Writing for a Real World 2010-2011: a multidisciplinary anthology by USF students

              WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
Writing
for a
Real World
2010–2011
A multidisciplinary anthology by USF students
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO
DEPARTMENT OF RHETORIC AND LANGUAGE
2
www.usfca.edu/wrw
Writing for a Real World (WRW) is published annually by the
Department of Rhetoric and Language,
College of Arts and Sciences, University of San Francisco.
WRW is governed by the Rhetoric and Language Publication
Committee, chaired by David Holler.
Members are: Brian Komei Dempster, Michelle LaVigne,
Michael Rozendal, and David Ryan.
Writing for a Real World: 9th edition © 2011
The opinions stated herein are those of the authors.
Authors retain copyright for their individual work.
Essays include bibliographical references. The format and practice
of documenting sources are determined by each writer. Writers are
responsible for validating and citing their research.
Cover image courtesy of Marti S.
This photograph was taken in Havana, Cuba.
Printer: DeHarts Printing, San Jose, Calif.
To get involved as a referee, serve on the publication committee, obtain
back print issues, or to learn about submitting to WRW, please contact
David Holler <dholler@usfca.edu>. Back issues are now available online
via Gleeson Library’s Digital Collections. For all other inquiries: Writing
for a Real World, University of San Francisco, Kalmanovitz Hall, Rm. 202,
2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA, 94117.
Fair Use Statement: Writing for a Real World is an educational
journal whose mission is to showcase the best undergraduate writing
at the University of San Francisco. Student work often contextualizes
and recontextualizes the work of others within the scope of course-related
assignments. WRW presents these articles with the specifi c
objective of advancing an understanding of academic knowledge,
scholarship, and research. We believe that this context constitutes a
“fair use” of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the
U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
the material herein is made available by WRW without profi t to those
students and faculty who are interested in receiving this information
for research, scholarship, and educational purposes.
3
Writing for a Real World
2010–2011
Executive Editor
David Ryan
Editor
David Holler
Associate Editors
Brian Komei Dempster
Michelle LaVigne
Mark Meritt
Michael Rozendal
Copy Editors
Carl S. Braun
Giuliana Ferrante
Program Assistant
Tara Donohoe
Publication Assistants
Ana Kitapini
Estephanie Bautista Sunga
Journal Referees
Veronica Andrew, Rhetoric and Language
Brian Komei Dempster, Rhetoric and Language
Leslie Dennen, Rhetoric and Language
Johnnie Johnson Hafernik, Rhetoric and Language
David Holler, Rhetoric and Language
Devon C. Holmes, Rhetoric and Language
Saera Khan, Psychology
Kara Knafelc, Rhetoric and Language, Martin-Baró Scholars Program
Moira Kuo, Rhetoric and Language
Lois Lorentzen, Interim Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences
Tom Lugo, Rhetoric and Language
Theodore Matula, Rhetoric and Language
Sean Michaelson, S.J., English / St. Ignatius Institute
Star Moore, Leo T. McCarthy Center
Angelika Rappe, Rhetoric and Language
Michael Rozendal, Rhetoric and Language
David Ryan, Rhetoric and Language
Carol Spector, Gleeson Library
Eleni Stecopoulos, Rhetoric and Language
Ellen Thompson, Rhetoric and Language
Stephanie Vandrick, Rhetoric and Language
Fredel Wiant, Rhetoric and Language
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
4
WRW as a Literacy Project 6
Honorable Mentions 10
JADE BATSTONE
Cowboy vs. Mad Dog: An Analysis of Reagan’s Rhetoric
Surrounding the 1986 Libyan Airstrikes 12
MICHAEL BRATEN
The Marriage Act 1753:
Drastic Alteration or Mere Development? 30
MELISSA FESSEL
Maternal Mortality and Mayan Women in Guatemala 44
HEATHER M. FOX
Appreciating but Resisting Nietzsche’s
Chief Normative Worry 53
EVAN GIUSTO
In Defense of Same-Sex Marriage 60
MICHAEL GREENBERG
Public Sector Unions, Pensions, and Collective
Bargaining Rights: Striving For a More Perfect Union? 76
LAUREN HILL
The Guatemalan Civil War: The Prevalence
of and U.S. Involvement in State-Sponsored Violence 91
MELISSA D. LEWIS
Examining Marc Anthony’s Poetic Rhetoric in Julius Caesar 112
Table of Contents
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
5
AN MAI and JAMEY PADOJINO
Yarn and Yarning:
Communication Patterns of a “Stitch and Bitch” Club 125
DEREK POPPERT
Why Peace Has Not Been Achieved
Between Israelis and Palestinians 140
JILLIAN RAMOS
In Honor of the Forgotten: A Search for Equity
for Filipino–American World War II Veterans 151
SAMUEL WEISS
Aesthetic Obsession in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home 164
2011-2012 Submissions Information 194
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
6
WRW as a Literacy Project
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD was founded in 2002 with the
focused idea of illustrating exceptional undergraduate
academic writing at USF. Since then, access to our journal has
broadened, for teachers have integrated our essays into their courses
as models of good writing. Our Gleeson Library has digitized every
edition to allow others to read, study, and refl ect on our student
papers. Textbook publishers, as well, have selected some of our
more remarkable essays to include in their textbooks.
This scholarly interchange has prompted us to recontextualize
our celebratory journal as a literacy project, one that allows
us to see the kind of writing that is important to faculty and
understand what subjects preoccupy our students. Because most
writing assignments compel students to respond to other kinds
of writing, WRW also instructs us as to what our students are
reading, thinking, and concluding. Among the many things we
can deduce from our project is that eff ective, successful writers
are also diligent, perceptive readers—those who are able to off er
deep insight into texts, discovering and explaining what a text
does and how a text communicates its messages. Other students
work to explain how texts are inscribed by the cultural, social, and
historical forces that helped shape the reading. These academic
eff orts speak to the aesthetic and epistemic interest in the power
of reading and writing.
Without a doubt, constructing a broader, more comprehensive
inventory about what students are reading and writing from
year-to-year (beyond what appears in WRW) would be helpful in
identifying broader disciplinary trends as well as measuring student
achievement at USF; however, there is no viable method to identify
all the texts read or review all the papers written. Nevertheless, we
believe that WRW off ers a small yet richly sedimented sample of
well-written papers from varying disciplines. The power of such
a varied collection derives largely from the academic choices of
USF’s instructors and the more personal choices of students who
are willing to test their ideas against normative traditions and
emerging trends.
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
7
Notes on the Selection Process
Our referees reviewed carefully 97 entries. Every paper was read
by at least two readers, and every winning submission had to pass
the review of at least four referees. No names appeared on the
manuscripts and reviewers who recognized their students’ work
recused themselves. Here, then, we present 12 outstanding papers
written during the 2010-11 academic year, and we acknowledge 12
more papers as Honorable Mentions. We thank our new as well as
experienced judges for reviewing the submissions with great care
and patience. Our list of referees is on page 3.
Fr. Urban Grassi, S.J. Award
In this issue, the Department of Rhetoric and Language announces
Jade Batsone is our recipient for the Fr. Urban Grassi, S.J. Award for
Eloquentia Perfecta, an award named after USF’s fi rst professor of
English and Elocution. This award is given to the highest rated
entry. Our reviewers rated Jade’s essay, “Cowboy vs. Mad Dog: An
Analysis of Reagan’s Rhetoric Surrounding the 1986 Libyan Air
Strikes,” written for Professor David Holler, as the most exemplary.
Congratulations to Jade for her remarkable accomplishment!
Acknowledgements and Gratitude
With every issue, we re-affi rm our gratitude to those who support
our project. We are deeply grateful to Provost Jennifer Turpin;
Marcelo Camperi, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences;
Lois Lorentzen, Interim Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities,
College of Arts and Sciences; and Eileen Fung, Associate Dean of
Arts and Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences—all of whom
continue to support this institutional project with respect and
admiration for our students.
Our thanks extend to Associate Editors Brian Komei Dempster,
Michelle LaVigne, Mark Meritt and Michael Rozendal for their
continuous work. We also thank our two eagle-eyed student copy
editors, Giuliana Ferrante and Carl S. Braun, for their detailed review
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
8
of manuscripts and help with page layouts. Our program assistant,
Tara Donohoe, and publication assistants, Estephanie Bautista
Sunga and Ana Kitapini, deserve special mention for helping WRW
meet its year-round deadlines. We gratefully acknowledge the work
of Digital Collections Librarian Zheng Lu who helped digitize this
journal as well as past issues. Thank you to Norma Washington and
John Pinelli for helping us meet our fi nancial obligations, and a large
debt, as always, is owed to Fredel Wiant, Chair of the Rhetoric and
Language Department, for her long-standing commitment.
We off er our special thanks to Ronald Hussey, Senior Permissions
Manager at Houghton-Miffl in Harcourt Publishing, who generously
allowed us to reprint so many of Alison Bechdel’s images in Samuel
Weiss’s essay on Fun Home.
Finally, the instructors of our authors earn our gratitude for
composing their introductions during their summer break, but
our deepest thanks are reserved for those students who submitted
their work. As our Honorable Mentions list illustrates on page 10,
we received many more commendable papers than we were able to
publish. Congratulations to those who earned honorable mention,
and, of course, congratulations to our winners, for all of our authors
bravely enter the realm of writers writing for a real world. This
journal is dedicated to them.
—David Ryan and David Holler
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
9
10
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
Honorable Mentions
JADE BATSTONE
“From Rubble to Respect: Emerging from the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’
Debate with Mutual Understanding”
Written for Rhetoric and Politics
David Holler, Rhetoric and Language
ANABEL CASSADY
“Brief for Appellant, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission”
Written for Free Expression and The Constitution
Brian Weiner, Politics
TZIPPORAH DANG
“Failure to Launch: The Validity of Sex Addiction”
Written for Writing for Psychology
Lisa Biesemeyer, Rhetoric and Language
ALEXANDRA DELEON
“Japan’s Dirty Secret: Sexual Violence and Cultural Challenges”
Written for Advanced Writing Practicum
Darrell g.h. Schramm, St. Ignatius Institute
and
“The Beast of Beauty: Oppression of Women Through Beauty Ideals”
Written for Advanced Writing Practicum
Darrell g.h. Schramm, St. Ignatius Institute
HEATHER M. FOX
“Reconsidering the Purported Advantages to Black Americans of
Racially Homogenous Liberation Movements Relative to Racially
Heterogeneous Ones”
Written for Honors 339 (Moral Psychology)
Manuel Vargas, Philosophy
and
“On the Need for Community- and Individually-Based Rights
in Political and Moral Systems”
Written for Philosophy 484 (Ethics)
David Kim, Philosophy
WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD
11
EVAN GIUSTO
“Theory of Evolution: Science or Religion?”
Written for Written and Oral Communication
David Ryan, Rhetoric and Language
MICHAEL GREENBERG
“Love By the Fireside: A Rhetorical Perspective of America’s Romance
with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and How it Saved the Banking System”
Written for Rhetoric and Politics
David Holler, Rhetoric and Language
DEREK POPPERT
“The Ambiguous Relationship Between Political Equality
and Economic Inequality”
Written for Introduction to Political Theory
Brian Weiner, Politics
ANTHONY RISUCCI
“Wicked Witches of the Western World:
Analyzing the Evil Witch Archetype in Fairy Tales”
Written for Advanced Writing Practicum
Darrell g.h. Schramm, St. Ignatius Institute
STEVEN SLASTEN
“The Gullibility of a Nation:
A Rhetorical Analysis of the Election of 1824”
Written for Rhetoric and Politics
David Holler, Rhetoric and Language
SAMUEL WEISS
“Identity and Storytelling in Sherman Alexie’s Poetry”
Written for Contemporary Native American Literature
Dean Rader, English
and
“Military Subversion in Tristram Shandy”
Written for English 320 (1700-1900)
Rachel Crawford, English
NICOLE WICKSTROM
“The Spiritual Autobiography of Robinson Crusoe”
Written for English 320 (1700-1900)
Rachel Crawford, English
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
12
WRITER’S COMMENTS
This year the world spotlight turned to the Middle East and North Af-rica
as the regions experienced a wave of popular upheavals and protest
movements now commonly referred to as the ‘Arab Awakening.’ One of
the fi rst countries to see civilians organize and demonstrate was Libya,
where thousands of people took to the streets to protest the repres-sive
42-year rule of President Muammar Gaddafi . The reactions of the
U.S. government to these tumultuous events incited me to examine past
Libyan-U.S. relations. This essay employs a rhetorical lens to analyze the
events surrounding the 1986 U.S. air strikes on Libya. I focus on Reagan’s
strategic oratorical campaign against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi .
Reagan’s mastery of rhetoric framed the bombing of Tripoli and Beng-hazi
as a strong front to his administration’s response to international
terrorist threats. Drawing on his thespian past, Reagan was able to cast
the world into dramatic polarities, presenting events to the American
public in the context of simplifi ed, diametrically opposed entities such as
good vs. evil, hero vs. villain, rational vs. irrational, terrorist vs. freedom
fi ghter, and aggression vs. self-defense. Americans, in turn, perceived him
to be a master of these binaries, possessing the ability to fi rmly separate
right from wrong. Bestowed with this moral authority, I realized that
Reagan was able to achieve a feat that President Obama fails to match
through his unsuccessful efforts to garner American support for the
current NATO air strikes in Libya. In the wake of the 1986 Operation El
Dorado Canyon, Reagan was able to legitimate his actions by associating
Gaddafi and his regime with the greater forces of world evil.
