Marriage is an essential aspect of any community as it plays the propagative role to ensure the continuity of the community, society, nation, and the world as a whole. For a long time, the institution of marriage has remained heteronormative meaning that only heterosexual marriage is considered the standard. On the other hand, the universal framework had always placed women as the subject of a highly gendered, racialized, and capitalist marriage contract. However, the herenormativity of marriage has been challenged repeatedly and marriage laws are rewritten considering that most nations have embraced gay marriages and women are more empowered.
Destabilizing Marriage as a Universal Framework
Marriage no longer follows a universal framework that dictates who ought to marry who and who needs to do what for a marriage to be successful. In the prior universal framework, marriage was highly patriarchal where there was an insistence on the paternal sex or conjugal right. According to Pateman (1988), the man only assumed the power of a father when he exercised his authority over a woman. However, all this has changed, as modern society is no longer structured around the powers of fathers or kinship, which has given rise to fraternal patriarchy. In this case, women are no longer subordinated to men as women but rather as men or as a fraternity.
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Okin (2004) claims that unlike in the past where the women were the subject of the marriage contract, modern women are empowered to enforce Pateman’s views. This proposition is true especially when one considers a developed nation like the US where married couples have the same standard of living. Additionally, modern women participate in wage work just like men which rules out economic and emotional dependency. This newfound freedom from husbands means that modern women are equal partners in the marriage contract and thus destabilizes the universal framework that defined marriages.
The increase in the number of same-sex marriages across the globe has contributed to the destabilization of the universal framework for marriage in recent decades with the increase. According to Franke 92013), same-sex marriages had for a long time had been relegated to second class status due to bias and strict social norms. Looking at these diversions in the prior universal marriage framework, one can conclude that marriage and marriage laws could work for anyone no matter their race or sexual orientation. Marriage laws no longer hold considering that marriage ought to be a personal choice where everyone is free to choose who to marry and how to share responsibilities.
References
Frankie, K. (2013, July 2013). Lesbian husbands and gay wives: The gendering of gay divorce. The Nation. Retrieved on 11 October 2019 from https://www.thenation.com/article/lesbian-husbands-and-gay-wives-gendering-gay-divorce/?print=1
Okin, S. M. (2004). Vulnerability by marriage. In Greenberg, J. G., Minow, M. L., & Roberts, D. E. (Eds.), Women and the Law (pp. 296-305). New York: Foundation Press.
Pateman, C. (1988). The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
