Post three - legal kinship ties.

The week 5 topic is a discussion of kinship, social ties and relationships that legally and informally group individuals as ‘family’. Butler’s 2004 article, “Is Kinship always Heterosexual?”, raises many questions regarding the social and legal definitions of kinship, and the implied inclusion/exclusion of specific groups/individuals in these arguments. She notes kinship is a set of practices that institute relationships of various kinds, which if we understand exist to address fundamental forms of human dependency, eg child rearing, emotional support or generational ties, we can posit they exist to negotiate the reproduction of life and the demands of death (p. 102).

Butler (p 104) further states variations of kinship that challenge the normative heterosexuality based on family forms secured through marriage are hotly debated, noting marriage has also been separated from questions of kinship to the extent that gay marriage legislative proposals often exclude rights to adoption or reproductive technologies as one of the assumed entitlements of marriage (2004, p. 103-104).

Debates on gay marriage are thus complicated by the norm of belief that marriage is a fundamental precursor to reproduction, therefore the debate also encompasses arguments surrounding the extent of ‘allowable’ family forms both socially and legally.

This turn to ‘legality’ and the intervention of the state in recognized alternative kinship models leads to the examination of what a sanctioned relationship is. Butler notes that in current politics surrounding this debate, the options are to take a stand for or against gay marriage, but this ignores the underlying critical reflection of why and how this is the question? Why gay marriage specifically and not more broadly a legislative revolution in terms of legal kinship ties? Does it even need to be legal? (p. 107)

A broader definition of family could include social networks, rather than blood or marriage ties, as a boundary for family models. Butler notes a proposal in France to institute civil unions or ‘pacts of social solidarity’ as an alternative to marriage that would secure a legal bond between individuals (p. 112). As long as the debate surrounding gay kinship focuses on the inclusion or exclusion of couples to the contract of marriage, the question of why marriage is the major legal legitimator of sexual relationships, gay or straight, will go unanswered.

Reference

Butler, J 2004, ‘Is Kinship always heterosexual?’, Undoing Gender, Routledge, New York and London, pp. 102-130.