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What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense…
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What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense (edition 2012)

by Sherif Girgis (Author)

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335476,918 (4.44)1
Until yesterday, no society had seen marriage as anything other than a conjugal partnership: a male-female union. What Is Marriage? identifies and defends the reasons for this historic consensus and shows why redefining civil marriage is unnecessary, unreasonable, and contrary to the common good. Originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, this book's core argument quickly became the year's most widely read essay on the most prominent scholarly network in the social sciences. Since then, it has been cited and debated by scholars and activists throughout the world as the most formidable defense of the tradition ever written. Now revamped, expanded, and vastly improved, What Is Marriage? stands poised to meet its moment as few books of this generation have. Rhodes Scholar Sherif Girgis, Heritage Foundation Fellow Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George offer a devastating critique of the idea that equality requires redefining marriage. They show why both sides must first answer the question of what marriage really is. They defend the principle that marriage, as a comprehensive union of mind and body ordered to family life, unites a man and a woman as husband and wife, and they document the social value of applying this principle in law. Most compellingly, they show that those who embrace same-sex civil marriage leave no firm ground--none--for not recognizing every relationship describable in polite English, including polyamorous sexual unions, and that enshrining their view would further erode the norms of marriage, and hence the common good. Finally, What Is Marriage? decisively answers common objections: that the historic view is rooted in bigotry, like laws forbidding interracial marriage; that it is callous to people's needs; that it can't show the harm of recognizing same-sex couplings, or the point of recognizing infertile ones; and that it treats a mere "social construct" as if it were natural, or an unreasoned religious view as if it were rational. If the marriage debate in America is decided soon, it will be with this book's help or despite its powerful arguments.… (more)
Member:BenjaminZorn
Title:What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense
Authors:Sherif Girgis (Author)
Info:Encounter Books (2012), Edition: 1st Edition, 152 pages
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What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense by Sherif Girgis

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Showing 4 of 4
Excellent natural law defense of the conjugal/traditional view of marriage. The self-satisfied, self-righteous, and self-deluded proponents of marriage revisionism, who confidently declare that there exist no cogent objections to their position, will quickly learn otherwise if they have the gumption to open this text. ( )
  Duffyevsky | Aug 19, 2022 |
This deserves about a 3.6 but I rounded up to 4/5.
Pros:
no exclusively religious arguments
respectful, i.e. no homophobia. In fact, a legal defense in favor of gay rights
readable, while there is some philosophical jargon, the authors define their terms well
concise, only about 150 pages
balanced, while the authors have a particular perspective, they interact with opposing viewpoints including direct criticisms of their arguments

Cons:
- somewhat repetitive, the structure of the book is to give a defense of conjugal marriage in the first 3 chapters and then rearticulate it different circumstances. It's a legitimate structure but can appear redundant to the reader
- broad, this is the common tug-of-war with an introduction to a topic: broad and shallow or deep and narrow? Here, I think the authors went a little too broad so as to leave the reader wanting more detail. An additional 100 pages or so would have been helpful.

Overall, good introduction to the topic. I would not consider it to be a knockdown argument that refutes all opposing viewpoints, but, that isn't its intent. ( )
  ZacharyTLawson | Jul 10, 2019 |
Academic and scholarly look at the traditional or conjugal interpretation of marriage and revisions of that interpretation, and the implication of those changes on family, on society, on children, and the state. Not specifically about gay marriage, but the decreasing value of marriage by culture. Only briefly looks at religious arguments – mostly societal and psychological and other viewpoints. Current culture will not agree with this book, but it unemotionally and calmly presents arguments for traditional marriage and implications for change. You can see those implications all around us now. And it ain’t pretty! ( )
  Luke_Brown | Sep 10, 2016 |
This review is in progress

Civicly the meaning of marriage is probably the single most important issue America currently faces.

Traditionally ("It has long been and remains a personal and social reality" page 6), the accepted view on the institution is that marriage is an agreement between two parties, male and female, who for better or worse would be faithful to their vows, and that marriage is the bedrock of social order.

