Marriage: Saudi vs. Gay

The web is buzzing with the news that a Saudi judge has denied a divorce plea on behalf of an 8-year-old girl married without her knowledge to a 58-year-old man by her father in exchange for a $5000 dowry - apparently, he needed the cash. This is not merely a Saudi or Islamic crime against a girl-child’s right to liberty. Women in virtually all traditional societies are sold to men who pay “dowries” for their possession. How this is different from slavery has always been mysterious to me. Apparently, the “sanctity of marriage” making it not slavery is the fact that the woman cannot be resold to anyone else if she does not work out. This is no big problem for the man, as it is pretty safe to kill a wife in these countries.

Tradition-minded Americans would say this has nothing to do with them. They condemn the father, the judge, all of Saudi society, even as they apply the same mind-set in their own callous dealings with the less-powerful here. The Mormons, who would be better served accepting responsibility and cleaning up the mess of splinter sects of their own religion who practice variations on this kind of abuse, instead opt to pour money and energy fighting the gay marriage rights of people who do not belong to their church or any of its "kissin' cousins." And the traditional preachers, swelling with male pride in their struts and frets from the pulpits of America, raise their lusty voices in condemning gay marriage as dangerous to the children, even as they apply the tools of psychological foot-binding to the hearts of the girls who are told to submit to their fathers, husbands and male god.

It is not the sanctity of marriage that is threatened by gay marriage, it is the divine right of men to be on top both in the world and with God. If men can marry men, then the ownership aspect of marriage is undermined. Most folks today would scoff at the idea of ownership of the woman by the man in marriage, yet they still think it’s beautiful for daddy to give his daughter away. No one gives away the groom; he stands on his own to feet ready to receive the hand of his bride from another man. Symbolic and potent, this pageant drama forms our minds and our relationships with its simple message and constant repetition.

The image of a father “giving away,” say, a young black man to another man who happens to be white would induce a cringe because it unmasks the proprietorship implicit in the language and rituals of marriage. And if women can marry women, then suddenly there are women who neither belong to any man nor can they be shamed with the second class status of being unmarried. Male dominion would receive another blow, not in the courts of the law, but in the only other near-universal bastion of male supremacy: marriage. This is what makes gay marriage intolerable.

In Saudi Arabia, a man can marry an 8-year-old girl, but can't have sex with another man on pain of death. This mindset is not just Saudi, or Muslim. It lies at the core of the fight against Prop 8 in California and the initiatives against gay marriage fueled by men who hate equality, who love power, and who deserve nothing but the contempt and resolve we apply to petty tyrants and selfish dictators.