Is Marriage Natural or Conventional (or Both)?

In conversation with Matt Walsh, Joe Rogan claimed that marriage is just a man-made institution (i.e., wholly conventional).¹ This is far from the traditional understanding of marriage, and Matt would have done well not just to challenge this claim but highlight how different his moral paradigm is from Joe’s generally. All of which to say, to settle disputes concerning marriage almost certainly depends upon considering disputes metaphysically and ethically upstream, issues which are probably unfamiliar to the non-philosopher.

For example: Do there exist real relations independently of human cognition which have normative (moral) force? This is something people don’t often (explicitly) think about; though they definitely live their live as if this question can be answered in the affirmative (think: most people believe that because parents bear a certain real relation to their children, they are morally obligation to provide certain good for their children, whether they want to or not). Of course, many philosophers – especially many traditional philosophers – would answer yes, there are real relations which have moral force. If correct, and if marriage arises as a natural institution, then almost certainly there will be moral implications for marriage among those in that relationship. For example, fidelity. Moreover, it would not be possible, if marriage is natural (= not wholly conventional), to call certain things marriage which aren’t (same-sex unions, for example) or that it’s OK to “just do whatever you want so long as it involves consenting adults.” Rather, marriage itself will have a definite structure and end toward which it is determined, by which we can judge instances of marriage as being either good or bad, better or worse.

Traditionally understood marriage is the act of acting married or the state of being married. More specifically, marriage is the contract by which man and woman give and receive rights over each other’s body for the performance of the generative act; it is a lasting union resulting from contract. As well, marriage was traditionally seen as natural kind, as something toward which nature (human nature) inclined for several purposes. The primary purpose being the good of the offspring — not just giving them existence, but nourishment and education — and the secondary purpose being the good of the inherently complementary union between man and woman and the many benefits given thereby. Through analysis of these ends it ultimately makes sense to see marriage as exclusive and permanent, specifically so as not to frustrate the end of the good of the offspring, particularly their development which takes considerable time, especially given multiple children.

Austin Fagothey outlines four conditions of marriage:²

1)     There must be union of opposite sexes. Since marriage has to do with the reproduction of the human race, this requirement is obvious. Thus marriage is opposed to all forms of un-natural sexual behavior.

2)     Marriage is a permanent union. It must last at least as long as is necessary for the fulfillment of its primary purpose, the begetting and rearing of children. Hence it must endure at least until the last child is capable of living an independent life. Thus marriage differs from promiscuity.

3)     It is an exclusive union. The partners agree to share relations only with each other, so that extramarital acts are a violation of justice. Thus adultery is a crime against marriage.

4)     Its permanence and exclusiveness are guaranteed by contract. Mere living together without being bound to do so does not constitute marriage, even though the partners remain together for life, because they do not form a society. This contract makes the difference between marriage and concubinage.

To comment a little on some of these points. Marriage naturally aims at reproduction. However, as we know, when speaking of what nature does, we speak of what happens always or for the most part. Obviously, there are exceptions. Defects can prevent pregnancy and so can human free will via contraception. The latter had been (and still is, by many) considered immoral on the basis that it is generally if not always wrong to intentionally frustrate a natural power from reaching its good end (a similar analysis is often given for lying, insofar as lying frustrates the natural good end of assertion, which is accurately to convey one’s mind. Whether there can be overriding situations that could make lying or contraception permissible in exceptional cases I leave to one side for now.). If, however, that power is frustrated not by your own doing, you are not committing sin but suffering defect. Thus, while it is not correct to say that married couples who do not have children are not married (again, having children is not necessary for marriage; just the laying of the natural groundwork for its possibility, which is only possible, by nature, between man and woman) it is correct – again, according to the traditional understanding of marriage – to say that those engaging in deliberate contraception are frustrating the attainment of a good toward which marriage naturally tends, and for that reason their marriage is not as good.

Where Rogan speaks of people not wanting to have kids, this exposes a fundamental misconception of goodness, one that is common in our modern age. Joe seems to be working with a voluntarist conception of the good: The good is just what I desire. But that is not how things were traditionally seen. Rather, there is that which is good, and because it is good, I ought to desire it. Obviously, we can desire things which are not really good (though they appear to be good or are good but only in some inferior way), as I’m sure Rogan would admit in other instances. However, we ought to desire what is really good for us, as dictated by human nature. By extension, if it is really good for married couples to have children then they ought to have children whether they currently desire to or not (again, I set aside specially difficult circumstances which may provide legit moral basis for avoiding the generative act). Nature demands this: Our flourishing, based on what we are, is not just the attainment of any desire, but the attainment of right desire – that is, desire in accord with reason reflecting upon the dictates of natural law.

