Originally published in Dreamwidth OCT. 21ST, 2004 10:23 AM.

When a few progressive women asked for the right to vote, the society rose up in a body and answered, “That would devastate the family and change society as we know it.”

When more progressive women asked for the right to be treated equally under the law, the society rose up in a body and answered, “That would devastate the family and change society as we know it.”

When even more progressive women asked for the right to legal, safe abortions, the society rose up in a body and answered, “That would devastate the family and change society as we know it.”

Now that various and sundry people (including some gays) are demanding that laws be changed to permit the marriage of gay people to the ones they love, the society is rising up in a body and answering, “That would devastate the family and change society as we know it.”

It is important for us to acknowledge that they were absolutely correct, according to their definitions of marriage, the family, and society as they know it.

Marriage as they know it requires that, and I quote, “The wife submit to the husband as the church submits to Christ; and the husband love the wife as Christ loves the church.” There is a profound sense of unidirectional ownership in this marriage – the wife belongs to the husband, but the husband does not necessarily belong to the wife – and there is also the assumption that wrong behavior shall be chastised.

The family as they know it is the cauldron in which the above and below situations are trained and maintained. Within the family, everyone has a place and a set of duties, responsibilities, and rights that are the same in each and every family in society. Training to a position that will not be held by that family member is rightly suspected to lead to discontent by the one trained when that training is not used. (E.g.: a boy taught to cook will be disappointed when his future wife drives him out of the kitchen, as is her right.)

Society as they know it is predicated on the idea that those in charge tell the rest what to do, and are obeyed. That there are ranges of appropriate behavior for every person, and that those ranges can be understood by looking at the person in question. That the attempt to move outside those ranges of appropriate behavior indicates a desire to belong to the group for whom that behavior is appropriate. That such a desire is both sinful and criminal, and is possibly pathological, and is a pointer to further desires to break societal rules.

Our foremothers and their male allies and family members have absolutely accomplished all of the changes ascribed to them. It is up to us to continue the battle.

ADDITION AS OF FEBRUARY 26, 2023:

Yes, you are seeing this correctly. The Trumpian “conservative” political movement is, in fact, attempting to recreate “the family and society” as they knew it. Or thought they did.