Why Montesquieu Was Pro-marriage
By William C. Duncan and Bryce Christensen
Politically educated Utahns remember the French political thinker Montesquieu largely for one reason: It was from Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws (1748) that America’s Founding Fathers drew their inspiration for the system of checks and balances they built into the U.S. Constitution. The framers of the Constitution were persuaded by Montesquieu’s argument that because “every man invested with power is apt to abuse it,” political liberty would survive only so long as “power should be a check to power.” “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty,” Montesquieu explained. “Again,” he wrote, “there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. … There would be an end of everything, were the same man or the same body … to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and that of trying the causes of individuals.” 1In the clear separation of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, Americans see a lasting monument to Montesquieu’s wisdom as a political theorist.
Unfortunately, Americans have generally forgotten Montesquieu’s insights into another issue of perhaps even greater importance for the long-term health of the American republic: namely, what Montesquieu calls “the ceremony of marriage.” Viewing wedlock as the safeguard of that “public continence [that] is naturally connected with the propagation of the species,” Montesquieu recognized in marriage the ritual that enforced “the natural obligation of the father to provide for his children” so preventing a mother “who generally wants [i.e., lacks] the means” from being compelled to care for her children alone. Montesquieu thus held “illicit conjunctions” between unmarried men and women in low regard, believing such conjunctions could “contribute but little to the propagation of the species.” Emphasizing that “in republics … it is necessary that there should be the purest morals,” Montesquieu spoke out against the “libertinism” of men and women who avoided marriage while indulging in non-marital sexual relations, warning of malign social consequences “when the two sexes, corrupting each other even by the natural sensations themselves, fly from a union which ought to make them better, to live in that which always renders them worse.”
“It is a rule,” Montesquieu further reasoned, “that the more the number of marriages is diminished, the more corrupt are those who have entered into that state; the fewer married men, the less fidelity is there in marriage; as when there are more thieves, more thefts are committed.” It is no wonder, then, that Montesquieu viewed favorably “the ancient laws of Rome [which] endeavored greatly to incite the citizens to marriage.” Indeed, as he surveyed social conditions in 18th-century Europe, he concluded, “In order to communicate a general spirit, which leads to the propagation of the species, it is necessary for us to establish, like the Romans, general rewards, or general penalties” – referring here to the legal rewards and penalties of the sort incorporated in Rome’s ancient pro-marriage laws.2
If Montesquieu believed that pro-marriage laws were necessary in 18th-century Europe, he would recognize an even more acute need for such laws in 21st-century America, where marriage rates have tumbled by more than 50 percent since 1970. 3 For the fall in marriage rates has brought troubling social, economic and political changes. Without question, Montesquieu would share the fears of demographer Phillip Longman, who worries about “America’s vanishing labor supply” in a social landscape reshaped by “the low birthrates of recent decades.” 4 What is more, an 18th-century writer concerned about women lacking financial resources trying to raise children would have even more reason for concern in contemporary America, where almost two-fifths of all children are now born out of wedlock, where high divorce rates have created a world in which half of all children live at least part of their growing-up years outside of a married-couple home, where at any one time almost one quarter of all children live in a single-mother household, and where nearly half of children living with single mothers live below the government’s official poverty line.5 Montesquieu would also have reason to worry about 21st-century America’s civic life, since political scientists have established that married Americans are distinctively civic-minded – voting, volunteering, and participating in community service organizations at levels significantly higher than are seen among their unmarried peers. 6
Loading ...
“It is a rule,” Montesquieu further reasoned, “that the more the number of marriages is diminished, the more corrupt are those who have entered into that state; the fewer married men, the less fidelity is there in marriage; as when there are more thieves, more thefts are committed.”
Another great argument for legalizing same sex marriage!
Founding Father’s are right about everything.
Thomas Jefferson was a founding father.
Thomas Jefferson thought that women and black people were inferior beings.
Therefore we should all believe women and black people are inferior.
“Logic” is so much fun!
The post was, of course, about Montesquieu. So your “logical” response is to attack Jefferson rather than either Montesquieu or his logic. How fun.
Logic is the same, just find and replace. Its an argument from authority, nothing more. Thus there really isn’t anything to address.
