Are Marriage & Children Consumer Goods?

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Translated by Greg Johnson

At first, everyone thought that the draft law on homosexual marriage was one of those booby-traps (in crude terms, asshole traps) by which politicians entertain the gallery, unable to act on real issues. And then, very quickly, we realized that behind the booby-trap a very real project had slipped in, with which deconstructive fanatics wish to destroy a few more foundations that continue to structure European societies, as sick as they are.

The question has nothing to do with tolerance or respect for peculiar sentiments or sexual minorities. Homosexuality is not a historical novelty. It would be easy to count illustrious personages — kings, queens, and nobles of ancient times — who preferred the intimate association of the same sex, and whom the ancient chronicles sometimes mocked.

Private life is the affair of each individual, and as long as peculiar preferences do not degenerate into provocative events and flagrant proselytizing, there is no objection. Respect for the secrecy of “privacy,” as the English say, is needed. In France, by the creation of the “pacte civil de solidarité et de concubinage” [civil pact of solidarity and concubinage] (PACS), the law established a legal framework allowing two people of the same sex (or opposite sex) to live together with a series of social and tax benefits. It is a social consecration of the desire for love and affection.

Marriage is another matter. It is not about love, even when it is the consequence of love. Marriage is the union between a man and a woman for procreation. If we remove the difference of sex and procreation, nothing remains except love, which can evaporate.

Unlike PACS, marriage is an institution and not a simple contract. The institution of marriage is defined by a set of reciprocal rights and duties not only between spouses, but to the unborn child. The city (i.e., the law and its representatives) intervenes to solemnize marriage (before the mayor), because it is in the general interest. Until now, no society has ever thought that homosexual couples procreate.

We must emphasize that marriage is not a celebration of love. Marriage is an institution based on lineage and kinship, even if circumstances sometimes do not allow the arrival of children. The presumption of paternity is the fundamental crux. Today we think of ourselves as sons and daughters of those who bore us, just as the heroes of the Iliad (Achilles son of Peleus, Ulysses son of Laertes, etc.) did 3,000 years ago. It does not matter if there are good or bad relations between the generations. Rupture of descent is always a tragedy. For children born out of wedlock, paternity research is less related to potential inheritances than to an imperative need to know where we come from, whose children we are.

We should also mention that adoption is always risky and painful. Some homosexual couples demand the power to adopt children, a bit like buying a dog, a cat, or a sex toy. For the moment, the law denies the analogy between adoption by a homosexual couple and by a couple consisting of a man and a woman united in marriage. It seems best for the child, for his ultimate balance requires a father and a mother. It is thus the interests of the child that should be taken into account and not certain adults’ whims or desires for fulfillment.

Clearly, it would be destructive to change the definition of parenthood and family to meet the needs of a very selfish minority of homosexual couples. They are entitled to respect for their differences, provided they do not destroy an institution that was designed to benefit children. If we accept “marriage for all,” why not extend it to one’s monkey or favorite dog, one’s brother or sister, one’s father or mother? Why not imagine the wedding of a woman to two or three men? All these extravagances might be pursued more or less discreetly out of wedlock. The only issue, ultimately, is to remember that marriage is not a consumer good open to all fantasies.

A powerful factor here is the vogue of gender. Gender studies came from the United States and are now part of higher education. This fashion maintains that sexual identity is socially constructed. Simone de Beauvoir already wrote in The Second Sex, “one is not born a woman, one becomes one.” She was inspired by Sartre’s theory that identity is reduced to the regard of others toward us. It was idiotic but novel, thus interesting and “sellable.” Gender studies theorists are feminist and homosexual extremists who seek to justify their peculiarities by denying that there are men and women – and, no doubt, that there are bucks and does, rams and ewes . . .[1] As this fraction of the population has high purchasing power, its influence on the public is considerable. Especially as their whims relayed by the media promote novelties and fads that feed the market system.[2] It is obvious to these gilt-edged cranks that the family model based on the heterogeneity of gender and children is also a matter of “social conditioning” which should be eliminated. It will be more difficult than they imagined.

Notes

1. In La Nouvelle Revue d’Histoire no. 30 (on women and power), p. 40, I published a selection of the wild imaginings of Françoise Héritier, honorary professor at the Collège de France, for whom the physical differences between men and women come from the dominance of males over females during the millennia of the Paleolithic, the gentlemen reserving a meat diet for themselves while forcing the ladies to be vegetarians . . . like Hitler. Illuminating, isn’t it?

2. Thoughts on the commercial system developed in my book Le Choc de l’Histoire [The Shock of History] (Via Romana, 2011).

Source: http://www.dominiquevenner.fr/2012/11/le-mariage-et-les-enfants-des-biens-de-consommation/ ^[2]