— Jade Batstone
INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS
With analytical acumen and stylistic fl air, Jade arrives at a subtle inter-pretation
of Reagan’s “success” against the perennially menacing fi gure
of Gaddafi (whose regime, it appears, is mercifully crumbling as this book
goes to press). I was particularly impressed with Jade’s ability to connect
Reagan’s command of kairos to our current foreign-policy imbroglio, but
I was even more impressed with Jade’s clear overall command of the
calculus of rhetorical and political analysis. This essay will serve as an out-standing
model for future students in my Rhetoric and Politics course.
—David Holler, Department of Rhetoric and Language
JADE BATSTONE
13
JADE BATSTONE
Cowboy vs. Mad Dog:
An Analysis of Reagan’s Rhetoric Surrounding
the 1986 Libyan Air Strikes
Fig. 1. Hook, Geoff rey. “Showdown.” 26 March 1986. <www.geoff hook.
com>. Reprinted with permission.
DRAW!” With his pistols free from their holsters, his legs plant-ed
in a defensive stance, and bullets whizzing by his oversized
hat, we can almost hear the cowboy drawl in this command to his
adversary. Clearly no Billy the Kid, the deranged-looking outlaw
of this cartoon stands amid clouds of smoke in full military garb.
The presence of a modern high-rise labeled “U.N.” transports the
scene to the 20th century. A dialogue bubble coming from within
the building reads: “Do you ever get the feeling we’re redundant?”
This satirical gunfi ght contextualized the political face-off between
President Ronald Reagan and Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi
within the Old West of American cultural mythology. Political art-ist
Geoff rey Hook (see Fig. 1 above) spoke to the events of 1986,
“
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
14
condemning the administration for relinquishing true diplomatic
eff orts in favor of a rhetorical showdown. Leading the charge in
this endeavor was President Reagan himself, who promoted the
idea of a world divided between freedom-loving cowboys and ter-rorist-
endorsing outlaws. The dramatic polarities served Reagan
well; when the dust from the Libyan air strikes had settled, the
cowboy-president was left standing tall. By employing a host of
rhetorical strategies to categorize events and people in simple bi-naries,
Reagan successfully justifi ed to American onlookers one of
the most controversial actions during his two terms in offi ce.
Reagan stormed on to the presidential scene in 1980 touting
an assertive foreign policy. The perceived weakness of the Carter
administration, as well as the heightened concern over terrorism
in the wake of the Iranian hostage crisis, perfectly set the stage
for Reagan’s aggressive outlook. A key component of his hard-line
stance was the resolution to never again negotiate with terrorists
(Hoyt). However, the decentralized nature of international terror-ism
made it diffi cult for the Reagan administration to enact force-ful
opposition, whether verbal or material, against it. In order to
ease American fear and confusion at the hands of seemingly in-visible
actors, Reagan needed to delineate a clear adversary: giv-ing
the enemy a human face meant that he could be targeted and
subsequently eliminated. Thus, Libyan President Muammar Gad-dafi
, with his anti-American rhetoric and repressive Libyan regime,
soon became the real and symbolic nemesis for Reagan’s dealings
with international terrorist threats.
In his book Qaddafi , Terrorism, and the Origins of the U.S. Attack
on Libya, military expert Brian L. Davis traces the collision course
that Gaddafi and Reagan steered their respective nations towards
from the outset of the 1980s. Beginning in 1981, a fl ood of rumors
permeated U.S. media regarding a Libyan hit squad running loose
within the country (Davis 48). These sensational news stories in-cited
further anti-Libyan sentiment from the administration and
in December of that year Reagan called for all Americans to leave
Libya (49). The following spring the administration announced a
boycott on the importation of oil and imposed various other eco-nomic
sanctions on the North African country (Davis 49). How-
JADE BATSTONE
15
ever, according to Davis, the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in
Beirut by anti-Western “Islamic Jihad” militants marked the real
turn in the Reagan administration’s policies towards terrorist ac-tors
(and, by extension, Libya). The attack radicalized Reagan’s
White House towards military punishment for acts of terror—a
view embodied by Secretary of State George Shultz’s 1984 speech
“Terrorism in the Modern World” (Davis 64). In a fi ery oratorical
display, Shultz argued that “one of the best deterrents to terror-ism
is certainly that swift and sure measures will be taken against
those who engage in it” (qtd. in Davis 64). Reagan espoused this
hard-line view by vowing to undertake transnational military retri-bution
against terrorism (solidifi ed by his signing of the 1984 Na-tional
Security Decision Directive 138 which established a policy
of preemptive and retaliatory strikes against terrorists)—an un-precedented
stance in United States foreign policy (Davis 64).
However, for all the militaristic bluster, the mid–1980s inun-dated
Americans in violent threats and actions by non-state actors
concentrated in the Middle East. On June 14, 1985, members of the
Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah hijacked American TWA Flight
847 on its leg from Athens to Rome (Hertog). The traumatic event
and the three-day hostage crisis that ensued led to Reagan’s fi rm
declaration that when it came to terrorism, “our limits have been
reached” (qtd. in Davis 70). While there were some unconfi rmed
reports that Libya had played a behind-the-scenes role in the in-cident,
no solid evidence ever surfaced (Davis 70). Nevertheless,
the trauma of the hijacking increased public support for counter-terrorist
action and administration offi cials would later credit the
event with shaping the political will necessary to enact future mili-tary
action against Libya (Hertog).
By 1985 U.S. intelligence was reportedly intercepting yet more
incriminating links between the Libyan government and active
terrorist organizations, including the brutal Palestinian Abu Nidal
group (Davis 68). The militant faction belonged to an international
terrorist network, coordinating with Hezbollah, PLO, and Europe-an
Marxist groups as well as receiving substantial aid from hostile
countries like Syria, Iran, and (of course) Libya (Davis 68). Through
intercepted telephone exchanges and other covertly gathered evi-
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
16
dence, the U.S. government was able to discern that Abu Nidal had
moved signifi cant parts of its operational base to Tripoli, where the
Libyan dictator received them with open arms (Davis 69). Reports
in the Libyan press confi rmed that Gaddafi and Abu Nidal engaged
in regular meetings wherein the former promised funding, training,
arms, and logistical support to the brutal organization (Davis 69).
The Reagan administration’s concern over the marriage of these
two dangerous actors was tragically confi rmed on the morning of
December 27, 1985, when Abu Nidal militants simultaneously at-tacked
travelers in Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport and Vien-na’s
Schwechat Airport (Hertog). The joint attacks left 110 people
wounded and 20 killed, including an eleven-year-old American girl
named Natasha Simpson (Hertog). Her death in particular would
come to symbolize the barbarism of world terrorism and the need
for American retaliation in order to protect its victims (consider,
for example, the impact of a New York Times editorial supporting
the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya titled “To Save the Next Natasha
Simpson”) (Chomsky 128). In responding to the jarring incident,
Reagan shifted the focus from the militant perpetrators to the
Libyan role in the massacres: “By providing material support to
terrorist groups which attack U.S. citizens, Libya has engaged in
armed aggression against the United States … Qaddafi deserves to
be treated as a pariah in the world community” (qtd. in Davis 81).
Despite many calls within his administration for retaliation,
Reagan deferred to calls for increased economic sanctions for the
time being (Davis 82). However, the U.S. Sixth Fleet was tread-ing
more dangerous waters, so to speak, in the Mediterranean Sea.
For years Gaddafi had dramatically referred to the nautical area
surrounding the Gulf of Sidra as the “line of death,” barring its
crossing to any foreign power (Hertog). While the U.S. government
publicly stated that its fl eet was merely engaged in naval exercises,
the coincidental timing with the Rome and Vienna massacres and
rising anti-Libyan sentiment seemed a bit too convenient (Chom-sky
135). If Reagan did indeed intend to provoke Gaddafi into ac-tion,
the President got his wish on March 23, 1986, when Libya
opened missile fi re on U.S. aircraft carriers (Hertog). In a statement
made the next day, Press Secretary Larry Speakes claimed that the
JADE BATSTONE
17
attacks were “entirely unprovoked and beyond the bounds of
normal international conduct … U.S. forces were intent only
upon making the legal point that the Gulf of Sidra belongs to
no one and that all nations are free to move through interna-tional
waters and airspace” (“Gulf of Sidra”). After several days
of exchanged hostilities the United States, lacking enough in-criminating
evidence from past terrorist actions to legitimate
a more comprehensive strike, withdrew (Davis 105).
The bloodied waters of the Mediterranean had yet to set-tle
when an explosion in East Berlin shifted the international
spotlight, providing Reagan with the fi nal rhetorical armory
necessary to “bring the hammer down” on Libya. On April 4,
1986, the U.S. army brigade stationed in Berlin intercepted a
message sent from the East Berlin People’s Bureau to Tripo-li.
The cable read: “It will happen soon, the bomb will blow,
American soldiers must be hit” (Davis 115). Fifteen minutes
after the Americans translated the daunting words, a bomb ex-ploded
in a West Berlin discothèque called La Belle— a night-spot
which U.S. soldiers were known to frequent. The terrorist
action left over two hundred people wounded, seventy-nine
of who were American citizens. It was the fi nal straw for the
American public, making the international terrorist threat
seem imminent, irrespective of continental boundaries. Into
this fertile American soil, President Reagan sowed the seeds of
aggression against a distinguishable enemy. Murky telegrams
quickly became the smoking gun of the Gaddafi regime, lay-ing
the basis for Reagan’s April 14th claim that “our evidence
is direct, it is precise, it is irrefutable” (qtd. in Chomsky 140).
The President thus prepared to strike a symbolic blow against
terrorism in general, implementing his long-professed canon
of rigid dealings with the perpetrators of such acts.
In the early hours of April 14, U.S. fi ghter jets swooped
down on Tripoli and Benghazi to deal retribution from the
skies (Davis 134). Called Operation El Dorado Canyon by the
Reagan administration, the joint attacks on the Libyan cities
were intended to eliminate alleged terrorist training facilities as
well as military and missile sites (Hertog). The targets chosen
for the assault bore an additional signifi cance, however, as they
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
18
were all areas that Gaddafi was known to frequent (Hertog).
No matter; after the smoke had cleared, the mad dog himself
was left unscathed while his two-year-old daughter and an ad-ditional
hundred Libyan civilian casualties paid the fatal price
of America’s counter-terrorism policy (Hertog). Forced to con-tend
with an incriminating death toll (and critics like Noam
Chomsky calling the air strikes a “U.S. terrorist attack”), Rea-gan
faced the rhetorical challenge of depicting the air strikes as
an act of heroism to subdue the enemy—a feat he undoubtedly
accomplished (Chomsky 148).
Through a televised address to the nation following the
bombings, Reagan began his oratorical campaign to justify his
actions to the American people. Citing numerous economic
sanctions and other shows of “quiet diplomacy” as warnings,
Reagan began the address by lamenting that “Qadhafi contin-ued
his reckless policy of intimidation, his relentless pursuit of
terror” (Reagan Apr. 14, 1986 address). This clear nod to those
who would oppose his use of force framed the air strikes as a
last-ditch eff ort to stop a ruthless aggressor. He then proceed-ed
to supply a laundry list of terrorist acts supposedly com-mitted
by Gaddafi . Though merely an independent actor, obvi-ously
possessing many Libyan advisors and elites surrounding
him, Reagan attributes sole blame to the “mad dog” himself.
This verbal strategy pinpoints the source of the opposition,
strengthening his adversarial rhetoric, and allowing for further
character attacks like “Colonel Qadhafi had engaged in acts of
international terror, acts that put him outside the company of
civilized men.” Referring to his opponent as “Colonel” instead
of “President,” subtly excuses the American act of war by deny-ing
Gaddafi the legitimacy over an established state that such
a title would connote.
Another key aspect of the April 14th address was Reagan’s
depiction of the air strikes as a preemptive (rather than retal-iatory)
action. To this end, the President merely threw some
rhetorical frills and bows on a briefi ng given by Press Secretary
Larry Speakes earlier the same day, during which Speakes stated
that: “it is our hope that this action will preempt and discour-
JADE BATSTONE
19
age Libyan attacks against innocent civilians in the future.” Validat-ing
the bombing as a “preemptive action against [Gaddafi ’s] terror-ist
installations” aimed to “diminish Colonel Qadhafi ’s capacity to
export terror,” Reagan successfully portrayed himself as a protector
of the nation rather than as a vengeful aggressor (Reagan Apr. 14,
1986 address). The line between persuasive oratory and outright de-ception,
however, blurs around his ensuing claim of possessing “sol-id
evidence about other attacks Qadhafi has planned against the
United States’ installations and diplomats and even American tour-ists.”
No evidence to confi rm Reagan’s bold assertion ever emerged,
proving that he harbored little reservation about using fear tactics
to bolster the perceived necessity of his actions.
Not only did Reagan describe these “preemptive” measures as
crucial, but he also used the address to place the air strikes fi rmly
within the American ethos: “Self-defense is not only our right, it
is our duty.” Reagan’s enthymeme that the attacks were defensive
rather than antagonistic, struck the right chord among an Ameri-can
public traumatized by the preceding decade of terrorist aggres-sion.
The watershed of public support that Reagan’s prime-time
address managed to unleash for an originally unpopular military
campaign was nothing short of groundbreaking; one national poll
reported an approval rating between seventy and eighty percent
(Peffl ey, Langley, and Goidel).
