Until very recently, 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 as something other than the conjugal union of husband and wife is a mistake.
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 enhanced, What Is Marriage? stands poised to meet its moment as few books of this generation have.
Sherif Girgis, 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.
"What Is Marriage? There is the question. Thanks to these three eloquent authors for so cogently reminding us of that, and for showing us how reflective reason answers it."
-Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York<
"What Is Marriage? is the most insightful, eloquent, and influential defense of marriage as it has been historically and rightly understood. People of all traditions-and everyone who cares about the future of this central and sacred social institution-owe Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George an extraordinary debt."
-Meir Soloveichik, Associate Rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University
"With many countries on the verge of redefining a basic social institution, What Is Marriage? issues an urgent call for full deliberation of what is at stake. The authors make a compelling secular case for marriage as a partnership between a man and a woman, whose special status is based on society's interest in the nurture and education of children."
-Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University
"What a joy to see this book by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, which presents the most philosophically astute and historically accurate defense of traditional marriage to date. It exposes the incoherence of attempts to radically redefine marriage by showing the inherent wisdom in what is our oldest social institution."
-David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies, University of Toronto
"Before we even consider fundamentally altering an institution that has been the foundation for all of our family laws, we should understand why marriage has been defined as a conjugal union across centuries and cultures. A lot more is at stake than the definition of a word, and this book reveals just how much is at stake. Its defense of marriage is philosophical and sociological, not theological, but people of all faiths will find it illuminating and edifying."
-Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Zaytuna College
"This book brilliantly explains why the definition of marriage is so critical and why the strengthening of marriages is absolutely essential to our freedom and our future." -Dr. Rick Warren, Author of The Purpose Driven Life and Pastor of Saddleback Church
