One of those hot-button issues in the American culture wars that's making its rounds on Facebook lately is the notion of marriage defined biblically as an act between one woman and one man. (Of course, this is meant to deny "gay" marriage, but it also calls into question polygamy, polyamory and supports the general condemnation of pre-martial sex.) I want to take up this complex of images in an effort to explore why folks make this claim (the foundation) as well as an alternative claim.
Why do we marry? For Christians, why is God so keen on marriage? And even more specifically, why does God restrict sexual activity to marriage?
I'd like to start addressing these questions by first discussing the leash principle. I believe the leash principle was first articulated by E.O. Wilson. The basic idea is this: 1. Does culture have human nature on a leash? Or, 2. Does human nature control culture?
If it's 1, then we have the notions of the blank slate and behaviorism where culture pulls human nature, shaping it as we would silly putty. But if it is 2, then many of the cultural systems we see around us actually exist to accommodate the demands created by a pre-existing human nature.
Enter marriage. Is marriage a cultural phenomenon that controls human nature? Or does human nature set the limits for how we practice marriage?
Time to back up and look at the religious conversations about sex and marriage.
In the Christian tradition, sex is reserved for marriage. Oftentimes people ask, why is this so? Two responses typically follow. First, there is the answer from Divine Command: God just says so. Fine, but why does God link sex and marriage? What's his reasoning?
In response to this second question we typically get what I'll label the harm narrative. The harm narrative is this: If you have sex outside of marriage you'll be psychologically harmed. The harm isn't physical, but if you have sex outside of marriage something is "broken" inside you that never can be recovered and the integrity of your personhood is damaged or compromised.
Now, the reason the harm narrative gets deployed is that, for most Christians, there has to be something damaging about sex outside of marriage. Otherwise, why would God be so keen to prohibit it? In short, sex has got to be not just bad, but bad for you. That's the harm narrative.
It's this harm narrative that's so important. So let's look at it more closely. First, given the role of sex in our adaptive history the harm principle seem dubious on the face of it. We are sexual creatures and modern American marriage rituals are relatively new in evolutionary history. Thus, it's a tall order to claim that sex outside of current American marriage rituals is psychologically harmful. Such a claim willfully ignores 3.5 million years of sex.
Second, the harm of sex might actually be due to the harm narrative. That is, it could be argued that the shame, guilt, loathing, and sense of brokenness related to amartial sex is a product of telling people that they should be screwed up if they have sex outside of marriage. If so, it might be the Christians who are harming people.
Third, given the data, I don't think the harm narrative is true (this follows from #1). This creates the following predicament: Non-Christians begin to suspect that Christians tell lies to get people to conform to Christian values. (I'm channeling my inner Nietzsche here, but I think he was right.)
So that brings us back round to the original questions: Why marriage? Why sex only within marriage? I think the harm narrative isn't the answer. The harm narrative, I think, is the cause of lots of harm and it makes Christians out to be liars.
Instead, I think evolutionary biology gives us better answers: Specifically, I think sexual rivalry and jealousy are the answers.
Evolutionary psychology suggests that sex is like food. It's a finite resource that people compete for. The biological imperative is to reproduce ("Be fruitful and multiply!"). If so, how do you coordinate the sexual marketplace? Enter the leash principle. That is, human nature (the imperative creating a volatile sexual marketplace) creates an adaptive problem for human societies. How do we allow mating to occur without competition escalating into violence?
Because violence due to sexual rivalry is the problem of sex. The problem isn't psychological harm; it's the possibility of social disintegration.
My point, then, is: Marriage (and binding sex to marriage) is a cultural innovation to reduce communal violence (due to sexual rivalry and jealously).
Here's where I think the depth of the biblical witness can be called for support. The OT patriarchs were largely polygamous. The goal of marital rituals is not to find God's "ideal plan" for a man and a woman. God's plan is to inhibit human violence. And there are many different kinds of ways that one might use to regulate the sexual marketplace. Take an anthropology course and you'll see what I mean. Overall, marital customs regulating the sexual marketplace are probably the greatest non-violence innovation in human history. Thus, the issue isn't how you regulate the marketplace but that it is regulated in some fashion.
What I'm suggesting here is that God's plan might be less about what he has in mind for a one woman-man pair bond and more about the entire human community.
Marriage, in other words, is a sociological phenomenon, not a psychological one. This, I think, makes more sense with Paul,s insistence in Ephesians 5 about the marriage demonstrating God's love in Jesus Christ.
If I'm right -- and I think I am -- the theological conversation about sex should move away from the harm narrative ("Sex is bad for you") to sociological issues of envy, jealously, covetousness, "using people", harm, and communal violence. Marriage is about these issues. It's not about protecting you from sex.