In the aftermath of this fi rst successful appeal to the American
people, President Reagan faced additional rhetorical challenges
in convincing his constituency that the unprecedented policy of
avenging a terrorist attack was in fact legitimate and in line with
core American values. The “Great Communicator” earned his
esteemed appellation through his ability to direct the public’s
fears and anger around international terrorist threats to a specifi c
aggressor—the arch-terrorist himself, Muammar Gaddafi . After
conjuring a clear adversary, Reagan’s verbal assault on the Libyan
dictator proved to eff ectively denigrate the man and thus garner
support for military actions taken against his regime. Finally, Rea-gan
emerged from the controversial bombing with his moral au-thority
unscathed, for he successfully deployed a range of rhetori-
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
20
cal combatants to force the action within a wider context of the
battle of good versus evil.
Reagan’s verbal crusade began in 1981, when he entered offi ce
to rescue America—whether the assailant be an economy fraught
with loose spending and high taxes, Communist aggression, or
international terrorism. He loved playing the hero—a role PBS’s
American Experience documentary entitled “Reagan” revealed he
spent a lifetime preparing for. Beginning with Reagan’s youthful
days working as a lifeguard on the Rock River, he cherished the
sense that he could help those in need (Hoyt and Bosch). In the
McCarthy era, those victims were members of the Screen Actors
Guild, whom Reagan aimed to save from the purported commu-nist
spies in their midst (Hoyt and Bosch). Even his onscreen per-sona
continued this heroic theme, for throughout Reagan’s entire
career as an actor (appearing in over 50 fi lms) he only played the
villain once (Hoyt and Bosch). As president, the strongman veneer
served him well as most Americans believed in his Superman-like
ability to lift the heavy vehicle of the nation from a period of eco-nomic
and political uncertainty. Yet, what is a champion without
a veritable adversary to fl ex his muscles against? In the face of in-ternational
terrorist threats, Reagan designated a foil character in
order to employ the “savior of the nation” rhetoric that he was so
fond of. Every hero needs a villain.
When casting the world’s Lex Luthor, Reagan needn’t have
looked farther than Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi . Bizarre,
shrewd, conspiratorial, and shockingly unscrupulous in his rheto-ric,
Gaddafi was ideally suited to play the anti-hero. When Ameri-cans
needed an outlet for their fear and confusion in the wake of
escalating acts of terror, a seemingly unhinged man spewing state-ments
like, “We want every one of us to say, ‘I have decided to die
just to spite America’ ” easily fi t the bill (qtd. in Davis 67). Even so,
the Reagan administration engaged in a verbal campaign against
Gaddafi , using a variety of argumentum ad hominems (abusive, ste-reotypical
claims intended to degrade a man and delegitimize his
actions) to make Gaddafi the face of international terrorism and
Libya the pariah of the international community.
In a televised news conference held fi ve days before Opera-
JADE BATSTONE
21
tion El Dorado Canyon, Reagan assured Americans that “this mad
dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution” (Reagan
Apr. 9, 1986 address). This hyperbolized statement reveals the ad-ministration’s
doctrine of linking Gaddafi indiscriminately to acts
of worldwide evil. Here, Reagan also assigns Gaddafi the title of
“mad dog”—a nickname that would stay with the man for the ensu-ing
twenty-fi ve years. The dehumanizing slurs wouldn’t end there,
however, as Reagan used the same appearance to state that “ev-eryone
is entitled to call him whatever animal they want.” Among
those who took this permission to heart was the American comic
book industry. A one-shot comic book published in 1986 illustrat-ed
popular culture’s take on the Arab leader. The cover depicted
President Gaddafi alongside an image of Daff y Duck dressed in
the same military garb—the title read “Daff y Qaddafi .” (See the
Appendix for the cover image.) Sketches of a “mad-dog” terrorist
defeated by a reasonable Daff y Duck and his army of small children
comprised the scathing political satire.
The “Daff y Qaddafi ” comic popularized a weak and irrational
picture of the Libyan President. This view aligned with the man-ner
in which the administration hoped to present Gaddafi to the
American public. Reagan vowed in speech given in July of that year,
“We are especially not going to tolerate these attacks by outlaw
states run by the strangest collection of misfi ts, Looney Tunes, and
squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich” (qtd. in Davis
70). This loaded statement served various purposes, not the least of
which was to recall the caricatured image of Gaddafi . Rather than
providing an examination of U.S. foreign policy that could poten-tially
incite aggression from Middle Eastern-based terrorist groups,
Reagan chose to focus on a reckless actor whose ideas he could
equate to those of a cartoon character. Also, by referring to Libya as
an “outlaw state,” Reagan employs an enthymeme to frame the con-fl
ict as a cowboy vs. Indian drama with America as the gun-slinging
protagonists and Arabs as the hostile savages. Finally, mentioning
the Third Reich ties Libya to an evil regime that Americans were al-ready
familiar with. This was no aberration from Reagan’s narrative
of heroes and villains: all the bad guys played on the same team.
And if the slew of derogatory names and images associated
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
22
with Gaddafi and his government wasn’t enough to garner support
for his military operation, Reagan also possessed an arsenal of anti-
Arab sentiment to draw from. In his article “Arab Images in Ameri-can
Comic Books” Jack Shaheen points out that from 1950 to 1986
American comic books failed to depict a single Arab “fi ghting the
good fi ght.” Instead, villains dominate the pages, fulfi lling one of
three main characters: the repulsive terrorist, the menacing sheik,
or the greedy thief (Shaheen 123). The caricature of the perpetually
angry Arab found its way to more reputable publications as well.
The cover of Time magazine’s April publication in 1973 featured
a stern portrait of Gaddafi in his colonel uniform beside a head-ing
that read: “The Arabs: Oil, Power, Violence.” These negative
stereotypes again appeared on the cover of the July 1981 issue of
Newsweek; a furtive-looking Gaddafi stares into the distance as two
Arab men fi re semi-automatics against a scenery of camels and des-ert.
(Both images are easily found online.) With these demonized
views of Arabs at the fore, it was easy for Reagan to use Americans’
pre-existing stereotypes in order to legitimize his government’s ac-tions.
For example, in his remarks to members of the American
Business Conference held the day after the bombings, Reagan an-nounced:
“yesterday pilots of the air and naval forces of the United
States spoke to the outlaw Libyan regime in the only language that
Colonel Qadhafi seems to understand.” Both by linking Libya to
the criminals of American pioneering times and by invoking the
sentiment that Arabs are purely violent, aggressive by nature, Rea-gan
utilizes popular culture to justify his Libyan campaign.
In the same speech on April 15, Reagan added, “I would remind
the House voting this week that this arch-terrorist has sent $400 mil-lion
and an arsenal of weapons and advisers into Nicaragua to bring
his war home to the United States.” This reference to the upcoming
House vote (timed perfectly for the day after the bombing) on aid
for rebel groups in Nicaragua against a Communist–leaning Sandini-sta
government, revealed the Reagan administration’s strategy of us-ing
the Libya off ensive as a means to prepare public opinion for an
escalation of U.S. military action in other parts of the world. Reagan
was faced with the task of gaining support at home for the Contra
insurgents, whom he lauded as “the moral equals of our founding
JADE BATSTONE
23
fathers and the brave men and women of the French resistance”
(qtd. in Shane). The challenge consisted of drawing the rhetorical
distinction between the state-sanctioned terrorism of the Gaddafi
regime and the U.S. backing of Central American guerillas. Thus,
the administration birthed the term “freedom fi ghter,” bestowing a
purity of arms, so to speak, to any militants supporting a cause that
the U.S. supported. The term “freedom fi ghter” contrasted starkly
with the term “terrorist,” an appellation which Stanford University
scholar Martha Crenshaw claimed in a 1972 essay “delegitimizes the
opponent” (qtd. in Shane). According to Crenshaw, “It’s not just the
tactics that are discredited, it’s the cause as well” (qtd. in Shane). In
this vein, Reagan referred to Gaddafi as the “arch-terrorist,” defam-ing
the man by linking him to a breed of worldwide villains and thus
validating actions taken against him.
Inevitably the mechanisms of violence and resultant death tolls
mattered little in American rhetoric. Rather, the meaning ascribed
to violence by those in positions of power was what inevitably de-termined
whether the cause was just and the use of force legitimate.
Operation El Dorado embodied this concept, as the bombing of
Tripoli and Benghazi resulted in the deaths of more than one hun-dred
Libyans—mostly civilians according to the Western press—
compared to the solitary American serviceman fatally wounded in
the La Belle bombing (Chomsky 138). In order to distinguish this
off ensive from the illegitimate acts of terrorist violence that his
administration had repeatedly condemned, Reagan stated in his
April 14 address to the nation on the state of Libya: “The attacks
were concentrated and carefully targeted to minimize casualties
among the Libyan people with whom we have no quarrel.” Notably,
he called the victims of the attacks “the Libyan people” instead of
“civilians”—the Great Communicator no doubt realized that the
term alone could trigger associations with terrorist bombings. To
solidify the gradient spectrum of violence, he used the same ad-dress
to contrast the careful U.S. attack with the “maximum and
indiscriminate casualties” that Qaddafi -sponsored terrorist actions
aimed to infl ict.
Not only was the Reagan administration able to turn public
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
24
support in favor of the Libyan bombings, but the perceived success
of the operation hastened changes in American attitudes toward
terrorism (Peffl ey, Langley, and Goidel). In the wake of Operation
El Dorado, public opinion polls indicated that Americans were
more accepting of military force as an eff ective tool for dealing with
state-sponsored terrorism (Peffl ey, Langley, and Goidel). These re-visions
in public perception owed in large part to Reagan’s mastery
of rhetorically framing issues in a manner that would appeal distinc-tively
to American society. For instance, Reagan activated the con-servative
mentality and moral code held by many Americans in the
1980s by using a “strict father model” in his rhetoric. As described
by George Lakoff in his book Don’t Think of An Elephant, this view
necessitates a strong and capable authority fi gure to off er protec-tion
for his children against the world’s perils. Reagan evoked this
sentiment in a 1986 address on national security: “The past 5 years
have shown that American strength is once again a sheltering arm
for freedom in a dangerous world” (Reagan Feb. 26, 1986 address).
Another facet of Lakoff ’s model is a vision of the world divided
between clear winners and losers. Reagan alluded to this competi-tive
ideology with his assertion that “We live in a world where it’s
dangerous if not fatal to be second best” (qtd. in Hoyt and Bosch).
Speaking of the Libyan situation with such phrases as, “there are
limits to our patience” and “we must teach them a lesson,” called
to mind a parent chastising a rebellious child and thus further in-grained
the strict father model of seeing the world (Davis 47).
With this mental frame in place, the United States was justifi ed
in taking the belt strap, so to speak, to a misbehaving Libya—in
fact, it was the moral thing to do. Just as strict fathers believe that
the only way to teach children right from wrong is through harsh
(and in some cases) painful punishment, Reagan sought to con-vince
the American people that Libya, Gaddafi , and terrorists in
general would only change their erroneous ways if they when met
with forceful consequences. Speaking of the terrorists involved in
the La Belle bombings earlier that week, Reagan warned that “if
somebody does this and gets away with it and nothing happens to
them, that encourages them to try even harder and do more” (Apr.
9, 1986 press conference).
JADE BATSTONE
25
As a “strict father,” a moral authority to the world, it was cru-cial
that the United States was perceived as a strong international
presence. Reagan’s “peace through strength” doctrine solidifi ed
this image of the nation as well as portrayed the Libyan off ensive as
a show of might that would make the world a safer place. Military
capacity was the instrument of peace that Reagan referred to most
often and that which he invariably pointed to as a measure of the
country’s strength. Conversely, weakness, in Reagan’s eyes, con-sisted
of inaction in the face of external threat. In the aftermath of
the Rome and Vienna massacres Secretary of State Shultz adopted
this aggressive outlook as well, asserting that “state-sponsored ter-ror
will increase through our submission to it, not from our ac-tive
resistance” (qtd. in Davis 84). Reagan, for his part, told the
American people that “[Qaddafi ] counted on America to be passive
… he counted wrong”—a clear nod to the “passivity as weakness”
doctrine (Reagan Apr. 14, 1986 address). By disregarding the poten-tial
for peaceful negotiations or state-issued sanctions to serve as
a form of action, albeit non-violent, Reagan legitimizes his unde-clared
war on Libya by presenting it as the only recourse for taking
action against enemies. Quoting Edmund Burke, he reminded the
audience of a White House meeting held the day after Operation
El Dorado, “In order for evil to succeed, it’s only necessary that
good men do nothing.”
Reagan’s militaristic foreign policy didn’t begin with the terror-ist
threat, however: he assumed the presidential offi ce armed with
the belief that a strong front face was exactly what was needed
to force the Soviet Union to keel over (Hoyt and Bosch). Reagan
then framed the Libyan attacks as an extension of the fi ght against
the same forces of world evil. By placing the new disturbing threat
to their safety within a preexisting realm of shared experiences,
Reagan was able to console anxious Americans and gain support
for his administration’s policies. He assured Americans that there
was still a bear loose in the forest, albeit a bear of a distinctly Arab
breed. To enact this strategy, Reagan and those in his government
used pre-existing anti-communist rhetoric in their verbal campaign
against world terrorists. Secretary of State Alexander Haig made a
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
26
public statement in 1986 claiming that “the punishment necessary
to defeat the terrorists is not a tit-for-tat which leaves them the
choice of escalation” (qtd. in Davis). By espousing strong action to
create a deterrence eff ect, Haig invoked a line of reasoning that
Americans were already familiar with. It drew on widely accept-ed
American values: the immorality and innate evil of the Soviet
Union. Likewise, one political writer of the time termed Reagan’s
approach to Libya “containment, rollback, and bleeding all at the
same time” (Davis 60). Casting international terrorism, and by ex-tension
the Libyan regime, in the same light as the dreaded Com-munists
paved the way for Reagan to earn overwhelming public
support for his anti-terrorism endeavors.
