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What Do We Mean by "Marriage Politics?"

Contemporary "marriage politics" involve much more than debates over same-sex marriage, and whose relationships are worthy of recognition by the state. They also involve:

• "Marriage promotion" policies, which seek to end economic dependence by promoting marriage — especially for those receiving public assistance;

• The question of whether basic economic benefits and forms of legal recognition for couples, households, and families should be funneled exclusively to those who are married;

• Policy initiatives that will expand or restrict parental rights, reproductive options, access to affordable housing, and other rights and services on the basis of marital status;

• Policy questions focused on how to keep married people together.

Those issues are not mutually exclusive, but rather are intricately interrelated. That is what complicates U.S. marriage politics, in which issues of sex, gender, race, class, and religion are so deeply embedded.

At the center of all of the debates about civil marriage is this question: whose households and families are worthy of legal recognition and economic stability, and whose are not?

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