Notwithstanding that it has three designated parts, Stephen Macedo’s book pursues two interconnected ideas. The first idea might be captured, somewhat facetiously, by the old quip “It works in practice, but will it work in theory?” Responding directly to the proliferation of state-sanctioned same-sex marriage and utilizing primarily the reasoning of judges in these marriage-equality cases as his foil, Macedo offers a well-researched, wide-ranging argument for the special role of marriage in democratic society and the ability of same-sex marriage to fit within this accepted role.

In using the new political reality of marriage equality as an opportunity to fundamentally reimagine social theory, Macedo joins other political theorists of late in fundamentally reconstructing understandings of the place of marriage, identity, desire, and sex (e.g., see Yvonne Zylan, States of Passion: Law, Identity, and the Social Construction of Desire, 2011).

Macedo’s major contribution around this first idea is to directly address an ongoing theoretical question within both the academy and the larger marriage-equality movement: Does marriage, as an institution and as an accepted social practice, occupy a special place in democratic politics, or is it simply yet another transient bureaucratic form utilized for expedient political purposes? If it is a special form, its fundamental parameters should be largely impervious to change over time, even as it incorporates new groups within its purview. This is an argument advanced by some scholars in American Political Development (e.g., see Priscilla Yamin, American Marriage: A Political Institution, 2012), who propose that incorporation through marriage recognition bestows upon groups enhanced democratic status, and it has therefore played a singular role in extending democratic inclusion as well as demarcating democratic exclusion. In contrast, if it is a transient bureaucratic form, it is likely subject to revision, replacement by competing amorous and non-amorous-based alternatives, and its own eventual demise after having outlived its political and social usefulness. This is an idea that seemed not just theoretically appealing to those challenging the strictures of marriage, including feminist scholars and queer theorists, but an idea that appeared to be supported by the noticeable demographic trend of declining marriage rates in the United States.

Macedo firmly embraces marriage as a special form. He does so through a comprehensive engagement with the philosophical and popular underpinnings of marriage, including well-honed critiques from all sides—conservatives, feminists, and queer theorists. But his approach is to return to first elements. To Macedo, marriage has a set shape and an established form that fulfills essential democratic functions not met by other alternatives. Accordingly, it deserves and warrants political support as an institution. However, unlike many conservatives who follow such a reasoning with the presumption that marriage is therefore unchanging in its constituents, the author argues that it is precisely the fact of this special form that makes marriage capable of integrating same-sex marriage: Same sex marriage is just another marriage because it adheres strictly to the parameters that already define marriage, even as it extends its reach into previously excluded groups.

If marriage is such an integrative form, however is it not therefore open to the incorporation of all nature of relationships? Macedo’s response is the second big idea in Just Married, and it flows from the framework constructed in the first section. He directly addresses the proposition, often raised by conservatives, that there is a theoretically slippery slope from state recognition of same-sex marriage to state recognition of polygamy and, by implication, eventual state recognition of incestuous, age-restricted, and other currently non-state-sanctioned relationships. Using polygamy as his example, Macedo directly challenges that conservative proposition based on the role that monogamy occupies as one of defining parameters of marriage as a form; to him, the slope is not very slippery at all.

The second section is interesting precisely because it speaks to potential future directions in marriage, which presumably could spring from the current fertile ground established by the ongoing political discourse on marriage equality. More specifically, it addresses a question that was purposely eschewed by the marriage-equality movements, in part, one suspects, because of a hope to avoid both invoking extramovement opposition and reigniting intramovement conflict over the earlier issue of whether same-sex marriage was fundamentally altering marriage as an institution, as in “queering marriage.”

Yet for all the evidence that Macedo marshals and the strong intellectual coherence of the arguments in each section, the larger approach of the book could be problematic. To the author, if you accept marriage as a defined set of parameters occupying a special role in democratic society, as deftly and effectively constructed in the first section, the challenges raised in the second section to the potential of polygamy transforming marriage seem inherently logical, given that polygamy is taken as being outside of those parameters and inconsistent with the special role. The very idea that law is both articulating and protecting a special role for marriage, while still able to incorporate new groups within that institution, seems consistent with existing understanding of the role of law by sociolegal scholars.

The very breadth of Macedo’s argument, which reflects both philosophical and popular responses, and his use of court decisions to assist in situating the current norms create their own problem, however. Much of legal reasoning operates by reference to legal precedent, consideration of analogous situations, and the often implicit acknowledgment of currently accepted social norms. Although Macedo uses this aspect to his advantage in constructing his arguments, the use of these sources by law means that the very approach of law tends to overemphasize tradition and accepted social practices in constructing its subsequent arguments. Truly, law has a conservative bias. Moreover, legal reasoning often interweaves reasoned argument with assertions about current social practices in ways that do not clearly demarcate or acknowledge the boundaries. Adopted norms become evidence of socially accepted norms that are, in turn, transformed by both Macedo and legal reasoning into the socially allowable practices. For all the complexity of his argument and the breadth of his evidence, he may have “found” that law simply codifies the accepted practice—even if recently changed by social movement action, as for example same-sex marriage from 1971 on—and simultaneously wields its power to legitimate these social practices to the effective exclusion of possible alternatives.

By focusing on the future, Macedo compounds the issue by occasionally conflating arguments of the theoretical fit of polygamy within marriage and the current lack of social acceptance of this marginalized social practice with arguments related directly to its expected popular resonance in the future. And it is troubling that the comparison of same-sex marriage with its possible future counterparts lacks an underlying symmetry; at the point that Macedo is referencing, same-sex marriage reflects a well-established set of well-resourced social movements, but its possible counterparts, including polygamy, are clearing lacking in similar organizational counterparts. A better comparison of fit might be to compare marriage-equality activities by isolated individuals between 1969 and 1975 and the occasionally thoughtful response of courts to these actions with present individual activities on polygamy and the occasionally thoughtful modern court responses.

Yet, at its heart, Macedo is, in fact, proposing something larger about law, politics, and democratic society. In invoking law and assigning marriage a special role, he is acknowledging the fact that some institutional forms may themselves be so central to the definition of democratic society that the form itself must be maintained largely unchanged for democratic society to not just function presently but be sustained over the longer term—an idea that imbues much of his discussion of polygamy and polyamory. And that very idea raises fascinating elements about the study of law and politics: Which institutional forms, beyond marriage, are also supposedly central? How does law privilege these institutional forms in maintaining their existence over the longer term? Does law somehow know to do so, or is this a nonreflexive social process that just happens to be applied to these institutional forms over and over again in ways that reflect more a random evolutionary-like process, including its ability to adapt to new political environments, rather than any inherent intelligent design of the underlying democratic system? These are all good questions under the surface of this interesting book.