Should marriage as we know it be abolished? This is one proposed solution to the injustices of marriage today: unjust to those excluded from access to it, to those who might like it but cannot find a partner, and to those who choose other forms of relationships or even consider marriage oppressive. Or does marriage remain an institution so bound up with social needs, such as child raising and care for dependents, that the state cannot abdicate regulatory authority over it? Mary Lyndon Shanley argues the latter position.

The title is a pun. Shanley is concerned with making marriage just, but she is also responding to some who think that marriage is just one relationship among numerous possible relationships—none of which should be the concern of the state.

Just Marriage is one of a series of very small books, the New Democracy Forum, published by Oxford University Press and the Boston Review. Each consists of one essay with numerous very short responses. Obviously, short is the point here, to produce and distribute a quick read on issues of importance and contemporary controversy, such as standards in public education, tolerance in Islam, or multiculturalism.

In this volume, political scientist Shanley offers a thoughtful essay arguing “the public importance of private unions,” then listens to 13 commentators, and finally concludes, remarkably, by altering her position somewhat. Thus, the book is closer to a real conversation than many other anthologies that make such a claim. It may be too short, however. (Shanley's essay is approximately 6,500 words, less than half the length of a typical article in a humanities journal, and the responses are often only three pages long.) None of these essays can flesh out an argument; the conversation is barely begun, and so it may leave the reader—as it did me—feeling like there was not enough for dinner. But I came to think that the extreme brevity might be useful if it generates further discussion. It is not a bad thing to go away hungry for more.

Shanley rehearses sharply and concisely the view of marriage that came to the United States from British (Anglican) tradition: as a covenant and a hierarchical relation in which the couple became one flesh with the father/husband as the head—and, of course, the political representative of the whole family. She explains with the clarity of a fine teacher that marriage was a public institution; despite whatever individual inclinations or agreements might arise, the marriage had to follow terms set by the state. Spouses could not, therefore, divorce because the relationship no longer pleased them, but only if one of them committed an act against the law of marriage. Divorce in those days typically meant lying and even getting friends to lie on one's behalf. And in a consequence that my students usually find loony, if both spouses wanted the divorce, that preference would ipso facto prevent the divorce.

Several generations of feminist activism have shorn marriage of many characteristics that were once part of its definition. You can get a divorce without lying; married women have rights; courts try, however clumsily, to defend children's interests; and, in some instances, nonmarital partners can get some of the protections marriage provides. But as so often happens in campaigns for social justice, the gains only make the continuing injustices stand out.

One theoretical remedy would disestablish marriage, making of it no more than a private contract. Shanley argues that this would be a mistake: “Marriage partners are not only autonomous decision makers; they are … social beings who will inevitably experience need, change, and dependency” (p. 15). The public thus has an interest in promoting family relationships. Most provocatively, Shanley argues that marriage creates something more than two individuals in partnership. Long-term commitments shape the self and promise mutual responsibility in all sorts of unforeseen circumstances: The commitment is “unpredictable and open ended, and the obligations … cannot be” anticipated (p. 28).

This claim is fascinating but, as commentator Nancy Cott points out, Shanley has not spelled out exactly what the public gains from marriage. I would ask, is marriage mainly a system of protecting the polity from higher welfare costs? Exactly how is the individual affected by marriage, and does Shanley's case rest on the claim that those in long-term relationships are somehow better people? Dubious. But surely we cannot discard the feminist and communitarian insight that contract theory assumes an autonomous individual and fails to honor the social nature of human beings, as commentator David B. Cruz points out. Marriage, I would add, could never be a relationship free of social, cultural, and economic norms and inequalities. But is this not true of all contracts? Thus, in trying to conceptualize just marriage, we must face up to the critique of liberalism altogether. As commentator William N. Eskridge, Jr., points out, “the liberal conception of self … is not … a persuasive basis for thinking about human happiness and well-being” (p. 58).

Of course, marriage creates something more than placing its members in a legal agreement, but so do all relationships—friendship, teacher/student, boss/employee, team, performance group, co-workers, and so on. And we could hardly abolish all individual agreements on the grounds that there are no individuals; this would be postmodern thinking stretched to absurdity.

Shanley read the criticisms of her view and responded. When she first wrote, her goal was to “reclaim the discussion of civil marriage from the grip of the far right and affirm the value of public support for personal commitment” (p. 111). Her concluding view is that the United States should do away with the civil category of marriage and let “marriage” mean unions sanctified by religious ceremonies. The law should recognize all kinds of civil unions. But, as she would agree, many questions remain. Should polygamous relations be recognized as civil unions? Mother–child families? Long-term roommates? Communes? And should any partner to a relationship be able to leave at will without any continuing responsibilities, economic or caretaking?

This little book also offers an object lesson in how historical developments refuse to let such discussions remain theoretical. Shanley was not originally focusing on gay marriage, but now the gay marriage skirmishes make marriage reform talk take on urgency. Some are excluded from its benefits here and now, and they are understandably eager to fix this wrong. If it is to be fixed, chances are that any reform will happen piecemeal, inconsistently, and without consensus. The future of marriage will rest more on the balance of political activism than on intellectual debate. Meanwhile, this small book offers to activists and nonactivists a fine introduction, and provocation, to serious debate.