Marriage, Gender Justice, and Children’s Well-Being
Marriage, Gender Justice, and Children’s Well-Being
This chapter examines conservative arguments from the gendered nature of marriage as a relation of husband and wife, and others based on children's interests. It first considers the conservatives' idea of marriage as an essentially gendered relationship of husband and wife before discussing the debate in the U.S. Senate in 2004 over a Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) to the Constitution. In particular, it explores two main claims advanced by Republican supporters of the FMA on the Senate floor: first, that traditional heterosexual marriage tends to promote children's wellbeing (which is true), and, second, that same-sex matrimony would damage or destroy heterosexual marriage. The chapter proceeds by reviewing the evidence regarding the impact of same-sex marriage on children's welfare and concludes by asking whether greater acceptance of marriages between gay males could contribute to the weakening of marriage.
Keywords: conservatives, marriage, gendered relationship, Federal Marriage Amendment, heterosexual marriage, child wellbeing, same-sex marriage, gay males
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
