Conjugal Union
What Marriage Is and Why It Matters

This book defends the conjugal view of marriage.

Patrick Lee (Author), Robert P. George (Author)

9781107059924, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2014

152 pages
21.8 x 14.7 x 1.8 cm, 0.32 kg

'Patrick Lee and Robert George add a profound historical and philosophical dimension to the sociological data on the importance of marriage as a social institution. Their careful analysis, dealing fairly and sympathetically with the best arguments from a point of view different from theirs, makes this book highly relevant to current debates. It should be welcomed by thoughtful persons who are in no way prejudiced against individuals with same-sex orientation, but who find something wrong with the argument for same-sex marriage based on equal access to the institution of marriage.' Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University, Massachusetts

This book defends the conjugal view of marriage. Patrick Lee and Robert P. George argue that marriage is a distinctive type of community: the union of a man and a woman who have committed to sharing their lives on every level of their beings (bodily, emotionally, and spiritually) in the kind of union that would be fulfilled by conceiving and rearing children together. The comprehensive nature of this union, and its intrinsic orientation to procreation as its natural fulfillment, distinguishes marriage from other types of community and provides the basis for the norms of marital exclusivity and permanence. Lee and George detail how the basic moral norms regarding sexual acts follow from the ethical requirement to respect the good of marriage and explain how the law should treat marriage, given its conjugal nature, examining both the same-sex-marriage issue and civil divorce.

1. Introduction
2. Human nature and morality
3. What marriage is
4. Sex outside marriage
5. Marriage and the law.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA]