Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Marriage

  • Liberal Fascism: The Floral Variation

    Suppose a florist refuses to provide flowers for a Ku Klux Klan event, or a caterer refuses to cater a neo-Nazi gathering.  Suppose the refusal is a principled one grounded in opposition to the respective ideologies.  Would you say that the purveyors of the services in question would have the right to refuse service, and…

  • On Criticizing Something for Being What It Is

    If a person or institution is essentially F, then to criticize it for being F  is equivalent to criticizing it for existing.  (If x is essentially F, then x cannot exist without being F.  If x is F, but not essentially, then x is accidentally F: capable of existing without being F.)  Let's test this…

  • Gay ‘Marriage’ Meets Gallic Defiance

    I've been a tad harsh on the French in these pages over the years.  But they seem to be showing some backbone in resisting Islamization and such destructive items on the leftist agenda as same-sex marriage.  More than the PC-whipped Germans to be sure.  In any case here is the story: After the passage of same-sex…

  • Melanie Phillips on the Anti-Family Left

    Melanie Phillips is a former lefty who wised up, illustrating my aphorism  that                                                 The only good leftist is a former leftist.

  • Polygyny?

    Tony H asks: Your procreation argument for heterosexual marriage is consistent with polygyny, so if it is sound, it may rule out homosexual marriages, but be of great use to defending polygynists since it maximizes procreation and the perpetuation of the state quantitatively. What is the state's interest in monogamy? I was afraid my argument…

  • James Anderson on POMO Marriage

    James N. Anderson writes, To grant that marriage could be redefined is to capitulate to a postmodernist anti-realism according to which all social structures and institutions are mere human conventions and there is really no such thing as human nature, understood in traditional metaphysical terms. We must insist that marriage is not something that can…

  • The Infertility Argument for Same-Sex Marriage

    Suppose two 70-year-olds decide to marry.  They can do so, and their marriage will be recognized as valid under the law.  And this despite the fact that such elderly couples cannot procreate.  But in many places the law does not recognize marriage between same-sex couples who also, obviously, cannot procreate.  What is the difference between the…

  • Why Not Just ‘Privatize’ Marriage?

    In the nearly nine years I have been posting my thoughts on this weblog I don't believe I have said anything about so-called same-sex marriage, except for a non-substantive swipe at Matt Salmon a few days ago.  There are some entries in my Marriage category, but nothing about same-sex marriage.  It is high time for me…

  • Matt J. Salmon on Same-Sex Marriage

    Here: In an interview aired over the weekend, Rep. Matt J. Salmon (R-Ariz.) told a local news station that his son’s homosexuality has not led him to change his position on gay marriage. “I don’t support the gay marriage,” the congressman said. But Salmon emphasized that he loved and respected his son and did not…

  • Marriage and Admiration

    What makes for a good marriage?  It is not enough to like your spouse.  It is not enough to love her.  The partners must also admire one another.  There has to be some attribute  in your spouse that you don't find in yourself (or not in the same measure) and that you aspire to possess or…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Marital Advice

    Before you even think of getting married, make sure you have plenty of Money.  Then Shop Around.  Consider who will become your Mother-in-Law.  If you want to be happy,  don't worry too much about physical beauty.  If she has a cheatin' heart, hit the road, Jack. But then again you might be better off without…

  • I Married an Animal!

    You are and you marry both a person and a member of a zoological species.  And so you must be concerned not only with person-to-person compatibility but with  animal-to-animal as well.  Can she stand your smell, and you hers?

  • A Test for Marital Compatibility: Travelling Together

    I just heard Dennis Prager say on his nationally syndicated radio show that travelling  together is a good test for marital compatibility. Sage advice. Long before I had heard of Prager I subjected my bride-to-be to such a test.  I got the idea from the delightful 1982 movie The Diner.  One of the guys who hung out at…

  • An Ideal Spouse

    My opinion of Maureen Dodd went up a notch when I read this NYT column in which she quotes a Catholic priest.  He proffers good advice about marriage one piece of which is:      Don't marry a problem character thinking you will change him. Excellent advice, Schopenhauerian advice. You will remember his riff on the unalterability…

  • The Marriage Killer

    My angelic wife doesn't nag, so I don't have this problem.  But you might.  She doesn't nag, but she becomes inordinately happy when I do any work around the house.  Curiously irrational but delightful nonetheless.  Women are unduly attuned to the values of domestic order and cleanliness.  Not that these aren't values; but in a sound…