Selling a combative foreign policy to the American people was
a great oratorical feat of Reagan’s presidency. The cult of person-ality
that he managed to create for himself facilitated a rhetoric
that drew theatrical representations of heroes and villains on the
world stage. With the threat of international terrorism looming
over the American people, Reagan utilized this simplistic script
to cast a clear aggressor (Gaddafi ) and make a show of vanquish-ing
the dangerous foe. In this way, Reagan successfully legitimized
the 1986 Libyan air strikes as a demonstration of meeting the evil
scourge of terrorism with force—an impressive achievement when
we look at our current president’s failure to achieve a similar rhe-torical
victory against the very same opponent. Despite a near
international consensus that Gaddafi should be ousted from his
repressive Libyan regime, Obama’s deployment of U.S. military aid
was largely seen as a “folly” (Falk). Whereas Reagan embodied con-fi
dence and decisiveness with his actions (no matter how fl awed),
Obama’s deliberation over a course of action in Libya merited the
pejorative description of “dithering” by some (Falk). Rather than
a heroic crusade, one Al Jazeera columnist lamented that Obama’s
“military intervention has not saved the day” (Falk). Thus, even
the staunchest liberals must concede a grudging admiration for
the late Great Communicator’s masterful wielding of public opin-ion.
When it comes to rhetorical gunfi ghts, Obama could use some
target practice.
JADE BATSTONE
27
Appendix
Daff y Qaddafi : Malice in Wonderland. Comic Book. Comics Unlimited.
1986. Print.
ANALYSIS OF REAGAN’S RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1986 LIBYAN AIR STRIKES
28
Works Cited
Chomsky, Noam. Pirates and Empires: International Terrorism in the Real
World. Brattleboro, VT: Amana, 1990. Print.
Daff y Qaddafi : Malice in Wonderland. Comic Book. Comics Unlimited. 1986.
Print.
Davis, Brian L. Qaddafi , Terrorism, and the Origins of the U.S. Attack on
Libya. New York: Praeger, 1990. Print.
Falk, Richard. “Obama’s Libyan Folly.” Al Jazeera. 4 Apr. 2011. Web. 6
Apr. 2011. <http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/04/201
14410410950151.html>.
Hertog, James. “Elite Press Coverage of the 1986 U.S.-Libya Confl ict:
A Case Study of Tactical and Strategic Critique.” Journalism & Mass
Communication Quarterly 77.3 (2000): 612-27. Print.
Hook, Geoff rey. “Showdown.” Cartoon. 26 March 1986. <www.
geoff hook.com>.
Hoyt, Austin, and Adriana Bosch. “Reagan.” American Experience. Prod.
Austin Hoyt. PBS. Television.
Ivie, Robert L. “Images of Savagery in American Justifi cations for War.”
Communication Monographs 47.4 (1980): 279-294. Communication &
Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 24 Mar. 2011.
Lakoff , George. “Framing 101: How to Take Back Public Discourse.”
Don’t Think of An Elephant. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea
Green, 2004. 3-34. Print.
Peffl ey, Mark, Ronald E. Langley, and Robert Kirby Goidel. “Public Re-sponses
to the Presidential Use of Military Force: A Panel Analysis.”
Political Behavior 17.3 (1995): 307. Web.
Reagan, Ronald. Address. The President’s News Conference. East Room
at the White House, Washington. 9 Apr. 1986. Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.reagan.utexas.
JADE BATSTONE
29
edu/archives/speeches/1986/50786a.htm>.
_______. Address. President Reagan’s Address to the Nation on U.S. Air
Strikes against Libya. Oval Offi ce at the White House, Washington.
14 Apr. 1986. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/41486g.htm>.
_______. Address. Remarks at a White House Meeting With Members
of the American Business Conference. In Room 450 of the Old
Executive Offi ce Building, Washington. 15 Apr. 1986. Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.reagan.utexas.
edu/archives/speeches/1986/41586c.htm>.
_______. Address. Address to the Nation on National Security. The
Oval Offi ce at the White House, Washington. 26 Feb. 1986. The
Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library. Web. 29 Mar.
2011. <http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan-quotes-detail.
aspx?tx=2280>.
Shaheen, Jack G. “Arab Images in American Comic Books.” Journal of
Popular Culture 28.1 (1994): 123-133. Academic Search Premier.
EBSCO. Web. 25 Mar. 2011.
Shane, Scott. “Words as Weapons: Dropping the ‘Terrorism’ Bomb.” The
New York Times. 2 Apr. 2010. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.
com/2010/04/04/weekinreview/04shane.html?_r=1>.
Speakes, Larry M. “Statement by Principal Deputy Press Secretary
Speakes on the Gulf of Sidra Incident.” Address. Briefi ng Room at
the White House, Washington. 24 Mar. 1986. Ronald Reagan Presi-dential
Library. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/>.
THE MARRIAGE ACT OF 1753
30
WRITER’S COMMENTS
I was far from excited when I fi rst chose to research and write about
marriage in eighteenth-century Britain for Professor Crawford’s course.
Quite frankly, it seemed a dull and irrelevant subject, but this changed
when I encountered information about the Marriage Act of 1753. I was
surprised to fi nd that the arguments of proponents and opponents of
the Act were nearly the same as those I had heard when Proposition
8 was on the ballot in 2008. In addition, I found it fascinating that more
than two hundred years later, scholars like Probert and Bannet still
hadn’t reached a consensus about the impact of the Act. Using primary
and secondary sources I sought to discover what led to the Act’s rati-fi
cation as well as the effects of the Act and how they could be used to
inform our theory and practice of marriage in contemporary America.
— Michael Braten
INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS
Michael wrote this essay for a British Eighteenth-Century Literature
course and chose a subject that grew out of his formal, oral presenta-tion
to the class. The paper that emerged, however, introduced an entirely
different focus than the original project. During his research Michael dis-covered
a shameful historical fact: problems that attach to institutions
such as the family rarely change; rather, they simply disport themselves in
unfamiliar sartorial display. He was thus able, early in the essay, to parallel
Proposition 8 with the Marriage Act of 1753. This transference of knowl-edge
takes cognitive maturity: the thinking skills associated with form-ing
relationships between topics seemingly divorced from each other by
time and even content can be shown to have much in common, can even
show that nothing much has changed. To write this paper, Michael not only
had to conduct research into the Marriage Act, which few people, frankly,
know about, and consequently know nothing of the legal statutes that, in a
process over time, we fi rst import into ways that we think about the fam-ily,
and, second, we naturalize so that they become invisible. Michael’s essay
brings the Marriage Act into visibility and thus frames an astute argument.
Like all of Michael’s written work, however, the perspicuity of his argu-ment
owes much to the solidity of his writing. Although Michael learned
to write good academic prose early on, he demonstrates here that he
clearly understands not only how to make and support an argument—he
can also transform a subject that initially seemed dull into a politics that
is relevant for us today.
—Rachel Crawford, Department of English
MICHAEL BRATEN
31
MICHAEL BRATEN
The Marriage Act of 1753:
Drastic Alteration or Mere Development?
ON NOVEMBER 4, 2008, Californians entered polling stations
and cast their votes to elect new government offi cials as well
as to support or oppose a series of statewide and municipal mea-sures.
One measure that appeared on the ballot was Proposition
8, which sought to defi ne marriage in California as the union be-tween
a man and a woman. The measure descended from Propo-sition
22 that had passed in 2001, but which the State Supreme
Court had overturned, citing that the California State Constitu-tion
required equal treatment of individuals regardless of their sex-ual
orientation. In the months prior to the 2008 election, a debate
raged throughout the state over the consequences of the proposi-tion.
Many proponents argued that if Proposition 8 did not pass,
it would destroy the sanctity of marriage and dissolve the modern
family (Garrison).
When Proposition 8 passed with 52.5 percent of Californians
voting in favor, supporters celebrated the victory as one that pro-tected
society and children. “I think we made them realize,” said
supporter and proposition strategist Jeff Flint, “that there are
broader implications to society and particularly the children when
you make that fundamental change that’s at the core of how soci-ety
is organized, which is marriage” (qtd. in Garrison). While many
who voted in the 2008 election saw Proposition 8’s attempt to (re)
defi ne marriage as a contemporary phenomenon, the truth is that
Prop 8 was only the most recent change occurring to an institution
which, for hundreds of years, has undergone a process of constant
revision.
More than 250 years before Proposition 8 appeared on the bal-
THE MARRIAGE ACT OF 1753
32
lots, long before the United States of America even existed, Eng-land
faced a measure called the Marriage Act of 1753. At the time,
many argued that the Act altered the defi nition of marriage and
aff ected society profoundly. Proponents of Prop 8 echoed the exact
words of dissenters of the Act in Parliament who “protested that
the government was giving ‘the word marriage … a diff erent signifi -
cation from what it had before’ ” (Bannet 233). The truth, contrary
to arguments in the 18th century, is that the Marriage Act of 1753,
was not a radical revision of existing practice, but rather “a devel-opment
of what already existed” (Probert 249). In addition, the
Marriage Act was not, as originally argued in the House, a safety
measure put in place by Parliament to protect young wealthy heirs
and heiresses from being seduced by members of a lower socioeco-nomic
class. Instead, it was a way to increase the population of the
commonwealth. It succeeded.
Whereas contemporary measures such as Proposition 8 seek to
defi ne marriage as the union between one man and one woman, de-fending
it from the alleged menace of homosexuality, the Marriage
Act of 1753 sought to defend marriage from the menace of clan-destine
marriages (O’Connell 100). In order to understand exactly
what clandestine arrangement were, and why Parliament wished to
prevent them from occurring, it is essential to look at not only the
variety of ways in which individuals could have married in the 18th
century, but also the reasons why individuals chose to marry.
Most marriages that took place in England prior to and well
into the 18th century were arranged. Arranged marriages occurred
“among landed or moneyed families” as well as middle-class fami-lies,
and were “essentially fi nancial agreements designed to ce-ment
powerful alliances and exchange or acquire land or property”
(Moore 1). The fathers of the involved families arranged these mar-riages,
usually while the bride and groom to be were still infants.
The marriages came to fruition in the betrothed individuals’ teen-age
years, many times without either of the individuals knowing
each other. Sometimes, the individuals wed without ever having
met each other, which was to be the case with Mary Pierrepont.
When she was 23, Pierrepont’s father arranged a marriage between
her and an Irish aristocrat whom she had never met. She went on
MICHAEL BRATEN
33
to describe the wedding arrangements as “daily preparations for
[her] journey through Hell.” Pierrepont was fortunate enough to
escape this arrangement when she eloped and married her long-time
lover just days before the marriage ceremony was slated to
take place (Moore 1). Very few couples were able to do what Pier-repont
did; most arranged marriages were, of course, disastrous
and unhappy.
The marriage that Pierrepont chose to pursue, one founded in
love rather than in the alliances and fi nances of her father, is an ex-ample
of the other form of marriage gaining popularity in the 18th
century, the companionate marriage. Considered to be the norm
today, marriages in which “spouses put the prospects of emotional
satisfaction before the ambition for increased income or status”
were a new phenomenon for the upper and middle classes in 18th
century England (Stone 217). The lower classes had always been
free to choose their own mate, so long as they were of the same
social standing (Moore 1). As Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) noted:
persons of lower station are, generally speaking, much [more
happy] in their marriages than princes or persons of distinction.
So I take much of it, if not all, to consist in the advantage they
have to choose and refuse. (qtd. in Stone 218)
When people of a lower class married for love rather than fi nan-cial
gain, however, it caused fewer problems for parents than when
upper-class individuals decided to do the same. Thus, many upper-class
betrothed children like Pierrepont who chose to marry for
love were forced to marry under clandestine arrangements that
their parents could not prevent, but which still carried many ad-vantages
of a legal marriage.
Understanding what it meant to celebrate a clandestine marriage
in the 18th century requires that one understand what made a mar-riage
offi cial at the time. According to Stone, an offi cial marriage
involved a series of distinct steps. The fi rst was a written legal
contract between parents concerning the fi nancial arrange-ments.
The second was the spousals (also called a contract), the
THE MARRIAGE ACT OF 1753
34
formal exchange, usually before witnesses, of oral promises. The
third step was the public proclamation of banns in church, three
times the purpose of which was to allow claims of pre-contract
to be heard (by the seventeenth century nearly all the well-to-do
evaded this step by obtaining a license). The fourth step was the
wedding in church, in which mutual consent was publicly veri-fi
ed, and the union received the formal blessing of the Church.
The fi fth and fi nal step was the sexual consummation. (30)
A clandestine marriage abandoned many of these steps yet remained
valid under ecclesiastical law, and retained property rights under
common law (O’Connell 71). This was possible because “at canon
law, consent, not ceremony, made marriage,” and thus “the crucial
distinction for ecclesiastical courts was not whether a priest was
present” at a wedding, but whether or not couples voiced marriage
vows in the present or future tense. Marriage vows said in the pres-ent
tense (spousia per verba de praesenti) before witnesses constituted
a binding marriage, while vows said in the future tense (spousia per
verba de futuro) in the presence of witnesses constituted a marriage
upon consummation, but could be broken with mutual consent any
time before that (O’Connell 80-81). If couples only exchanged vows
without witnesses present the marriage was considered a contract
marriage. If couples made the vows in the presence of a priest, but
without any of the aforementioned steps, the marriage was con-sidered
clandestine. These marriages were understandably more
popular among individuals because they could be proven when it
came to the death of a spouse and inheritance became an issue
(Probert 249). Clandestine marriages were also popular because
they were performed without many of steps in which disapproving
family members would have had to participate.
