Poor suffering bastards

Policy Review, Spring 1994 by Murray, David W

If, as Navajos say, acting humanely depends upon the presence of kinsmen, then we must have social ties to each other that involve public recognition. We see this need particularly in the contrast of genitor and pater. Sexuality is private. Generative acts are intimate acts, and hence the genitor may decline to acknowledge them. Marriages, however, are public cermonies, beginning with the "publishing of the Banns." The public enactment of becoming a pater makes the role hard to evade. In a private room one may make commitments to deity, to learning, or to a lover. But the ordination of a priest, the conferring of a baccalaureate, or the plighting of a pater make public acknowledgment of rights and duties.

Marriage is the act of creating formal kinsmen who are bound to help us, and the ceremony of marrying, itself, helps to create in us moral sentiments of commitment and formal responsibility. The absence of marriage is not only a major reason why single parents are found so often in poverty, but why their children so often become solitary victims and victimizers.

UPWARD NUBILITY

Children are served by legitimate marriage, but the adults involved are protected as well, especially the elderly. The Chinese aspiration for a son to provide security to the aged parent is a hope found throughout the world. Sons and daughters represent continuity with all the generations of a people, being the parent's duty to their past. The children in turn are tied to parents by bonds of reciprocity which repay the parents' sacrifice.

Moreover, marriage, which creates legitimate children, ties thereby whole families of people together into mutually supportive social and even political relationships, increasing the network of responsibility for the union and its children. As the royal houses of Europe knew, it is families and even nations that wed each other, and not just bride and groom. In fact, ambitious families often regard their young as a resource. Some may literally deploy their offspring in matchmaking, as has been found in history with the dowry. A substantial dowry allowed a girl to elevate her own and her family's status, creating "upward nubility." The dowry was a tactic that families used in the competition for social alliances, and children were regarded as valuable family resources. Parents guarded their daughter's virginity so as not to lose her marital value.

Where European and Hindu society used dowries to construct marital alliances, many traditional peoples used bridewealth, such as sending cattle to the bride's kin. "Cattle beget children" is a famous phrase of the Nuer of the Sudan. By suppressing bridewealth upon the advice of missionaries, colonial administrators found the family system disintegrating. Divorce rates became so high that they restored the practice.

Bridewealth established the legitimacy of children. "Cattle are where the children are not," say the Nuer. A child cannot be an heir unless the cattle have been paid. Once the bridewealth was paid, networks of trade and reciprocity between the marital kinsmen would commence. Significantly, bridewealth was involved in the stability of marriage. Amongst the Swazi of South Africa, the cattle were a security for the good behavior of both spouses. If the wife behaved badly, the husband would divorce her and demand the cattle back. Her kin would be reluctant, and would urge her to mend her behavior. But if the husband mistreated the wife, her family could refuse the return of cattle. Then his kin would pressure him to avoid losing both the wife and the cattle. As the value of bridewealth increases, so does the stability of marriage, since the payment is an insurance against divorce. By "investing in" the marriage materially, the families involved are also vested in the success of the marriage.