• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Yale Law School Faculty Scholarship
    • Faculty Scholarship Series
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Yale Law School Faculty Scholarship
    • Faculty Scholarship Series
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of openYLSCommunitiesPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    A History of Same Sex Marriage

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    A_History_of_Same_Sex_Marriage.pdf
    Size:
    1.827Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Eskridge, William
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/736
    Abstract
    Opponents of same-sex marriage argue that the concept is oxymoronic. Marriage, they say, must involve a man and a woman because (1) that is the definitional essence of marriage, (2) the Judeo- Christian tradition requires it, and/or (3) the modem Western nation-state has structured society around the assumption that only different-sex marital unions are allowed. Proponents of same-sex marriage dispute and often ridicule these assertions. Thus far, neither side has analyzed these arguments in the context of the history of marriage itself. That is the project of this Article. Part II, the heart of this Article, recounts the history of same-sex marriage, synthesizing scholarship in the fields of social anthropology, ethnography, mythology, comparative literature, sociology, and ecclesiastical history. Most of the scholarship is of recent vintage, reflecting the post-Stonewall interest in the topic. This contemporary literature tends to be sympathetic to gaylesbian concerns, and much of it is written by openly bisexual, lesbian, and gay scholars. The same can be said of this Article, for I also share the methodological perspective of this new scholarship-social constructionism-which I explain in Part I. A social constructionist history emphasizes the ways in which marriage is "constructed" by society over time, with "exclusions" from the institution being viewed as reflecting larger social power relations. Thus, the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in America is an expression of our society's persecution of sexual orientation minorities- lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. Our insistence that marriage be an option available to us is part of an historical process by which the victims of society's dividing practice (sexual deviation) have come to resist and defy the power of that stigma. This Article situates that resistance in the larger history of Western culture's shifting attitudes toward same-sex intimacy, and in the even larger context of other cultures' more favorable attitudes toward same-sex intimacy. Part III explores the implications of this history, initially addressing debates within the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community about whether we even should be seeking the right to marry (I argue that we should), and then turning to the legal arguments developed in Part I. The history has both "defensive" and "offensive" argumentative power. It reveals the traditional arguments against same-sex marriage to be seriously defective: the definitional argument essentializing marriage around male-female intimacy is factually wrong; the argument from Judeo-Christian tradition is hypocritical, given early Christianity's tolerance of same-sex intimacy; and the pragmatic argument is revealed to rest upon a normatively questionable status quo.
    Collections
    Faculty Scholarship Series

    entitlement

     
    DSpace software (copyright © 2002 - 2025)  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.