“Marriage fundamentalism” advances “white supremacy,” according to a George Mason University professor.
“I theorize that marriage fundamentalism, like structural racism, is a key structuring element of White heteropatriarchal supremacy,” Professor Bethany Letiecq wrote in the Journal of Marriage and Family.
“Marriage fundamentalism can be understood as an ideological and cultural phenomenon, where adherents espouse the superiority of the two-parent married family,” she (pictured) wrote.
She did not respond to two emailed requests for comment on her views sent in the past three weeks.
The Fix asked if she would support government support for marriage, such as tax breaks, if they were better tailored to benefit all racial groups.
Letiecq employs “critical family theorizing…to delineate an overarching orientation to structural oppression and unequal power relations that advantages [white heteropatriarchal nuclear families] and marginalizes others as a function of marriage fundamentalism.”
Letiecq says the government has coerced “its citizens to enter into an institution built upon White heteropatriarchal supremacy.”
Letiecq says marriage as an institution has allowed white heterosexual couples “to gain access to benefits, rights, and protections.”
She cohabitates with her partner and their children “in a committed heterosexual union outside the institution of marriage.”
Letiecq concludes that only white heterosexual couples reap the social and financial benefits of marriage subsidized by the government while minority Americans do not gain any such benefits.
Marriage scholar Brad Wilcox disagrees with the George Mason professor.
“Marriage is an institution that has advanced the common good in many civilizations, from Europe to the Americas, and from Asia to Africa,” Wilcox told The Fix via email.
“Marriage benefits children of all racial and ethnic backgrounds,” the University of Virginia sociologist and director of the National Marriage Project wrote. He also recently published a book about the benefits of marriage.
He pointed The Fix to several articles he wrote that show the importance of married fathers and the harms of single-parent households.
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