Gregg Easterbrook occasionally has one of those must-read articles. But he also floats some ridiculous ideas that perhaps see the light of day because they seem novel or contrarian or just curmudgeonly enough for the New Republic. I can’t help but think his new article on how singles are the next civil rights group is in the latter category. Here’s his reasoning:
Singles will complain that society is prejudiced against them. There are 59 million people 16 years of age or older in the United States who have never married, and another 41 million who are separated, divorced, or widowed…. But if marriage loses its classical definition of a union between one man and one woman, acquiring a new definition of “benefits granted to any two people who make a legal commitment to each other”–since last Monday this has basically been the definition of marriage in Massachusetts–singles may have reason to be ticked off. Why shouldn’t they get the benefits, too?
If this sounds like one of those dreaded slippery slope arguments, it’s because it is, though it should be noted that Easterbrook is not using it to claim that gays shouldn’t marry; he in fact thinks they should. Still his prediction seems to be based on deduction rather than any observation of how political movements coalesce. In fact, the argument reeks of the fear of someone being beseiged by numerous social movements making inexplicable demands.
But before there’s a singles rights movement (sure, in the future, anything’s possible, even a national movement of Bridget Joneses decrying smug marrieds), single people have to see themselves as a unified group with a common set of interests. Unfortunately for those prospects, many single people live under what might be considered false consciousness; ultimately, they do want to be coupled. There are some adamant lifelong singletons (the Globe ran a feature on their somewhat beleagered movement a couple months back), and there are perhaps some small but increasing number of individuals willing to, in Easterbrook’s words, “pool their credit, inherit each other’s property without taxation, and so on” outside the family or the conjugal bond. But these numbers are dwarfed by those for whom single life is a shopping period in the mate market and a trial period of life experiences before they settle down. Furthermore, we don’t really have a good indication why this set up will change any time soon. The smug marrieds like Easterbrook don’t have much to worry about.
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