It comes as no surprise, then, that in order to pass the Act,
as Bannet points out, “the Government said that the Act was de-signed
to prevent rich heirs and heiresses of good family from be-ing
seduced into clandestine or runaway marriages with their so-cial
or economic inferiors” (233). Many even referred to the Act as
“An Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriages.” The
Act stipulated that the only valid marriage under law was one “per-
MICHAEL BRATEN
35
formed by an ordained priest according to the Anglican Liturgy
in a parish church or public chapel of the Established Church
after thrice called banns or the purchase of a license from the
bishop” (O’Connell 67) and made a marriage nearly impossible
without parental consent for couples under 21 (Moore 1).
All of these restrictions appeared to aim at preventing clan-destine
marriages, but the government’s motives are uncon-vincing
considering the facts of the Act. First, because the Act
only applied to England and Wales, couples desiring to marry
against their parents’ wishes eloped in “Scotland where the Act
did not apply” and “married at Gretna Green, the fi rst village
across the border” (Moore 1). Second, as Probert points out, “it
was possible to marry within the letter of the law, but still evade
the notice of friends and family” (254). Several large loopholes
in the law enabled this. For example, a marriage could not be
nullifi ed after occurring if banns were not published in the lo-cale
where the parties resided. In addition, couples under the
age of 21 “could marry by banns without parental consent,” and
“such a marriage was valid unless the parent or guardian had
publicly expressed dissent in the church or chapel where the
banns were published” (Probert 254-55). Thus, if couples mar-ried
in a parish other than the one that they regularly attend-ed,
their parents could not dissent. Allegedly, this was widely
practiced in the wake of the Act, given the fact that “parishes
surrounding London lost much of their marriage trade to the
anonymous urban parishes” (Probert 255).
With the information above taken into consideration, Ban-net
is correct in noting that rather than being aimed at prevent-ing
clandestine marriage, the Act can be interpreted as “one
of the fi rst fruits of the new discipline of political economy.”
For Bannet, it “represented the best contemporary thinking
about how to manage population in order to increase Britain’s
wealth” (235). Philosophers of the 18th century, such as Adam
Smith, expressed that a country’s industrial ability was of the
highest value and that in order to increase this industrial abil-ity,
a country needed as many helping hands as it could man-age.
In other words, as Smith said, “the most decisive mark of
the prosperity of any country is the increase in the number of
THE MARRIAGE ACT OF 1753
36
its inhabitants” (65). Bannet notes that in the time before the
Act passed, opinions of the House diff ered over whether or not
the Act would increase population. “But,” Bannet points out,
“they agreed that ‘propagation of species’ and ‘the good of so-ciety’
were the ‘two great ends [they] should have in view when
[they] make any laws relating to marriage’ ” (234). Additionally,
English Parliament understood that an increased population
didn’t necessarily equate to a productive one. As British econo-mist
James Steuart (1712-1780) explained:
Children produced from parents who are able to maintain
them, and bring them up to a way of getting bread for them-selves,
do really multiply and serve the state. Those born of
parents whose subsistence is precarious, or which is propor-tioned
to their own physical necessary only, have a precari-ous
existence, and will undoubtedly begin their life by being
beggars. (XII)
The government recognized that children born to uncertain,
disastrous, or broken marriages often died of untended diseas-es,
starved, or fell into the hands of the parish and the nation
for support. Only when parents raised children in a stable mar-riage
assured by the Marriage Act of 1753, would they be pro-ductive
members of the commonwealth. These children would
then also go on to mirror the marriage that they were raised in
as a result, and would in turn produce more commonwealths-men
(Bannet 234).
Considering the statistics, the Marriage Act accomplished
the goal of increasing Britain’s population. As Bannet states,
“the population’s growth rate accelerated steadily in the latter
half of the eighteenth century according to Rickman’s fi rst cen-sus
in 1801, and Britain’s population almost doubled between
1791 and 1831 when it went from 7.74 million to 13.28 million in
about a generation and a half” (250). During this period, how-ever,
illegitimate births more than doubled, thus calling into
question whether or not the Act succeeded in positively im-pacting
Britain’s political economy (241).
In the essay, “The Marriage Act of 1753: ‘A Most Cruel Law
MICHAEL BRATEN
37
for the Fair Sex,’ ” Eve Tavor Bannet argues that the British gov-ernment
reached the aforementioned goals of population growth
at the expense of women. She cites the rise in illegitimate births
as proof that women suff ered the most because of the Act. Ban-net
demonstrates this noting that before the Act, marriage relied
solely on the “private exchange of promises between a man and
a woman to live together as [husband] and wife.” Thus, “church
courts and justices of the peace would uphold the claim of a preg-nant
woman [if] ‘she had been debauched under promise of mar-riage.’
” They also, if necessary, compelled the man in question to
uphold his promise. This meant that “seductions, as well as, abduc-tions
and clandestine marriages were, for all intents and purposes,
real marriages” (234). When the Marriage Act came into being, if
a woman consummated with her lover and had a child as a result,
even if spousals had been exchanged prior to intercourse, and the
male involved chose to fl ee, the woman would be stuck with a bas-tard
child. To illustrate this, Bannet quotes Sir William Blackstone,
from his Commentaries on Laws of England, who said:
Any contract made, per verba de praesenti or in words of the pres-ent
tense, and in case of cohabitation per verba de futuro also, be-tween
persons able to contract was before the late act deemed a
valid marriage to many purposes; and the parties might be com-pelled
in the spiritual courts to celebrate it in facie ecclesiae. But
these verbal contracts are now of no force, to compel a future
marriage. (234)
In this sense the Act made women who engaged in sexual activity
out of the confi nes of the law whores, and any children born as a
result of the sexual activity bastards. And Bannet is not alone in her
opinion. When the Act was debated in the House, opponents said
that it was “one of the most cruel enterprises against the fair sex
that ever entered into the heart of man,” for it would be “the ruin
of a multitude of young women” (Bannet 235). Further, Bannet ex-plains,
because “men had increasingly appropriated to themselves
what had once been considered women’s jobs in the economy at
THE MARRIAGE ACT OF 1753
38
large,” a debauched single woman and her children barely stood a
chance to survive, let alone be successful in any way (241).To illus-trate
how this might have happened, Bannet cites the case that al-legedly
spurred the Marriage Act.
In 1746, the case of Campbell v. Cochran began when Captain
John Campbell died in combat at the Battle of Fantenoy. Shortly
after, a woman named Magdalen Cochran came forward as Camp-bell’s
widowed wife expecting his pension, despite the fact that
Mr. Campbell had been married to another woman, Jean Camp-bell,
for over 20 years. Jean Campbell thus “raised a Declarator
of Marriage process before the Commissary Court” (Leneman 2).
The case went to trial, where Cochran claimed that she had been
clandestinely married to John Campbell in the summer of 1724. Al-though
she lacked a marriage certifi cate, she produced a document
signed by John Campbell verifying their wedding, as well as hun-dreds
of love letters, in which Mr. Campbell referred to her as his
wife. At the time of the marriage, Mr. Campbell asked Cochran to
keep the marriage secret “because he was dependent on the Duke
of Argyll who would not approve of it” (Leneman 2).
Soon after, Mr. Campbell married Jean, and when confronted
by Magdalen about it, he claimed that he was drunk when she se-duced
him and that he had impregnated her and had to marry her
to avoid consternation from the Duke of Argyll. Despite this, John
and Magdalen continued their relationship, writing letters, and
sometimes even seeing each other in person. Jean Campbell even-tually
learned about the relationship and was understandably upset,
but nothing could have prepared her for the shock of learning that
Magdalen appeared in English court as Campbell’s wife to claim
his pension. If Magdalen succeeded in her claim, Jean Campbell’s
22-year-long marriage would have been nullifi ed and her daughter
would have been declared a bastard. Fortunately for Jean, “the
Court found that the marriage had been suffi ciently proven and
barred Magdalen Cochran from bringing evidence of her claim”
(Leneman 4). But Magdalen did not give up and appealed to the
House of Lords in 1749. In the summer of 1751 Magdalen’s process
was again dismissed after which she appealed again. According to
Leneman, “it was that fi nal appeal, in January 1753, that led the
Lords to press for new legislation to prevent clandestine marriag-
MICHAEL BRATEN
39
es, something Lord Hardwicke had long advocated” (5).
Although it took place before the Marriage Act of 1753, Bannet
notes that this case represents the potential consequences of many
post-Marriage Act relationships. For Bannet, this is an example of
“a woman who thought herself [a man’s] widow [and who] had ac-tually
lived with him publicly as his wife for many years [but] was
set aside by the true or trumped up evidence of his pre-contract to
another woman.” For Bannet it also would have meant “that the
woman who thought herself his widow had been married to him
bigamously and that her children were in fact illegitimate” (237).
Fortunately, Magdalen did not have children from her relation-ship
with Campbell and thus was not left poor and husbandless,
as many women in the 18th century allegedly were due to broken
marriage promises.
Bannet concludes that before the Marriage Act, unions were
constituted by “ ‘truth’ of the sexual union and its potential fruit”
and that the old laws regarding these unions were designed to
“follow, acknowledge and, where necessary, uphold the ‘troth’ of
the union.” Marriage was viewed as a union that had existed since
Adam and Eve, before civilized society, and only depended on the
private vows made between a man and a woman. Laws then existed
only “to repeat and publicly enforce ‘every obligation which natu-rally
arises from the Marriage Contract.’ ” According to Bannet,
the Marriage Act, “on the other hand, sought to regulate people’s
natural impulses in order to bring them under the control of public
police.” The Act regarded reproduction as a necessary ingredient
to the economy, and marriage a precursor to healthy reproduction,
although for generations “churchmen and moralists had taught
that marriage was a remedy against fornication designed for mu-tual
comfort and the procreation of children” (250). And in the end
for Bannet, women were the primary victims, their sexuality com-moditized
and regulated by the Marriage Act, and valued as long
it could be proven to have occurred while they were bound in an
offi cial marriage with a man.
Despite the convincing nature of Bannet’s argument, Rebecca
Probert manages to counteract many of her points in the essay
“The Impact of the Marriage Act Of 1753: Was It Really ‘A Most
THE MARRIAGE ACT OF 1753
40
Cruel Law For The Fair Sex?’ ” Probert’s essay demonstrates that
the Marriage Act was, by no means, a drastic alteration to existing
practice, but merely “constituted a shift in practice” (248). She il-lustrates
this by pointing out that “the Church had long prescribed
the form that marriages should take, even if less formal ceremonies
were accepted as valid” (248). According to Probert’s research, cou-ples
were required to announce banns for hundreds of years prior
to the passing of the Act, and the Ecclesiastical License Act of 1533
made it possible for couples to dispense banns and instead obtain a
license. Further, she says that “church courts had the power to pun-ish
couples who failed to comply with these formalities and could
require the parties to solemnize their marriage in the approved
form” (248).
Bannet’s argument is founded on the idea that after the pass-ing
of the Marriage Act, women who were seduced under promises
of marriage and then abandoned had no means of recourse and
were left to fend for themselves with an illegitimate child. This hy-pothesis
only works if contract marriages (the simple exchange of
vows) were prevalent before the Marriage Act. Probert’s research
indicates that this is not true. She quotes Stone who claims that
contract marriages “died away to almost nothing between 1680
and 1733,” and that three cases in the 1730s “made legal history
as the last of their kind” (qtd. in Probert 250). It is possible that
contract marriages may have remained popular despite instances
of dispute within them, but even then, contract marriages were
very diffi cult to prove, and thus it is unlikely that woman would
have been seduced into relationships based on the promise of one.
As Probert points out, “a woman who surrendered her chastity
upon a promise of marriage breathed into her ear by a man who
then rejected her in favor of someone else would have diffi culties
in establishing that she was his wife in law as well as in conscience”
(251). Lord Hardwicke, who is largely credited with the Act, made
the point during the trial of Priest v. Parrot that contract marriage
promises were instances “which it is almost impossible to give evi-dence
of” (251).
Responding to Bannet’s claim that women could also be se-duced
into clandestine marriages after the Act, Probert states that
MICHAEL BRATEN
41
“estimates of the proportion of clandestine marriages over the
country” varied “from four per cent to thirty per cent” (249). Even
then, the thirty percent is an outlier because, as O’Connell pointed
out, clandestine marriages were the “ ‘commonest means’ of mar-riage
in London … before the Marriage Act,” yet we cannot assume
that the rest of England functioned as London did (76). Further, as
Probert notes, many of these marriages may have only been clan-destine
so far as they were “celebrated at uncanonical hours” (mar-riages
were supposed to be celebrated before noon) or were cel-ebrated
“in a parish to which the parties did not belong” (249). All
things considered, formal marriages were actually more common
than not. As Probert says, “clandestine marriages peaked at the
end of the seventeenth century” and by “1753 conformity with the
church’s formal requirements was almost universal” (249). Thus,
it is hard to argue that a woman would be tricked into uncertain
unions with a man as Bannet argues, before or after the drafting of
the Act.
Even if a woman was seduced by a man and made pregnant,
there were still means of recourse. If a man promised marriage
before the seduction, a woman could sue for breach of contract.
If marriage wasn’t promised there were still ways of holding the
man fi nancially responsible. “The Poor Law guardians,” Probert
notes, “could recover from the putative father sums they had paid
to the mother.” In addition, the victimized woman’s father “could
bring an action for aggravated trespass or loss of services against
his daughter’s seducer” (256).
With all of the aforementioned information taken into con-sideration,
what is to be made of the spike in illegitimacy rates
after the passing of the Act? Probert notes that illegitimate births
were already on the rise before 1753, that there was an increase in
marital fertility in the latter half of the 18th century. Probert also
calls attention to the fact that other countries (who had not made
changes to their marriage laws) were also witnessing a similar rise
(255).