Granted, this traditional analysis depends upon marriage not being wholly conventional but in some real sense natural. Why think this?

Apart from it seeming, frankly, obvious, another way to enter this debate is to ask whether the nation or state is a natural or wholly conventional institution (which is to say not natural at all like, without intending beg the question, the family is). Again, many traditional philosophers would answer that it is a natural institution, and, insofar as we bear a relationship to the state there are moral implications, that is, obligations we have to the state and obligations which the state has to us. Under this traditional understanding, there can be good or bad, better or worse, states, depending on how well those obligations are fulfilled.

If, on the other hand, the state is wholly conventional, then a state is just whatever we (or some powerful individual or collective) determine it to be. If it is not a natural kind and if there is no mind-independent relationship we bear to the state, then there is no ground (apart from our preferences) to call any state good or bad, better or worse. Or perhaps legitimate, at all.

Here I side with Mortimer Adler who argues that the state, while having certain conventional aspects, is itself a natural intuition. We are, by nature, political animals; thus, it is inevitable that states and forms of government arise. And while it is often a matter of convention how those states will be organized, the state itself is not wholly conventional. For we have an innate propensity to live in society and for engaging in government. Just as we have an innate propensity to form families.

The reason people fail to see this, says Adler, is because they fail to appreciate different senses of the word natural. Going back to the family, the family unit is natural not because human beings are genetically determined (say, by instinct) to set up these domestic groups, but because the family is needed. The family, in other words, is necessary for human flourishing given what human beings are. This distinction between what is genetically determined and what is necessary for flourishing given one’s nature, is critical. Something can be natural even if it is not genetically determined, as the family is for us. Of course, given that families are often organized in different ways, there is, indeed, a conventional aspect. As such, the human family is both natural and conventional.

Nevertheless, the conventional aspects of either the family or state are not surprising, given our rational nature. We are not just genetically determined to specific behavior; we consider the space of reasons, we organize, we create. Again, there are needs that are determined and grounded by human nature, but there is range for creativity and convention given that we are possessed of intellect and will for how, specifically, those needs are fulfilled. So, while a family and state are necessary for the good human life, how these natural intuitions specifically play out or are organized is often a matter of convention: for example, whether a household includes extended family, whether a state is a republic or monarch, or what have you. These conventional aspects, however, do not detract from these institutions being natural (including that there are definite limits for what could count as a family or state to begin with), but emerge from human nature itself as rational and capable of contingently self-determining means toward ends. The ends for us are set; only certain things can really fulfill us and cause us to flourish given what human nature requires, but there may be various good ways of attaining such ends.

I’ll finish with two quotations for further consideration.

The first from Aristotle:

“Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by nature; for man is naturally inclined to form couples – even more than to form cities, inasmuch as the household is earlier and more necessary than the city, and reproduction is more common to man with the animals. With the other animals the union extends only to this point, but human beings live together not only for the sake of reproduction but also for the various purposes of life; from the start the functions are divided, and those of man and woman are different; so they help each other by throwing their peculiar gifts into the common stock. It is for these reasons that both utility and pleasure seem to be found in this kind of friendship. But this friendship may be based also on virtue, if the parties are good; for each has its own virtue and they will delight in the fact. And children seem to be a bond of union (which is the reason why childless people part more easily); for children are a common good to both and what is common holds them together.”

The second from St. Thomas:

“That is said to be natural to which nature inclines, although it comes to pass through the intervention of free will; thus acts of virtue and the virtues themselves are called natural and in this way matrimony is natural, because natural reason inclines thereto in two ways. First, in relation to the principal end of matrimony, namely the good of the offspring. For nature intends not only the begetting of offspring, but also its education and development until it reach the perfect state of man as man, and that is the state of virtue. Hence, according to the Philosopher we derive three things from our parents, namely existence, nourishment, and education. Now a child cannot be brought up and instructed unless it have certain and definite parents, and this would not be the case unless there were a tie between the man and a definite woman, and it is in this way that matrimony consists. Secondly, in relation to the secondary end of matrimony, which is the mutual services which married persons render one another in household matters. For just as natural reason dictates that men should live together, since one is not self-sufficient in all things concerning life, for which reason man is described as being naturally inclined to political society, so too among those works that are necessary for human life some are becoming to men, others to women. Wherefore nature inculcated that society of man and woman which consists in matrimony.”

1. Trent Horn offers some interesting commentary on the Walsh/Rogan exchange:

2. See Right and Reason.