TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS OF MARRIAGE

Most of the debate around marriage occurs because there are two competing understandings of marriage fighting for dominance in our society:  the conjugal view and the revisionist view.  These two views of marriage have dramatically different implications for what marriage policy should look like.  Whichever view of marriage informs state policy can have a dramatic impact on the legal and social norms surrounding families and children

Two Different Views of Marriage
The conjugal view holds that marriage is a union between a man and a woman who share a domestic life oriented towards child-bearing and child-rearing.  In other words, procreation (creating new human life) is the unifying good of a marriage relationship.  A 'unifying good' is that activity that most completely unites the partners in the relationship - the purpose towards which they coordinate their joint activities.  Personal satisfaction and emotional companionship are important parts of marriage, but not its defining features.

By contrast, in the revisionist view, the defining feature of marriage is an emotional and sexual companionship between partners.  From this perspective, marriage is all about romance, love and mutual affection.  Only the partners can say what ought to be the case about their marriage, since their personal fulfillment is the primary purpose of the relationship - the good towards which they coordinate their activities.  Procreation is a secondary consideration (at best) in this view of marriage - something that partners can do together if they wish, just as any other activity.

If one holds the revisionist view of marriage, it makes no sense to exclude same-sex couples,  That's why so many people support same-sex marriage today - it is because they accept (we think uncritically) the revisionist premise that marriage is all about mutual adult fulfillment.  In contrast, if one holds the conjugal view of marriage, there are legitimate fears that formalising same-sex marriage will undermine some of marriage's central stabilising norms (permanence, fidelity etc.

excerpt from www.discussingmarriage.org