No one I know ever claimed all the founding fathers were right about everything. So your first premise is false, and your arguments spiral down from there.
Of course, we all know that no homosexual in the 1700’s held slaves or looked down on women…wait, that can’t be right.
And we all know that the Enlightenment and the American Revolution were bad things…no, that can’t be your point either.
Let’s see…the gays authored the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution…no, that can’t be your point either.
How about an ad hominem attack. Yep, that fits. Just cut and paste. A common tactic. No need to read what Montesquieu actually said and see if it fits with experience and common observation.
Let’s look at Montesquieu’s premise that societies where marriage is in decline do less well. Then look at the inner cities, here and in the UK. It looks like he was on to something, ad hominem attacks notwithstanding.
Nothing to look at here folks, just the collapse of the inner city. Nothing to address. Yeah, right.
You might argue that what the inner cities need is more public welfare, but millions of urban immigrants with strong marriage cultures climbed out of urban poverty without the modern welfare state, and London immensely improved itself in the Victorian Era with a strong marriage culture and without the modern welfare state.
@Rob Tisinai No it is NOT an argument for same-sex faux marriage – the context was only about REAL marriage.
You do know what an Ad hominem is, right? So pretty please show me where I did one. I eagerly await your precise and keen criticism.
Also, either an argument stands up on its merits, or it doesn’t. Montesquieu in this context is nothing more than a name drop, an attempt to but a tattered argument in new clothes by dint association with a respected person.
By the way, I find it utterly hilarious that you approvingly cite Montesquieu’s love for Roman style marriage laws, given that:
A. It was the most “traditional” sort of marriage in that women were essentially proper of the master, er, man who owned them.
B. Roman culture’s famed tolerance for male homosexuality.
The post was not titled “Montesquieu was Pro-marriage,” rather is was “Why Montesquieu was Pro-marriage.” Rather than even discussing the merits of Montesquieu’s thesis, you decided to change the subject by attacking the person of Jefferson, appealing to parts of his history that carry negative emotional baggage. Virtually a textbook example of an ad hominem attack: ignoring the argumentation and evidence while attacking a person’s character with emotionally laden terms. Your variant on the tactic was to bring up a contemporary and admirer of Montesquieu rather than Montesquieu himself.
You still ignore the thesis in the post, which was backed by well-footnoted evidence (which you decided to ignore) and well as common observation, not just an appeal to authority as you falsely alleged. You now decide to attack Roman marriage law, which you rather severely distort, a sort of ad hominem attack on Roman culture. Roman culture had its faults, slavery and violence come to mind, but its marriage culture had many positive aspects that contemporaries could benefit from and which clearly sustained one of the world’s longest lasting cultures.
Rome had many powerful women, good and bad. In practice and reality, they were hardly chattel. See Cornelia Africana as an example of the popular Roman ideal. See https://geniusmothers.com/genius-mothers-of/governors-politicians/Cornelia-Africana/
“After a [Roman] woman was married, she was a person of incredibly high position. She was the absolute mistress of the house, overseeing education of her children as well as the slaves. She often helped with business. She had a place at public games, at theaters and at great religious ceremonies of state. She could testify in court and until late in the Republic, might even defend a case. Often she managed her own property. Her birthday was sacredly observed. The Roman Matronalia was very much like our own Mother’s Day, celebrated on the kalends of first day of March. When a woman of a noble family died, she might be honoured with a public eulogy, delivered from the rostra in the Forum.”
See http://www.classicsunveiled.com/romel/html/marrcustwom.html
You may recall the line in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the matriarch admits that the man is the head of the house, but notes that the woman is the neck who can turn the head where she wants. It is an important bit of folk wisdom even in patriarchal societies.
Contrast those strong cultures with the cultural collapse in America’s inner cities where marriage is disappearing. You seem to ignore that as well. Anything to avoid the thesis in the post.
Right. Inner cities are “collapsing” because of marriage.
Hey, wanna know something funny. New York city is doing relatively well. Detroit isn’t. New York city has gay marriage. Detroit doesn’t.
How could this be? Well, maybe it has less to do with marriage and more to do with JOBS, and POVERTY, and NO OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCEMENT DUE TO LACK OF BOTH.
Tell me, if two people with no jobs get married, how does that magically transform their financial situation?