Probert also examines the relationship between law and behav-ior
in her essay, an aspect that is absent in Bannet’s. Probert asks:
THE MARRIAGE ACT OF 1753
42
How far is human behavior—especially the behavior of lovers—
dictated by the law? Did the Marriage Act really lead to a rise
in the number of cynical seducers, who took advantage of the
Act to take advantage of women, safe in the knowledge that they
could not be made to marry them? Is it not more likely that the
type of man who would seek to rely on the lack of legal enforce-ability
of promises of marriage after 1753 would have been careful
not to utter a direct promise of marriage before that date? Such
men were likely to be exceptional. The great majority, both be-fore
and after the passage of the Act, married not because the law
constrained them to do so, but because they wanted to marry the
woman in question. (256)
Although the consciences and opinions of 18th century men cannot
be proven, unless we take letters and novels to be a direct represen-tation
of their thought, Probert is justifi ed in pointing out that very
few men acted in the manner which Bannet assumes they did. In ad-dition,
Probert calls attention to the way in which we view women.
She agrees that the prior to the Act and after the Act, marriage dis-advantaged
woman in some way. She argues, however, that we need
to appreciate “that women were not—and are not—inevitably pas-sive
victims of either individual men or the collective male might
of the law.” While it is true that women “have suff ered manifest
injustices in the past,” Probert argues that we need to “accept the
possibility that some developments were an improvement” (259).
Probert concludes that “it seems unlikely that the Marriage Act
resulted in a signifi cant change in the way people thought about mar-riage.”
She notes that, as has been demonstrated in this essay, “most
couples had married in the church before the Act, and more married
in the church after it was passed,” whether due to social pressure,
legal advantages, or their own personal convictions (256). We must
look at contemporary amendments to marriage in the same way. As
Probert argued, “the Marriage Act of 1753” was not “a breach with
what had gone before, but rather a development of what already ex-isted”
(249). And is this not what recent legislation involving mar-riage
rights boils down to? Surely, the mere development of marriage
by making it inclusive to a group of people, much like anti-misce-
MICHAEL BRATEN
43
genation bans did in the 1960s, will not cause marriage to dissolve,
and cause the family as we know it to break down. If anything, it will
merely cement the institution and broaden its reaches.
Works Cited
Bannet, Eve Tavor. “The Marriage Act of 1753: ‘A Most Cruel Law For
The Fair Sex.’ ” Eighteenth-Century Studies 30.3 (1997): 233-54. Print.
Garrison, Jessica. “Nation Watches as State Weighs Ban.” The Los Angeles
Times. 5 Nov. 2008. Web.
Leneman, Leah. “The Scottish Case That Led to Hardwicke’s Marriage
Act.” Law and History Review 17.1 (1999): 161-71. Print.
Moore, Wendy. “Love and Marriage in 18th-Century Britain.” Histori-cally
Speaking 10.3 (2009): 8-10. Print.
O’Connell, Lisa. “Marriage Acts: Stages in the Transformation of Mod-ern
Nuptial Culture.” Diff erences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies
11.1 (1999): 68-111. Print.
Probert, Rebecca. “The Impact Of The Marriage Act Of 1753: Was It
Really ‘A Most Cruel Law For The Fair Sex’?” Eighteenth-Century
Studies 38.2 (2005): 247-62. Print.
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. 1776. Clarendon: Oxford, 1979.
Print.
Steuart, James. “An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy by
James Steuart.” 1767. Marxists Internet Archive. Web.
Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England: 1500-1800
(abridged ed.). New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Print.
MATERNAL MORTALITY AND MAYAN WOMEN IN GUATEMALA
44
WRITER’S COMMENTS
Learning to provide culturally sensitive care was a key component of my
training as a nurse. Through the service learning project developed by the
University of San Francisco School of Nursing and led by USF instructor
and certifi ed nurse-midwife Dr. Linda Walsh, I was given the opportunity
to travel with ten other nursing students to Guatemala in January 2010
to provide prenatal and intrapartum care to almost one hundred Mayan
women in 14 remote rural villages. We were one of a dozen groups of
USF nursing students over the six-year long partnership with the com-munity
who have traveled to San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala. We worked
alongside traditional comadronas, or midwives, in order to improve the
access and quality of prenatal care to the Mayan community. The indig-enous
women of Guatemala have some of the highest rates of infant and
maternal mortality in the world, and this paper discusses the contribut-ing
factors that I observed during the immersion program and suggests
interventions that could address this health problem.
— Melissa Fessel
INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS
Maternal mortality is a sensitive measure of women’s place in a society.
It speaks not only to the medical care available to a given population but
also to the rights enjoyed or denied to women. In the developing world,
women often have limited options for childbearing. Outside urban areas,
the choices are usually the traditional birth attendant, assistance by a
family member, or no assistance at all at the time of the birth. Melissa
Fessel explores the reasons that government and non-governmental
organizations have not experienced success in decreasing the mater-nal
mortality rate through the training of traditional birth attendants. It
has become clear that the midwives are not the primary factor in the
high death rates. Discrimination against the indigenous people in the
health care system, and the poverty-related factors of lack of transpor-tation,
poor nutrition and closely-spaced pregnancies have a far more
profound effect on the outcome of pregnancy. Until we can work with
communities to develop creative, culturally sensitive interventions, we
will continue to see poor women suffering a disproportionate share of
the pregnancy-related deaths in these communities.
—Linda V. Walsh, Professor Emeritus, School of Nursing
MELISSA FESSEL
45
MELISSA FESSEL
Maternal Mortality
and Mayan Women in Guatemala
GUATEMALA has one of the highest rates of infant and maternal
mortality in the world. Women’s Health Weekly (2004) under-scores
this appalling statistic with the fact that “maternal mortality
among indigenous women is 83% higher than the national rate”
(“Obstetrics; Indigenous groups,” p. 109). Over half of the Guate-malan
population is indigenous, or descendants of the Mayans, and
these women prefer to be cared for by midwives (Glei, Goldman,
& Rodriguez, 2000). During a recent service project to Guatemala,
eleven nursing students, a nurse practitioner, and a certifi ed nurse-midwife
(CNM) provided prenatal care to women living in villages
near the town of San Lucas Tolimán. The students estimated that
90% of the ninety-seven women they assessed were Mayan, and
almost all of whom stated that they had a midwife, or comadrona,
to care for them during pregnancy and birth. As noted by Michel,
Mahady, Veliz, Soejarto, and Caceres (2006), “more than 80% of
rural births are attended exclusively by a traditional birth mid-wife,”
and with the majority of the population living in rural areas,
this makes comadronas the main source of maternity care for Gua-temalan
women (p. 734).
The Ministry of Public Health recognizes that the Guatema-lan
health establishment must work with Mayan midwives in order
to improve the maternal mortality rates in their country, and in
1935 an offi cial mandate was established in the hopes of orienting
the comadronas to modern Western birthing methods and instru-ments
(Hinojosa, 2004). The public-health ministry has been of-fering
educational programs to midwives in Guatemala for the past
fi fty years, but despite the increase in women seeking training and
MATERNAL MORTALITY AND MAYAN WOMEN IN GUATEMALA
46
licensure, Guatemala’s high maternal mortality rates have not im-proved.
While health authorities continue to blame these discour-aging
statistics on the lack of knowledge of the informally trained
comadronas, it has become increasingly apparent that the failure
of the midwife training programs and correlating high maternal
mortality rates of the indigenous population is not the fault of the
comadronas, but due to a lack of sensitivity among health workers
concerning the Mayan culture and traditional birth practices.
The Guatemalan Ministry of Health (MSPAS)1 emphasizes
the biological aspects of delivery and disregards the Mayan view
of the importance of social and spiritual factors in birth (Berry,
2006). For instance, Mayan women have a certain degree of pena,
or embarrassment, discussing and revealing their bodies (Schooley,
Mundt, Wagner, Fullerton, & O’Donnell, 2009). This reluctance to
divulge health concerns was witnessed fi rsthand by the nursing stu-dents
during their patient interactions in Guatemala. The women
went to great lengths in order to maintain their privacy as well as
the reason behind their clinic visit. For instance, it was observed
that when a urine sample was needed, the women would hide the
cup given to them for this purpose under the fabric of their skirt
or apron. The students additionally confi rmed that many of the
women were reluctant to explain any personal health concerns and
it was common that the comadrona would report the women’s com-plaints
rather than the patient herself.
A cultural barrier is erected when the fi rst instruction pregnant
women are given when arriving at a clinic is “take your clothes off ,”
and this is furthered by the lack of communication between health
workers and patients (“Obstetrics; Indigenous groups,” 2004,
p.109). As Glei, Goldman, and Rodriguez (2003) explain, “previous
qualitative studies have indicated that medical staff in Guatemala
may be condescending or discriminatory towards the poor, espe-cially
indigenous people” (p. 2449). Alejandro Silva of the Guate-malan
Health Ministry’s National Reproductive Health Program
notes that it is not the lack of access that keeps the Mayan women
away from the clinics, but rather the discrimination they face when
1 Spanish acronym is being used, which stands for the Ministerio de Salud
Publica y Asistencia Social.
MELISSA FESSEL
47
seeking health services. Silva explains how the MSPAS studies have
shown that “people don’t question the quality of our services, they
question the way we treat them” (Replogle, 2007, p. 178).
These fi ndings are congruent with the fi rst-hand experiences
of the nursing students, as they collectively recalled the hesita-tion
among Mayan women to seek care from Westernized health
care providers who do not speak their language nor make any at-tempt
to accommodate their cultural beliefs. The students were
told that it was common for a woman’s comadrona to be sent away
if she accompanied her patient to the clinic, and the women would
later confess to their midwives that they were terrifi ed by the lack
of privacy during their physician examinations. Students also wit-nessed
annoyance by clinic health workers when one woman’s fam-ily
was praying for her while she was in labor, even though this is an
important spiritual aspect of birth in the Mayan culture.
The Maya view health and disease as a product of both natu-ral
and supernatural causes. Successful pregnancies are associated
with a balance between body and mind, in addition to “the mainte-nance
of healthy relationships with family, community, and nature”
(Michel et al., 2006, p. 739). One nursing student recalls how a pa-tient
blamed her case of fetal demise on the mal ojo, or evil eye, put
on her. She believed that the evil eye was placed on her by an angry
woman, cursing her so that she would never have a baby survive
again. Even though both the student and her instructor Dr. Walsh,
a CNM, knew there were physiological reasons for the death of
the fetus, they did not dispute the woman’s claim because to do
so would have undermined the religious and social beliefs of the
patient and ignored the woman’s culture. The student explained
that she was taught to use cultural sensitivity when working with
the Mayan patients because it is important to respect the tradi-tional
beliefs of the Mayan culture. Unfortunately, clinic health
care workers do not commonly employ this consideration. Glei
and Goldman (2000) support this observation when they conclude
that the lower use of biomedical care by the indigenous population
is largely due to the increased likelihood of “discriminatory treat-ment”
they have with Spanish-speaking providers (p. 20).
The language barrier that Mayan women are confronted with
MATERNAL MORTALITY AND MAYAN WOMEN IN GUATEMALA
48
when visiting clinics is an unavoidable obstacle. According to Glei
and Goldman (2000), “only about 60% of the indigenous women of
reproductive age are able to speak Spanish,” and even though provid-ers
serve a mostly indigenous population, a majority of them do not
speak an indigenous language (p. 8). The impact of this lack of com-munication
is further supported by a study that examined pregnancy
care and ethnic variation in rural Guatemala. It was found that fewer
than 3% of non-Spanish-speaking indigenous women gave birth in
medical facilities and less than one in ten of this sub-group visited a
physician at all during her pregnancy. Spanish-speaking indigenous
women, however, were more likely to visit a biomedical provider,
which suggests that communication is a key element that women
consider when seeking maternal care (Glei & Goldman, 2000).
The current initiatives in place to strengthen the relationship
between traditional midwives in Guatemala and modern Western
obstetrics include programs aimed at formally training and licens-ing
comadronas. The training sessions are held at local health centers
and last about two weeks, with refresher courses approximately ev-ery
year. Without a license, midwives are not allowed to practice
openly, and the work authorization they receive must be renewed
annually at their local health center (Hinojosa, 2004).
The nursing students reported that there is a monthly reunión,
or meeting, of the comadronas from the villages surrounding San
Lucas Tolimán. The meeting is organized by San Lucas Tolimán
health promoter Jesus Antonio Perez-Aguilar, and is an opportuni-ty
for education and the discussion of recent cases. While the stu-dents
on the most recent trip to Guatemala were unable to attend
such a meeting, they explained that students from their nursing
program have been accompanying Dr. Walsh to San Lucas Tolimán
biannually for the past fi ve years. During each visit they plan an
educational presentation for the reunión, with topics ranging from
diabetes to pregnancy risk factors and premature births. Dr. Walsh
re-affi rmed this claim and described how one group performed a
skit for the comadronas and acted out prenatal interventions (Dr.
Linda Walsh, personal communication, January 10, 2010).
There are a myriad of problems associated with the current at-tempts
by the Guatemalan Ministry of Health to improve health-
MELISSA FESSEL
49
care for Mayan women. The training programs in place that aim to
educate the comadronas are ineff ective. The trainers do not speak
indigenous languages and use teaching methods that are inappro-priate
for the older and largely illiterate midwives. Lecturing with-out
any practical instruction disregards the way comadronas have
traditionally gained their knowledge and skills. Instead of learning
experientially, midwives are authoritatively taught pre-established
guidelines. These guidelines do not allow the various therapeutic
techniques used by the comadronas, and this results in a medical-ization
of birth that plainly ignores the cultural belief systems of
Mayan women. Glei et al. (2003) summarize the drawbacks to the
current midwife training programs when they explain their fi nding
that the medical personnel teaching the comadronas have “little ex-perience
attending births, are unable to speak indigenous languag-es,
and are condescending to the midwives” (p. 2449).
