Marriage, Sexuality and the Nation

public/private sphere
1. private
  1. contractual relationship between two adults
  2. represents sexual love
  3. "influences individual identity and determines circles of intimacy"
  4. acts as a boundary of privacy
    1. "marriage can be imagined as setting this boundary and providing private liberty inside it"
  5. private realm of family life which the state cannot enter
  6. a private choice
2. public
  1. at the same time that any marriage represents personal love and commitment, it participates in the public order"
    1. "prohibiting divergent marriages has been as important in public policy as sustaining the chosen model"
      1. "to be marriage, the institute requires a public affirmation"
        "the laws of marriage must play a large part in forming 'the people'. they sculpt the body politic"
  2. today, the state decides who can and cannot marry which affects categories of gender, race and class
    1. the state decides whether or not a marriage can be terminated (divorce laws)
  3. state confers economic benefits to married couples
1960's
1. birth control
  1. mass marketing enabled sex to be separate from pregnancy
    1. severing link between sex and marriage
2. second wave feminism, civil rights movement, gay liberation
3. changed the culture of marriage
  1. what it meant
  2. who could marry who
  3. the freedom to live together before marriage
4. no fault divorce
marriage and gender
1. "holding individuals' self-understanding, opportunities and constraints, marriage uniquely and powerfully influences the way differences between the sexes are conveyed and symbolized"
2. (marriage) is the vehicle through which the apparatus of the state can shape the gender order

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Marriage, Sexuality and the Nation

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	Created by Karen Pura over 9 years ago