As for Roman marriage, here’s a few sample facts:
1. Adultery was a sexual offense committed by a man with a woman who was neither his wife nor a permissible partner such as a prostitute or slave. A married man committed adultery mainly when his female partner was another man’s wife or his unmarried daughter.
2. Rome men have always had the possibility of divorcing their wives. Although this custom was usually reserved for serious marital faults, such as adultery, making copies of the household keys, consuming wine, or infertility, it could be employed by a husband at any time.
3. Concubinage was the institution practiced in ancient Rome that allowed men to enter into certain illegal relationships without repercussions, with the exception of involvement with prostitutes. This de facto polygamy – for Roman citizens could not legally marry or cohabit with a concubine while also having a legal wife – was “tolerated to the degree that it did not threaten the religious and legal integrity of the family”.
And I notice you didn’t even try to refute my point about Roman same sex attitudes.
“You may recall the line in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the matriarch admits that the man is the head of the house, but notes that the woman is the neck who can turn the head where she wants. ”
And it shows that in such “traditional” marriages that women have often resorted to be manipulative and deceptive because they didn’t have equality of power within the relationship. No thanks. I prefer my partners feeling safe to be straight with me.
Oh, this is interesting. Some sentences from the article you cited you neglected to mention:
“A Roman wife had fewer legal rights than her husband. In the eyes of the law she was under the authority of either her husband or her father (or guardian), depending on whether she had been married cum manu or sine manu. She could not vote in elections, take an active part in public or political life, sit on a jury or plead in court. “
I am not sure if your claim about Jefferson is correct or not, but how do apply your claim to the U.S. Constitution since that came from the founding fathers?
Looks like bait and switch. The inner city of New York is one thing and New York city overall is another.
Besides, gay marriage hasn’t been there long enough to get credit or blame.
Are you satisfied with the appearance of an argument even if it has no substance?
@Roivas
There seems to be a repeating pattern in your posts where a part is used for the whole, like making Jefferson stand for all the founding fathers, or the whole is used for the part, like making New York City doing well stand for the inner city doing well.
Making the part represent the whole is called the fallacy of composition, and making the whole represent the part is called the fallacy of division.
Regarding your preference in partners and their feelings, how many have you had?
“you didn’t even try to refute my point about Roman same sex attitudes.”
Was your point that approval of homosexuality went hand in hand with divorce and concubinage?
My point was that the positive aspects of Roman marriage, which the Romans recognized and celebrated, and which subsequent cultures admired, had a positive influence on Roman society. A number of successful and long-lasting cultures allowed for divorce, were strongly patriarchal, and sometimes even polygamous. No successful and long lasting culture lacked marriage or viewed divorce or adultery as trivial. No culture has survived a precipitous decline in marriage, the biological family, or fertility. Sexual modernity lacks not just religious sanction, it lacks evolutionary staying power. See http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FI08Aa01.html and
Every immigrant group with a strong family culture has been able to climb out of urban poverty in America. See, for example, New York’s Jewish community, such as in NY-9, which is in the news. The climb wasn’t easy, but they did it. They didn’t wait for the government to find them a job. They found jobs. They started new businesses. They moved out of the city. The men did not shirk their responsibility to provide for their families. The culture was able to pay for its own way forward. It could take care of its own. Cultures without strong families are, in contrast, trapped in a cycle of dependency.
Hispanic families, for example, will do quite well if left to themselves. The danger to the Hispanic family is if the family itself is weakened. See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576574924254753238.html
Well, being Jewish myself, I would know about that. And you know what had something to do with our success.
Not having the entire country’s legal apparatus arrayed against our success.
We were never slaves. We were never sharecroppers, still slaves in all but name. Unable to move to better opportunities because they were tied down with never ending debt, debt designed to grow and grow for all their lives.
We never were sent to intentionally horrible schools starved of resources without any chance of ever receiving them. We never had to form our own colleges because no one else would accept us.
We were allowed to form immigrant communities without constant overt interference from the law and people designed to have us “remember our place.” We didn’t have to show servility to every white person we met lest we be punished “uppitiness.” We were never lynched.
We have never filled half or more of the prison population despite being a fraction of that in country population. We never were drilled in the thousands into chain gangs. We were never disproportionally targeted in the “war on drugs.”