These trainers discredit the knowledge and practice the mid-wives
already have, and in no way make an attempt to incorpo-rate
their local customs. Health offi cials criticize the traditional
techniques of comadronas that they neither understand nor care to
examine. Instead, they accept Western medical principles imposed
upon them without hesitation (Glei et al., 2003). For example,
MSPAS offi cials forbid the traditionally used kneeling or squat-ting
birth positions—even though medical studies have found that
techniques such as ambulation during labor and squatting births
off er advantages including decreased pain and shorter labor. Train-ers
criticize the use of prenatal massage and external cephalic ver-sion,
even though these techniques are known to be safe and useful
(Hinojosa, 2004).
A number of interventions off er the promise of decreasing
Guatemala’s high maternal mortality rates, and most of these are
centered around the utilization of more culturally appropriate
care. For instance, as opposed to the one-way, didactic approach
of teaching, the format of the midwife training programs should
be interactive, participatory, and taught by a provider with experi-ence
in attending births. It is imperative that the trainer be able
to speak indigenous languages. The information conveyed should
be relevant to the rural midwives, and not merely a summary of
foreign policies and medical jargon.
MATERNAL MORTALITY AND MAYAN WOMEN IN GUATEMALA
50
The monthly reunións in San Lucas Tolimán are a success-ful
collaboration between midwives, as they learn from each
other’s experiences in a trusting environment. The longevity
of Dr. Walsh’s partnership with the San Lucas Tolimán health
promoters and comadronas has also been proven to benefi t the
health status of the women in the community. One nursing stu-dent,
M.-L. Wong, stated her opinion:
The comadronas know Dr. Walsh and respect her advice. She
doesn’t try to force modern medical norms on the women
but instead fi nds a way to use her techniques in partnership
with the traditional practice of the comadronas in a way that
still acknowledges and respects the Mayan cultural beliefs.
(personal communication, January 20, 2010)
The students explained that the community respects Dr. Walsh
because she has demonstrated her dedication to improving
their health program by returning every six months.
A combination of these two eff ective initiatives by the
biomedical health care providers would benefi t their relation-ship
with the comadronas. Similar to the reunións of San Lucas
Tolimán, through regular meetings the physicians would have
an opportunity to educate the midwives on new obstetrical
techniques and information. During these interactions the co-madronas
would also have the chance to teach the Westernized
providers about their cultural beliefs, and the importance of
spirituality and religion in Mayan health. An improved cross-cultural
understanding between the indigenous population and
the Westernized physicians in Guatemala would increase the
frequency of Maya seeking biomedical care. A supportive envi-ronment
that respects traditional values would be much more
successful in providing indigenous women care than a setting
that imposes Westernized medical views on them.
Dr. Walsh’s personal practice of cultural sensitivity is not
the only principle that should be upheld by physicians work-ing
with comadronas. Her continuity of care is also imperative
when building a relationship with health workers in Guatemala.
Dr. Walsh has returned to the villages surrounding San Lucas
MELISSA FESSEL
51
Tolimán more than ten times in the past fi ve years, and continues
to work to improve their prenatal and intrapartum care. The prob-lem
of high maternal mortality rates cannot be solved by short,
sporadic visits by health care providers with no community ties.
One nursing student recalled a diagram in a village health center
about contraceptives, which showed that over the course of two
years there was hardly any birth control use except for one month
in which patients received Depo-Provera contraceptive injections.
The consensus of the group was that a visiting group of “medi-cal
tourists” had most likely given the shots. While this was good
exposure, the injections off er eff ective birth control for only three
months and were not a long-term solution. The students realized
that in order to create real, long-lasting change, programs need to
be developed that allow for a continued partnership and dialogue
between midwives and modern medical providers.
The foundation of these programs should be the Mayan comad-ronas
and health promoters, as midwives are the main providers
for Mayan women and their children. In order to decrease mater-nal
mortality rates in Guatemala, physicians must work together
with these comadronas to provide better maternal healthcare. The
current system in place in Guatemala undermines the knowledge
and traditional practices of Mayan midwives. Instead of blindly
conforming to the suggestions of Western medicine, biomedi-cal
providers should learn more about the pros and cons of tra-ditional
birth methods, recognizing the complementary benefi ts
of diff ering interventions. If midwives and biomedical providers
worked together they would be able to successfully integrate mod-ern
obstetrical techniques into the practice of the comadronas. It
is through cultural sensitivity and collaboration that Westernized
physicians and traditional midwives will be able to bridge the gaps
in their maternal care and off er Guatemalan women comprehen-sive,
safe, and respectful treatment.
MATERNAL MORTALITY AND MAYAN WOMEN IN GUATEMALA
52
References
Berry, N.S. (2006). Kaqchikel midwives, home births, and emergency
obstetric referrals in Guatemala: Contextualizing the choice to stay
at home. Social Science & Medicine, 62, 1958–1969.
Glei, D.A. & Goldman, N. (2000). Understanding ethnic variation in
pregnancy-related care in rural Guatemala. Ethnicity & Health, 5(1),
5–22.
Glei, D.A., Goldman, N., & Rodriguez, G. (2003). Utilization of care
during pregnancy in rural Guatemala: Does obstetrical need matter?
Social Science & Medicine, 57, 2447–2463.
Hinojosa, S.Z. (2004). Authorizing tradition: Vectors of contention in
highland Maya midwifery. Social Science & Medicine, 59, 637–651.
Michel, J.L., Mahady, G.B., Veliz, M., Soejarto, D.D., & Caceres, A.
(2006). Symptoms, attitudes, and treatment choices surrounding
menopause among Q’eqchi Maya of Livingston, Guatemala. Social
Science & Medicine, 63, 732–724.
Obstetrics; Indigenous groups in the Americas have higher maternal,
infant mortality rates. (2004, July 29). Women’s Health Weekly, p.109.
Replogle, J. (2007). Training traditional birth attendants in Guatemala.
The Lancet, 368 (9546), 177–178.
Schooley, J., Mundt, C., Wagner, P., Fullerton, J., & O’Donnell, M.
(2009). Factors infl uencing health care-seeking behaviours among
Mayan women in Guatemala. Midwifery, 25, 411–421.
HEATHER M. FOX
53
WRITER’S COMMENTS
In Professor Sundstrom’s Ethics for Majors course, we examined crucial
works from the history of leading theories in Western normative ethics,
from Aristotle through Rawls. In this essay, which is the second draft of
my fi rst written assignment for the course, I engage with Nietzsche’s
Genealogy of Morality, a work whose striking account of the origins, de-velopment,
and entrenchment of ethics identifi es human beings alone as
the source of normativity—“dragging ethics,” as I attribute to Professor
Sundstrom in my frantically written class notes, “down from the heavens
and placing it in the breast of humanity.” The essay is my response to
our assigned prompt. In it, I try to explain Nietzsche’s idea of the “slave
revolt of morality,” an event vital to his account of the evolution of our
moral values, and its implications for our understanding of these values,
and grapple with Nietzsche’s worries about these implications for hu-manity
and his underlying conception of the human person that fuels
these worries.
—Heather M. Fox
EDITOR’S COMMENTS
Nietzsche’s provocations often engender vehement responses. (I still,
for example, bristle at Nietzsche’s notion that altruism is somehow an
impediment to a more pure form of morality.) Therefore, I appreciate
all the more Heather Fox’s admirably even-handed response to one of
Nietzsche’s most diffi cult claims. Note how Heather’s summary resists
the temptation to immediately reject the low-hanging fruit of some of
Nietzsche’s more dubious assertions; instead, she patiently explores his
most intriguing ideas and arrives at an admirably measured conclusion
on one of the 19th century’s most infamous and perhaps indispens-able
polemicists. In this essay, and many others submitted to Writing for
a Real World during her undergraduate career which have earned her
both publications and honorable mentions, I see strong evidence that
Heather Fox is a fi rst-rate intellect. I would not be surprised at all to see
her work in print elsewhere in the near future.
—David Holler, Editor, Writing for a Real World
APPRECIATING BUT RESISTING NIETZSCHE’S CHIEF NORMATIVE WORRY
54
HEATHER M. FOX
Appreciating but Resisting Nietzsche’s
Chief Normative Worry
NIETZSCHE’S On the Genealogy of Morality1 provides a naturalistic,
descriptive account of “the conditions and circumstances out
of which [moral values] have grown, [...] developed and shifted”
(Nietzsche, 6). He traces the emergence and unfolding of these val-ues
in order, ultimately, to critique them—to fi nally interrogate the
otherwise uncritically embraced “value of these values”—through an
amoral, normative analysis (ibid.). This paper endeavors to probe
Nietzsche’s Genealogy via an investigation of his not uncontrover-sial
“slave revolt of morality,” which Nietzsche understands to have
catalyzed the shift from our early, modest moral foundations to our
current moral system—one that he views, on the whole, as detri-mental
to individual and collective human fl ourishing, and in these
regards, inferior to the earlier, though also imperfect, morality.
In what follows, I shall seek, fi rst, to faithfully re-sketch the
descriptive contours of this crucial event and Nietzsche’s norma-tive
assessment of it. I shall withhold my critiques of the descrip-tive
(which I nevertheless fi nd problematic, and not ultimately
plausible), in favor of accommodating a discussion of Nietzsche’s
aforementioned normative worry.
My thesis is that this (potentially quite dangerous) worry is not
without merit, but that Nietzsche takes the worry too far, for he
seems (mistakenly) to think that unless at least some humans can
live in such a way as to exhibit unbridled forcefulness and strength
as nobles do, humans cannot and will not aspire to and sometimes
1 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. On the Genealogy of Morality. 1887. Trans.
Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, 1998. Print.
HEATHER M. FOX
55
achieve greatness, and will in this sense be signifi cantly worsened
by their post-revolt moral constraints. Breaking with Nietzsche, I
argue that virtues such as compassion, which, by his account, have
been made available to us and are held in esteem by “slave moral-ity,”
appear perfectly capable of motivating striving and achieve-ment
similar to that which Nietzsche otherwise rightly considers
impressive, but evidently holds to be impossible under such vir-tues.
Nietzsche’s account, with its clear admiration for ‘noble’ val-ues,
and misguided view of non-noble ones, off ers us only a partial
sense of what a magnifi cent life involves.
Nietzsche’s theory of “the slave revolt of morality,” which he
characterizes as symbolizing “a radical reevaluation of [...] values,”
and “an act of spiritual revenge,” is the culmination of “a two-thou-sand
year history” (16-17). The deep and tangled roots of this event
stretch to the fi rst moral distinctions and tenuous moral framework,
which were invented and practiced by the nobility and endured by
common/conquered people for ages. Surveying the etymology of
words meaning “good” and “bad” in several languages, Nietzsche
begins his genealogy with the insight that notions of social-political
superiority and inferiority have, historically, extended to concep-tions
of superiority and inferiority of soul (14). The understanding
of “good” by aristocrats stemmed (egoistically) from their concep-tion
of themselves, i.e., who they took themselves to be and how
they took themselves to live: fully and happily; they attributed the
label “bad” to their counterparts, i.e., non-nobles and their behav-iors.
Nobles’ behavior essentially conformed to these distinctions:
toward fellow nobles, they typically exercised “consideration, self-control,
tact, loyalty, pride, and friendship,” whereas they behaved
less uprightly toward non-nobles, whom they regarded as inferior
and thus deserving of the lesser and often exploitative and/or abu-sive
treatment (22-23).
“The slave revolt of morality,” initiated by priests, an off shoot
of the aristocracy, was the response of the weak masses against the
prevailing, noble moral ideals, which sanctioned their mistreatment
and touted a supremacy that they lacked and of which they were
deeply jealous. Driven by a disdain for the powerful, their superior
natures, and their way of life, treacherous priests, posits Nietzsche,
APPRECIATING BUT RESISTING NIETZSCHE’S CHIEF NORMATIVE WORRY
56
cultivated and channeled an “ideal-creating, value-reshaping hate,”
ressentiment (17). On this view, the Jews, possessed by ressentiment,
inverted the nobles’ heretofore triumphant “value equation,”2 and
began spewing dangerous distortions under the guise of moral
revelations, including the following: only the “ ‘poor, powerless,
[and] lowly’ ” are good; piety consists in and blessedness emanates
from suff ering, deprivation, sickness, and ugliness; and the nobles
(whose behavior is animated by the aforementioned nature) are
evil and will suff er eternal damnation (16-17). Assailing those he
counts as the slave class for having so championed attitudes and
behaviors that he views as twisted, weak, and reactive—i.e., con-trary
to the naturally deeply active and expansive “Will to Power”
and human thriving itself—and having elevated them to the posi-tion
of virtues and to the keys to salvation, no less, Nietzsche holds
that the priests and their unhappy followers have infl icted serious
harm on human beings, individually and collectively.
“The slave revolt of morality,” reasons Nietzsche, has disgusted
humans with the very aspects of their nature that compel them to
strive for greatness and sometimes achieve it. This morality and
its new values, which have brought humans “society and peace”
and made humans inward-looking and interesting, have neverthe-less
greatly harmed humans through their fundamental devalua-tion
of the instincts according to which they formerly acted and
with which they made sense of the world (56). This new structure
implores people to refrain, for instance, from following their in-stincts
to behave forcefully and exercise their strength when they
so desire, but the primal drives, though now seldom acted on, re-main
straining within people. With their natures and impulses so
obstructed, Nietzsche theorizes, people began to direct their most
abusive and aggressive instincts inwardly, hence the rise of guilt
or “bad conscience”—feelings that would come to cause people
not just to experience emotional distress generally, but that would
positively undermine human thriving, for this morality and its
side-eff ects are thought gravely to stifl e human beings, infect their
spirits, and discourage individuals’ striving for excellence.
