George Mason Professor Bethany Letiecq is at the center of a firestorm of controversy over his article in the Journal of Marriage and Family declaring that the institution of marriage plays a key role in white supremacy. In considering what she labels “marriage fundamentalism,” Letiecq lashes out at the “two-parent married family” model. It is the latest example of what I have called the “radical chic” of academia, faculty who find publication and promotional opportunities in advancing highly racialized and radical theories challenging institutions, values, and even common expressions.
In today’s academic environment, there often seems a rush to racialize common practices or terminology. Publications clamor for such articles and discovering another hidden racist element in society can bring academic accolades. However, others have already staked out many areas such as mathematics, astrophysics, statistics, meritocracy, climate change, dieting, tipping, skiing, chess, and organized pantries. Most recently, the American Psychological Association declared that merit-based hiring may be racist. Even robots are now declared to be part of the supremacist menace because they are often made of white plastic.
Letiecq has spoken up to say that we should not forget marriage as we address “elements of White heteropatriarchal supremacy, such as structural racism, sexism, heterosexism, anti-immigrant nativism, and settler colonialism, operate and interlock to condition and constrain diverse family formation and functioning.” She notes that “there is abundant critical scholarship to unsettle the self.” That unsettling journey should include dismantling the institution of marriage.
As a threshold matter, Letiecq defines marriage as “the belief that a family composed of a cisgender heterosexual married couple (i.e., a man and a woman as husband and wife) is the ideal family form for rearing children, is the foundation of civilization, and is necessary for ensuring White, heteropatriarchal supremacy in America.”
As one might expect, that definition leads to fairly predictable conclusions on combating white heteropatriarchal nuclear families (WHNFs). She details how the institution was used for white domination:
“These efforts to coercively eradicate, delegitimize, and transform sex, gender, and reproduction via systems of racist heteropatriarchy were forms of assimilative violence understood as necessary for the production of marriage fundamentalism. … In colonized America, this new gendered and racialized social contract was institutionalized in the context of a White heteropatriarchal supremacist social order where the White heterosexual married-parent family served a particular purpose: to channel the flow of resources between generations of White male property owners to maintain their domination, power, and control over others.”
She notes that this will not be easy since “building new theories and models to understand and explain White heteropatriarchal family supremacy in a field heretofore dominated by White people, many of whom have benefited from Whiteness as property and WHNF advantaging, will require deep reflexivity and self-interrogation to unsettle the self.”
The fact is that many of us have long supported the right of adults to marry and foster families according to their own values and morals. I supported same-sex marriage for decades and have challenged “morality laws” that seek to impose such rules on others. As someone with long-standing libertarian values, I oppose orthodoxy in the law and efforts to coerce others into living their lives according the values of others.
However, this research, in my view, is emblematic of the scholarship that is now in vogue in academia. I encourage you to read the paper. It is a collection of jingoistic catch phrases and conclusory observations. The fact that marriage as an institution has existed throughout periods of colonialism and oppression creates a false cause-and-effect relationship. It may also be true that marriage was found early in human development to be socially, economically, or religiously beneficial institution — entirely separate from the racial or cultural conditions of any given country or time. The fact that the conventional family unit is fairly common throughout the world indicates that it may have other more universal benefits. This historical record does not inherently support the view of the institution in fostering “assimilative violence understood as necessary for the production of marriage fundamentalism.” It is also possible that such problems exist in society but correlation does not mean causation.
Letiecq works to show how marriage as an institution is “cisgender” and heterosexual even though most countries now have a broader definition. The core of the institution remains the union of individuals in establishing a family unit or relationship.
My disagreement with the paper of Professor Letiecq does not mean that I do not believe that it should have been published. It is provocative and challenging. My concern is the dominance of such scholarship in academia with the declining number of conservative or libertarian voices on faculties. These publications are far less likely to publish a work by an academic espousing the value of a traditional family unit. The result is a new type of orthodoxy and intolerance in higher education.