Our authors begin by delineating two views of the meaning of marriage.

The conjugal view sees marriage as a bodily, emotional and spiritual bond that pours its blessings out from the union into the world. (1) [Deficient in the description of love given is the claim that all love is effusive, which denies self-love.]

The revisionist view of marriage understands marriage to be only a loving emotional bond, intensely self-contained (independence is sought when the marriage becomes unsatisfying to one's emotional self. (1, 2)

The authors then proceed to defending marriage as an inherently good institution, "a moral reality: a human good with an objective structure" (6).

They later specifically state that they make "no appeal to divine revelation or religious authority" (10)

What moral reality is this? It is simply the defense of a concensus or norm that is subject to change when the majority in a culture become convinced of an alternate view, and believe it long enough to make the same argument.

The argument in this book that non-religious thinkers (there is no such thing) had conjugal views of marriage, thus suggesting that "no one religion invented marriage" (11), might just as readily be used to suggest there was one Source, Creator, and Lawgiver who started it all and tells us how it works, and that the fact that many religions hold to one conjugal view is evidence of this primary source, either in the form of innate knowledge or by conveyance from a primary source.

The basic natural law premise of this book fails when it separates itself from the Creator God who formed man from the dust, woman from his side, and put them into union. The God of the Bible has not just the power to create, but sovereign authority to command his creatures.

HE says:

Marriage is between one man and one woman. Homosexuality and polygamy are forbidden. Marriage fulfills certain purposes and provides certain benefits. Marriage is for all mankind, yet Christians must only marry Christians (not infidels, Roman Catholics, or those who hold to other false religions or practices). Certain restrictions apply in light of relationships physical and social. Separation upon biblical grounds is acceptable. Desertion and adultery are such cases, but the persons involved should not arbitrate their own case, but submit it to a third party. (refer to The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chap. 24, Of Marriage and Divorce, and the proof texts from which these propositions are deduced).

An excellent summary of the issues is at http://spectator.org/blog/2013/02/27/beauty-pageant ( )
  Ron_Gilbert | Dec 22, 2012 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Sherif Girgisprimary authorall editionscalculated
Anderson, Ryan T.main authorall editionsconfirmed
George, Robert P.main authorall editionsconfirmed
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What we have come to call the gay marriage debate is not directly about homosexuality, but about marriage.
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Until yesterday, no society had seen marriage as anything other than a conjugal partnership: a male-female union. What Is Marriage? identifies and defends the reasons for this historic consensus and shows why redefining civil marriage is unnecessary, unreasonable, and contrary to the common good. Originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, this book's core argument quickly became the year's most widely read essay on the most prominent scholarly network in the social sciences. Since then, it has been cited and debated by scholars and activists throughout the world as the most formidable defense of the tradition ever written. Now revamped, expanded, and vastly improved, What Is Marriage? stands poised to meet its moment as few books of this generation have. Rhodes Scholar Sherif Girgis, Heritage Foundation Fellow Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George offer a devastating critique of the idea that equality requires redefining marriage. They show why both sides must first answer the question of what marriage really is. They defend the principle that marriage, as a comprehensive union of mind and body ordered to family life, unites a man and a woman as husband and wife, and they document the social value of applying this principle in law. Most compellingly, they show that those who embrace same-sex civil marriage leave no firm ground--none--for not recognizing every relationship describable in polite English, including polyamorous sexual unions, and that enshrining their view would further erode the norms of marriage, and hence the common good. Finally, What Is Marriage? decisively answers common objections: that the historic view is rooted in bigotry, like laws forbidding interracial marriage; that it is callous to people's needs; that it can't show the harm of recognizing same-sex couplings, or the point of recognizing infertile ones; and that it treats a mere "social construct" as if it were natural, or an unreasoned religious view as if it were rational. If the marriage debate in America is decided soon, it will be with this book's help or despite its powerful arguments.

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