2 This “equation” held that “good=noble=powerful=beautiful=happy=
beloved of God” (16).
HEATHER M. FOX
57
I think that these worries about the implications of “the slave
revolt” for individual and collective human achievement and fl our-ishing
have some merit. Mainly, they eff ectively highlight for us
what is beautiful and inspiring about the authentic noble spirit: its
inexhaustible striving, pushing, and yearning for self-improvement,
its propensity not just to say, but scream, “YES,” to itself, its burst-ing
with life and compulsion to express its being most forcefully.
The worries thus suggest both what might be at risk through the
decline of “noble” values and rise of “slave” values, and what about
the “noble” we might want to attempt to distill and salvage in our
eventual post- or supra-moral system. Nietzsche, who makes clear
his wish to transcend “good” and “evil” and to carve open the path
for thorough moral transformation, indicates that we should not,
in our transformation, accept a loss of what is most glorious about
human beings, and should fi ercely resist processes that dilute hu-man
potential. We should not ignore these concerns. We should,
however, critically appraise them and ensure that they are reason-ably
counterbalanced.
It seems to me that we can appreciate Nietzsche’s admiration
of those aspects or expressions of humanity that he considers most
noble and his darkly romantic vision of human authenticity more
broadly, without accepting his entire view. In particular, we need
not accept his full account of the development of noble persons,
the prime worth he places on the value of strength and activity
or exertion in such development, and his neglect of at least most
non-noble values in this process. It is not at all clear that noble
values, as he conceives of them, are suffi cient to form or encour-age
the formation of human beings of the sort Nietzsche longs
to see, that is to say, people who “justif[y] man himself,” who are
“completely formed, happy, powerful, triumphant,” and who, like
taut bows, stand “unbreakable, tensed, ready for something new
[…] more diffi cult, more distant” (24). Noble values, as Nietzsche
understands them, which rest on visions of “powerful physicality, a
blossoming, rich, even overfl owing health,” and which are achieved
through “war, adventure, the hunt, dance, athletic contests, and
in general everything which includes strong, free, cheerful-hearted
activity,” do seem to get us partly there, and highlight much of what
APPRECIATING BUT RESISTING NIETZSCHE’S CHIEF NORMATIVE WORRY
58
a grand, rich life involves, but do not provide us a full picture
(16). I think, that is, Nietzsche is right to say that these values
play important roles in the process of developing authentic,
impressive human beings, but wrong to think that such values
and the above conditions that foster them are enough.
Nietzsche goes too far in suggesting that less forceful ex-pressions
of individual strength or will, and activities which
evidently stem from non-noble values (e.g., collaborative activ-ities
people might engage in or personal sacrifi ces they might
make for one another’s benefi t), in fact divert us from such ide-als
as he prizes and discourage or all together impede the devel-opment
of the persons he considers extraordinary. I think that
we have good reason to resist Nietzsche’s position, expressed
throughout his Genealogy, that the more compassionate, less
aggressive human beings we encounter following the “slave re-volt
of morality” are “deformed, reduced, atrophied, poisoned”
persons, and that they mark “the regression of humankind” (23-
24). On the supplementary view for which I am advocating,
the characteristics or values evident in such persons whom
Nietzsche considers disgraceful, are closer to robust than dis-eased
or atrophied, and are necessary ingredients for process
of the shaping of those humans Nietzsche champions.
In an eff ort to make my point clearer, I wish to briefl y
sketch some examples of the characteristics I have in mind,
that for Nietzsche are thoroughgoing “slave values,” antitheti-cal
to his ideal of the human person, which I think, any such
ideal, if it is to be plausible, must take seriously (i.e., recognize
the value of) and be able to accommodate. Compassion is a
characteristic which, roughly, involves treating others kindly,
and living in such a way as to not contribute to the suff ering
of others, as well as possibly taking positive steps to amelio-rate
that suff ering when one can reasonably do so. Sacrifi ce or
generosity is another characteristic, which (again, roughly) in-volves
one giving something to others, primarily for the others’
benefi t, at some cost, perhaps considerable, to the benefactor.
Both such sketches are indeed cursory, but suffi cient for our
purposes, for they capture elements of value that we typically
HEATHER M. FOX
59
view as necessary for the development of good persons or ad-mirable
characters, but that are at least deemed inessential, if
not absolutely obstructive or detrimental, to Nietzsche’s con-ception
of the extraordinary person. In Nietzsche’s view, indi-viduals
such as those who take serious personal risks to save
strangers’ lives or relieve their suff ering, or who give to others
in desperate need when they can, that is, people who evidence
deep compassion for others, and generosity towards them, are
not, through their compassion, generosity, or their evidencing
of similar characteristics, exhibiting anything like profound
strength, great humanity, or acting in a way that people would
rightly fi nd inspiring. They are instead exhibiting a form of
weakness refl ective of “slave values,” which noble individuals
should make an eff ort to avoid.
I think Nietzsche is mistaken to exclude these character-istics
from his conception of nobility. It is important for us
to recognize that Nietzsche’s position on the danger of these
characteristics or values to human thriving is not obviously cor-rect,
for it seems that in practicing what Nietzsche considers to
be dangerously and thoroughly self-denying or -negating moral
ideals, like compassion or generosity toward other human be-ings,
people appear very much to be engaged in a sort of noble
activity—a striving for and sometimes achieving excellence,
even in forcefully affi rming and asserting themselves, albeit in
ways diff erent than one is typically understood to engage in
that striving or related activities. Contra Nietzsche, I do not
think that such compassion-driven striving, or self-affi rmation
or assertion is “fake” or illusory, life-denying or sick. I think
it represents an other, probably less conspicuous, but never-theless
real and utterly necessary way for humans to live full,
rich lives. Nietzsche’s account unfortunately misses this point
and to the extent that such compassion or other slave-value-driven
activities do motivate behaviors and achievements that
are noble, the account provides us only an incomplete account
of what an authentic, noble life involves.
IN DEFENSE OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
60
WRITER’S COMMENTS
Our essay assignment for Professor Ryan’s Rhetoric 131 course called
for analysis of a social issue particular to the City of San Francisco. San
Francisco is known for the vitality of its gay and lesbian community, and
in 2004 gained notoriety as the fi rst American city to legalize same-sex
marriage, beginning a pitched legal battle that is still ongoing. My family
has a wide circle of gay friends and acquaintances who were denied the
right to marry by the passage of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, so
I wanted to more fully understand both sides of the issue. I decided to
research the current legal status of same-sex marriage, the sociological
arguments for and against state sanction of same-sex marriage, and the
impact of same-sex marriage on both the gay community and society at
large. My research led me to conclude that any denial of same-sex mar-riage
is unjust and socially detrimental.
—Evan Giusto
INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS
For the research assignment in my Oral and Written Communication
course, I usually advise my students to pick a subject that is either relat-ed
to their specifi c disciplinary major or has some personal signifi cance.
Then, they must counter-argue. In Evan’s paper, we can see the most
effective compositional and rhetorical concepts at work: claims and
reasoning, data and evidence, empiricism and logic, interpretation and
evaluation, invention and disposition, warrants and research. Of course,
there are many more, and Evan manages to organize the elements of his
argument into a very clear, coherent shape, arguing that same-sex mar-riage
should be sanctioned not just legally but ethically and morally.
— David Ryan, Department of Rhetoric and Language and the
Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good
EVAN GIUSTO
61
EVAN GIUSTO
In Defense of Same-Sex Marriage
Abstract
The legal sanction of same-sex marriage has become one of the
defi ning social issues of our time, because allowing gay and lesbian
couples full inclusion in society confi rms our commitment to core
values such as liberty, equality, and equitable property rights. These
are all ideals on which our country was founded, but we still dis-regard
them despite the United States Supreme Court’s decision
more than forty years ago that the right to marry is a fundamental
freedom. To date, same-sex marriage is banned in the majority of
U.S. states and by our federal government. This paper examines
the legal status of same-sex marriage at the federal and state levels,
focusing specifi cally on California, where the issue is currently be-ing
contested in the courts. The paper also analyzes objections to
same-sex marriage, and how allowing gay marriage has impacted
both same-sex couples and society in general in Europe. Finally,
the paper looks at the thriving gay community in San Francisco to
get a glimpse of the impact of the same-sex marriage battle.
Keywords: same-sex marriage, gay marriage, Defense of Marriage
Act, DOMA, Prop 8, San Francisco Castro District
IN DEFENSE OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
62
Introduction
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE implicates the deepest issues that defi ne us
as a society. The issue requires us to question our values with re-spect
to liberty, equality, and equitable property rights—all principles
upon which our country was founded. However, despite the fact that
the United States Supreme Court long ago declared that the right to
marry is a fundamental freedom (Loving v. Virginia, 1967)1, same-sex
marriage continues to be banned in the majority of states as well as
by the federal government. Juxtaposed against this fact are studies
that show that inclusion of same-sex marriage generally has a posi-tive
eff ect, contributing to the stability of society (Badgett, 2009,
p. 127-28). Conversely, suicide attempts by both gay and straight
teenagers “are more common in politically conservative areas where
schools don’t have programs supporting gay rights” (Tanner, 2011, p.
A4). Thriving homosexual communities such as the Castro in San
Francisco are evidence of the benefi ts of a socially inclusive environ-ment,
be it straight or gay. This paper will examine the legal status
of gay marriage in the United States, the social implications of le-galizing
same-sex marriage, and how the legal sanction of same-sex
commitments is playing out both here and abroad.
Legal Precedent
Federal Law
During the Clinton administration, an overwhelming majority of
both houses of Congress voted to enact the Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA), which defi nes marriage as the legal union of one
man and one woman (DOMA, 1996)2. Thus, even if a same-sex
couple legally marries in the handful of jurisdictions that allow it,
the couple is not entitled to federal benefi ts, including Social Secu-
1 Loving v. Virginia decided the issue of interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia,
1967).
2 Specifi cally, the statute states, “the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union
between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’
refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife”
(DOMA, 1 U.S.C. § 7) (1997).
EVAN GIUSTO
63
rity and immigration rights3. However, in an ironic twist, the IRS
reversed its position in May 2010, ruling that while homosexual
married couples and registered domestic partners cannot fi le joint
federal tax returns, they must, nevertheless, be treated equally
with respect to state law. In California, one of the nine commu-nity
property states, this condition means that gay married people
and registered domestic partners must each declare one half of
the couple’s joint income on their individual federal income tax
returns (Meckler, 2010). As shown below, this IRS ruling will result
in a substantial tax break for same-sex couples with disparate in-comes
(Meckler, 2010).
Fig. 1. Meckler, L. (2010, June 5). Gay couples get equal tax treatment. The
Wall Street Journal. As the chart above from the Wall Street Journal
indicates, surprising inequities might emerge in the tax liabilities
of registered domestic partners in California.
3 The “United States Government Accountability Offi ce (formerly known as
the General Accounting Offi ce) identifi ed a total of 1,138 federal statutory
provisions … in which marital status is a factor in … receiving rights, benefi ts,
and protections” (Pawelski et al., 2006).
IN DEFENSE OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
64
The second part of DOMA carves out an exception to Article
IV, Section 1 of the Constitution, which requires states to give full
faith and credit to the “public acts, records, and judicial proceedings
of every other state” (U.S. Constitution). Thus, DOMA declares
that no state is required to respect any same-sex relationship sanc-tioned
by another state (DOMA, 1996). Therefore, DOMA applies
not only to gay marriages but also to domestic partnerships and civil
unions (Cliff ord, Hertz, & Doskow, 2010, p. 31).
Interestingly, DOMA was enacted before a single state allowed
same-sex marriage; in essence, it served as a preemptive strike against
what Congress feared would occur at the state level. Now that sev-eral
states, including California, have granted full or partial domestic
benefi ts to homosexual couples, the federal law has taken on greater
signifi cance. Thankfully in February 2011, in an abrupt reversal of
federal policy, President Obama concluded that DOMA is uncon-stitutional
and instructed the Justice Department not to defend it
in court (Savage & Stolberg, 2011). In a letter to Republican House
Speaker James Boehner, Attorney General Eric Holder explained
that DOMA’s classifi cation of individuals on the basis of sexual ori-entation
violates the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which
guarantees equal protection under the law (Holder, 2011). More re-cently,
a federal bankruptcy court in California held that DOMA is
unconstitutional for the same reason (U.S. Bankruptcy Court Mem-orandum,
2011, p. 19). In the case of Balas and Morales, a gay mar-ried
couple who fi led for joint bankruptcy, the government asked
the court to dismiss the case. However, the court found that DOMA
was enacted on the basis of “precisely the kind of stereotype-based
thinking and animus that the Equal Protection Clause is designed to
guard against” (U.S. Bankruptcy Court Memorandum, p. 10). Nev-ertheless,
unless DOMA is either repealed by Congress or declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, it remains in eff ect and en-forceable
in other federal jurisdictions. Consequently, although DO-MA’s
powers have eroded, given the current conservative make-up
of the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court, it is likely
to remain on the books for the foreseeable future.
EVAN GIUSTO
65
California Law
In February 2004, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom made
history when he ordered the city to issue marriage licenses to
same-sex couples (Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 2010, p. 4).
Fig. 2. Willie Albino and James Thompson on thei