I could go on, but I think my point is made. Have Jews never faced discrimination? No, but I would be ashamed of any Jew who claimed that we ever had it near as bad as blacks did, and still do in some ways.
As for your other claims about the disastrous effects of lower fertility, here’s something to chew on.
“In the early nineteenth century, the typical American woman had between seven and eight live births in her lifetime and people probably lived fewer than forty years on average. Its fertility transition began in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century at the latest.”
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/haines.demography
According to a chart in the article, fertility declined from 1800 to 1940, going from 55 births per 1000, to 18.6 in 1940. We did experience a spike in the 1950s and 1960s, but have declined again.
And yet somehow throughout the period between 1800 and 1940, we survived as a country.
@Leo
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FI08Aa01.html – Great Link Leo, Thanks.
@Roivas
“According to a chart in the article, fertility declined from 1800 to 1940, going from 55 births per 1000, to 18.6 in 1940. We did experience a spike in the 1950s and 1960s, but have declined again.
And yet somehow throughout the period between 1800 and 1940, we survived as a country.”
But during the 19th and early 20th centuries, we didn’t have such “benefits” as the ‘educated, atheistic, scientific advances’ we have today to help insure the fertility decline. Keep watching. (While we keep praying….and having children.)
A country or a culture can survive a decline in fertility, but not below a certain level. Extrapolating a continued decline spells doom. Israel faces a demographic problem in the Middle East.
Blacks are not incapable of climbing out of poverty. Neither were the Irish or any minority. However, as Daniel Moynihan predicted, if the black family is destroyed, it will cripple government efforts to improve the conditions of the inner city.
You still haven’t answered my question.
If two unemployed people get married, how does that improve their financial situation?
It has been my observation that men with the proper values will go to great, even extraordinary lengths to find or create employment to support their families. There is not an absolute shortage of jobs in this country. There are still plenty of help wanted ads. Take Hispanics in my part of the country, for example. They are willing to take jobs in the fields that the Anglo population just won’t take. Why? To support their families. In my neighborhood I see Anglo’s panhandling. I cannot recall seeing Hispanics panhandling. I see them working at all sorts of jobs. If I go to the U-Haul center I see Hispanics ready to help you pack and unpack stuff that you are hauling. I recall a news story where a Hispanic husband wouldn’t spend even a day in the hospital at the recommendation of his doctor because he needed to work to support his pregnant wife.
@Anne
Thanks.
The decline in fertility in the 19th century was compensated for by the significant increase in infant survival rates. In 1800 a typical mother might see only a fraction of her children survive infancy. We have reached a point where further gains in infant and childhood survival rates will not and cannot compensate for further declines in fertility. Immigration also masks declining fertility. That can continue to mask declining fertility, but will, over time, replace the native population with the immigrant population. The future will inevitably belong to those native and immigrant groups that reproduce.
Duncan and Christensen have done a very good job on the topic, given the limitation of space for their article.
If readers have not yet read the whole thing, consider doing so as an entry into the pro-marriage perspective that aligns well with the promotion of liberty and prosperity across society. The Montesquieu context is very useful.
“There is not an absolute shortage of jobs in this country.”
We have an official rate of 9% unemployment in this country, a calculated unofficial rate of 19-20, and there isn’t a shortage of jobs in this country?
Which really answers my question. No, marriage doesn’t improve financial situations, but it is somehow supposed to provide a magical quality that showers riches on the couple, no matter how poor.
There’s no particular reason to let straight couples marry, but not let gay couples marry. There are plenty of good reasons to let both kinds of couples marry though.
@Sean
“There’s no particular reason to let straight couples marry, but not let gay couples marry.”
Yes there is. Its the same reason we don’t let plumbers do surgery: They aren’t qualified, and they don’t have the right equipment.
@Anne
That’s a good answer Anne. Trouble is, we DO let same-sex couples conceive offspring, there is no law against it. We need to prohibit it with a federal law that prohibits conception any way other than the union of a man and a woman.
Which is why we don’t allow hermaphrodites or men missing their genitals to marry by law.
Oh wait.
@Sean
There’s no particular reason to let straight couples marry, but not let gay couples marry. There are plenty of good reasons to let both kinds of couples marry though.
