Continuing with feminism: Forced Marriage

Legally codified marriage implies a distrust of love. It establishes a nexus between ‘love’ and monogamy that elevates a particular form of relationship to an ideal, but at the same time implies a distrust of monogamy as the universal condition for that love. Presented as a question: If the commitment to a person created by love is great enough, why is a legal backing necessary? When granting that ‘monogamy = love,’ what does marriage have to do with love? Love in this form should be sufficient to maintain the bonds of monogamy even absent legal/economic benefits. Considered this way, marriage represents little more than a recourse to authority, a threat of force or economic harm to keep your partner bound. It implies either that (a) love doesn’t equate with monogamy in all cases (but at the same time, should- a constructed norm for some purpose [more on this later]) or that (b) one or both of the partners can’t be expected to maintain this relationship on their own. Unpacked as this, other questions can be raised.

What interests do institutions have in creating THIS TYPE of (monogamous, lasting) relationship? Foucault said something about this- the reproductive/healthy unit of a family/marriage operates as a tool to maintain the overall health of a population in a sovereign relationship. However, even this does not address the specificity of marriage as a contract- again, why just 2 people? How did this become a norm?

Second, since marriage unpacks to either a relationship of force or economic benefits- is it worth fighting for?