Does Marriage Have an Essence?

While reading in last week’s Inver Grove Heights Patch, I was lead to question the comments made by Minnesota Senator Dave Thompson with respect to the bill he introduced seeking to add a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Now as a “philosophical blogger” I do not understand my writing as an attempt to support my personal opinion on the matter, rather, I understand my job as simply attempting to get clear on exactly what is being argued; in this case, whether or not the concept of marriage has an essence and does history support that view?

The term essence is derived from the ancient Greek term einai, which is the third-person plural form of the verb esti, to be. Basically, it was the verb President Clinton used to throw the questioning back upon his inquisitors; what do you mean by the term is? Oh and by the way, only a Rhodes Scholar would have known the problematic aspect of the verb “to be”; just saying. Anyway, Plato long ago exposed the vagueness of einai by pointing out how it implies an eidos—a true form—inherent within all objects/beings. So confusing was this for Plato that he went so far as to coin the term idea in an attempt to separate out the differences between human accounts—logos—derived from ideas and those derived from the eidos. Which was to ask: are there “true accounts” of objects made possible by an eidos, or is all mere opinion derived from individual ideas? Aristotle went a step further and drew a line in the sand arguing: “The essence of a thing is what the thing is said to be in its own right . . .” –Aristotle Metaphysics, Book VII, 4 (241B [1029b14-19] Emphasis added).

Now when the Greeks spoke of eidos or einai—“what the thing is said to be in its own right”—they were speaking only of actual objects, such as rocks, trees, birds, wolves, humans, etc. While they did extend einai to concepts such as the polis—city/state—as well as the gods, they would have never considered marriage as a being. That is to say, concepts simply were our ideas about an object for the Greeks, so the idea of marriage was not about marriage per se, but about our ideas of the eidos—form/essence—of humans themselves. So in terms of the article and subject of this blog, there appears to be a disconnect between Senator Thompson’s rhetoric and the meaning of the terms he is using to articulate the necessity for a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Let me show you what I am talking about.

Thompson is quoted in the above article as stating: “As a matter of fact and history, and I guess nature, it has always been that. Not to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman is inconsistent with the essence of the institution” (emphasis added). From the above etymology of the term essence, we can already see that it is unclear whether Senator Thompson means the essence of the concept marriage or the essence of the beings partaking in the activity of marriage. In fact, what Thompson appears to be doing is projecting his view of humanity—whatever he thinks our essence is—onto the concept of marriage; and therein lies the problem. The problem is deepened by the fact that Senator Thompson is simply wrong about his historical assertion that it is a “matter of fact” that marriage has always been held to be between one man and one woman. Many cultures have allowed for men to have more than one wife and some allow women to have more than one husband. We also know from the fact that post-Christian Rome attempted to ban marriage between men that the historical claim about marriage always being between the same sex is simply wrong, i.e., people were already doing it, so clearly they accepted that marriage was not limited to the “traditional” argument as posed today. For Senator Thompson to claim marriage has historically and factually always been between a man and a woman is therefore incorrect, and it seems we should expect more from our politicians, and ourselves as well.

Whether or not one believes marriage should only be between one man and one woman is fine as far as personal views are concerned. It does not follow, however, that simply because one holds a particular view that they are then allowed to make historically inaccurate claims. “If” there is an essence in individual objects it cannot be shown, i.e., we can only believe in essence, but if this argument is about belief, should the majority belief win even if it cannot be supported and must lie about historical facts? That seems problematic to say the least.

Shane Stroup