Nuptial nation: Marriage and the politics of civil membership in the United States.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Marriage occupies a peculiar space in society and the polity. Neither solely public nor private, marriage is viewed as the foundation of society and hence beyond the sphere of politics. At the same time, it has political and economic consequences that are subject to continuous political debate. Consequently, enormous political, institutional and ideological change can be enacted through marriage, precisely because it appears as a nonpolitical or pre-political institution, and therefore beyond contest. In this dissertation I analyze marriage in the United States as a distinctly political entity. Empirically, I explore the way marriage is both reflective and productive of the broader political tensions and conflicts that define American society at moments of instability or redefinition. Theoretically, I examine marriage's contradictory role as both a right and an obligation. I look at the way the institution is lodged ambivalently, yet powerfully, between liberal notions of rights, contracts, and freedoms on the one hand; and what might be called communitarian notions of obligation to the state and society on the other. Together, they shape the exclusions and hierarchies that mark American society.
Historically, the institution of marriage has granted benefits and rewards to some and denied them to others. At specific historical moments, this distinction between those who should marry and those who must not marry exposes the profound link between marriage and civic membership, especially when what it means to be an American is called into question. Thus, the politics of marriage concerns not only individual rights versus the societal good, but also the specific ways marriage shapes the polity, and in turn how the state continually re-shapes marriage. To demonstrate this I examine four cases when marriage was mobilized for political purposes: anti-miscegenation and marriage promotion policies during Reconstruction, marriage policies and immigration during the Progressive Era, marriage rules in post-New Deal welfare policy, and contemporary debates over same-sex marriage. In each case I look at how marriage has been contested and reworked through the demands of the state, nation and society, specifically in relation to how they shape notions of civic membership.