Beyond Same-Sex Marriage Perspectives on Marital Possibilities [Paperback]

This superb book shows why marriage equality should be the beginning and not the end of progressive thinking about the future of marriage. Beyond Same-Sex Marriage is a must read for anyone interested in where considerations of justice and policy should take us next when it comes to legally recognized relationships.Liberalism, with its tenets of freedom, equality, and fairness, provides a straightforward answer to the question of marriage equality for same-sex couples: yes. After that, it gets really messy. Should the state recognize polygyny? Robot-human marriages? Is civil marriage itself, not to mention its ill-adhered to presumption of sexual exclusivity, anathema to liberal democracy? Den Otters fantastic, far-reaching collection illuminates these issues and so many more. The scholars of Beyond Same-Sex Marriage confront the hardest dilemmas of governing intimacy unblinkingly. I learned most from their disagreements!This stimulating and diverse collection of essays includes a participant-observers account of life in progressive Mormon households, a theoretical analysis of why liberal neutrality should lead to legal recognition of multiple-partner marriage, a lawyers argument against legal recognition of plural marriage, and much more. Multidisciplinary in approach, Beyond Same-Sex Marriage provides a rich overview of many complex issues raised by polygamy, plural marriage, polyamory, and the family forms to which these practices give rise.This edited volume contributes to the growing literature on post-marriage-equality marriage. It is the first interdisciplinary approach to understanding the various historical, empirical, normative, and legal dimensions of marriage as Americans begin to imagine what marriage could be like in the future.Although the debate over same-sex marriage in the United States has ended, no one seems to know what lies on the horizon. The conversation about what marriage could be like in the future is no longer confined to academicsl“µ