically. It’s heritable. That’s certainly true of most animals. It’s also true of humans, it’s just less true. And that’s the rub. It’s hard to know where the line is.
1 July 2015 @ 7:14 am
Yes, I would also put more emphasis on man’s existential freedom rather than “meaning”. EP looks very deterministic to me. This freedom, as I see it, is an experientially given fact that must be dealt with in any philosophy of man. All forms of determinism – whether physicalistic, theological, sociological, or biological – must be rejected as an affront to human dignity. What good is science, after all, if it in principle ignores what we actually experience?
1 July 2015 @ 1:47 pm
It has become common among many people on the evolutionary psychology front to downplay freedom.
I agree that we have an immediate experience of freedom that has to be dealt with, but I don’t agree that all forms of determinism are an affront to human dignity. IMO the most likely thing is that our experience of freedom overstates how much freedom we actually have. But I don’t know by how much.
1 July 2015 @ 2:20 pm
I am inclined to think the opposite, namely that our experience understates our freedom. This is because it is comforting to believe that we are determined. That way we remove the burden of responsibility and indeed the Angst that is part and parcel with freedom. It is accordingly no wonder why the various deterministic schemes are so popular.