Men having sex with men sets bad a example. Government should not be in the business of establishing maladaptive sexual behaviors.
“Yes there is. Its the same reason we don’t let plumbers do surgery: They aren’t qualified, and they don’t have the right equipment.”
So long as this type of “thinking” is what drives the anti-gay movement, I’d say we’ll have a gay President a lot sooner than I originally thought!
There is not an absolute shortage of work to be done, so there is not an absolute shortage of jobs that could be made available if the economy were organized properly or if wages were allowed to fall to the level the economy would support. There is a shortage of jobs that most people are willing to take. There is a shortage of jobs in some parts of the country, but the unemployment level is not the same in every community. The motivated worker will move to where the jobs are, e.g. North Dakota or even in other countries. Many Mexicans are in the U.S. to support their families (http://www.pbs.org/itvs/beyondtheborder/immigration.html) often working outside the official economy. There is a shortage of jobs at a given price of labor. Lowering the price of labor would open up more jobs. In other words, labor has priced itself out of the market. Pricing something out of the market doesn’t mean there is no market at any price. The motivated worker will seek work at the level of pay that the market will support, if he is allowed to. Conversely, paying people not to work guarantees a higher level of unemployment than would otherwise exist.
The magic of marriage is that husbands who believe in supporting their wives are children are much more motivated to find work, to create work by creating new businesses, or to take work that is unpleasant or low paying than are single men. Hence my observations on highly motivated Latino workers, many of whom work at unpleasant jobs or in the gray market or in agricultural labor that Anglo workers turn up their noses at. Hard working immigrants with their strong family values create jobs with start ups if they have to. See http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2007/02/08/41268-immigrants-drive-most-small-business-start-ups/
Sets a bad example? For whom? How?
Make that “supporting their wives and children” in the second paragraph.
To restate my point on unemployment:
“…unemployment can be fully accounted for by deviations of wages from their market-clearing level, and persistent deviations result from ill-conceived government policies. The neoclassical and Austrian economists were right. Markets work, even labor markets, if only government allows them to.” See http://www.independent.org/publications/books/book_summary.asp?bookID=44
See also http://zenhabits.net/job/ and http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2011/03/08/stop-job-huntingcreate-your-own-job
America doesn’t need more unemployment insurance. That will encourage more unemployment. America needs more efficient markets and perhaps what is called wage insurance.
So what is the “proper” wage that would allow people to get jobs?
3.00$/hr?
2.00$/hr?
.50$/hr?
Would you be willing to work for 4.00$ a day?
“America doesn’t need more unemployment insurance. That will encourage more unemployment.”
Ah yes. Its not that people can’t find jobs. Its that they are lazy smucks who love living on under a thousand dollars a month. Truly in the lap of luxury they are.
It is not that people are lazy, it is that the government has distorted the market, artificially destroying employment opportunities. (See also the Chinese government’s distortion of the currency market, which has negatively impacted American manufacturing jobs.)
It economics 101 that raising the price too much prevents the market from clearing the product. The price necessary to clear the market is determined by the market, not by an arbitrary figure. It is also economics 101 that paying people not to work will encourage some of them not to work. That may be good or bad, but it is inevitable. For example, if I lost my job, I might choose to retire if retirement benefits were sufficiently attractive. And when I retire, I might do volunteer work at zero dollars per hour. For example, no one pays me to contribute to this blog.
If one employer offers too low a wage, the workers will simply find employers who offer a higher wage. Markets will seek an equilibrium. The alternative to a market economy is a command economy. That didn’t work out so well in Eastern Europe. The market has its imperfections, but fighting the market is like fighting the tides. Better to go with the market and then address remaining human needs than to try to fight the tides.
The laborer only has one thing to sell: his productivity. If we prevent him from selling his labor at a fair market price, we deny him employment. It might be argued that the market is imperfect, but then our efforts should be geared towards making the markets more efficient.
@Sean
“So long as this type of “thinking” is what drives the anti-gay movement, I’d say we’ll have a gay President a lot sooner than I originally thought!”
And as long as “this” type of “thinking” drives the gay agenda, we’ll have plumbers doing surgery and florists flying planes soon too!