France
France doesn’t seem to comprehend it yet, but it is embarking on an uncharted and dangerous journey by installing a leader whose lifestyle argues for the irrelevance of marriage.
Valérie Trierweiler, the partner of France’s newly-elected president François Hollande, is being referred to world-wide as France’s new, and unmarried, “First Lady.” She seems like a serious, admirable professional, and there are certainly benefits to any nation by having a woman of substance, intelligence and talent at or near the top of that country’s public figures. I know very little about Hollande, but I am assuming that he is qualified for the difficult job he is undertaking, and that he, like Trierweiler, are mature adults who have every right to structure their personal relationships however they please. That assumption, however, requires the omission of the duties of leadership from the calculation. Leaders cannot make personal decisions based only on their own needs, but must make those decisions while acknowledging an immutable and long-proven fact: leaders have a disproportional, almost frightening power to influence, shape and change a culture, and the more successful and popular leaders are, the greater that power is.
Maybe devaluing marriage to a trivial afterthought will work out well for France, though I doubt it. It is also possible that the institution of marriage in France will withstand having a first couple who undermine it daily by their very existence, but I doubt that too. Meanwhile, in the United States, the opposite message is being sent to young and old alike by the heated debate over gay marriage. If marriage is worthless, why are gays and civil rights activists fighting so furiously to have it available to all? If it is trivial, why are anti-gay marriage voters so frightened that expanding the concept of marriage will destroy it?
The U.S. is not France, for which I am very grateful, especially since I was terrible at French. I’m very glad that this country will be able to observe what happens when a nation’s leader, always a culture’s most influential role model, shows by his own conduct that one of the core institutions of civilization is just a meaningless frill, like a mustache, a tattoo, or a dye job. I think it will be very instructive, maybe even to the French. The French, of course, never understood why so many Americans were upset with their President because he was betraying his wife, having sexual relations with an employee, using government officials to help him cover his tracks, and lying about it. It will be interesting to see how they feel about raising a generation to have no respect for marriage—commitment—obligations—at all. Good luck to them.
None of my comments are intended to impugn the ethics or wisdom of Hollande in his personal life in any way. He knows himself, and presumably he trusts and understands his partner,Trierweiler. I presume the relationship is healthy and on solid ground.
He just doesn’t understand leadership, and apparently, neither do the French.
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Spark: CNN
Sources:
Graphic: Legend of Pine Ridge
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Ethics Alarms 
I don’t follow your logic: Marriage is a common tradition, therefore deciding not to get married is bad leadership.
No, elevating that personal life choice to a cultural norm by doing it while in a position of disproportional influence is irresponsible leadership.
First, it already is a cultural norm. Second, what’s irresponsible about it? Unless you think it’s irresponsible, in general, to not get married, I don’t see where you’re coming from.
I wouldn’t say that not being married means he has no respect for marriage and it is an even bigger leap to say that if he has no respect for marriage that he also has no respect for commitment or obligation. Commitment and obligation extend far beyond marriage.
But I didn’t say that at all. The perception of a national leader who eschews marriage creates the impression that marriage is not worth doing or having, and it does that, whatever his real feelings may be. President Kennedy didn’t wear hats, because he had a big head and looked lousy in them. But his personal refusal to wear hats helped kill the men’s hat market in the US. JFK may have liked hats. He may have always wished he could look good in them. He may have loved seeing other men in hats. But he killed the hat industry, because people thought that if this young, charismatic leader didn’t wear hats, then hats were not worth wearing.
Are you saying the country is worse off because we don’t wear hats as often? Otherwise, I don’t see what your comparison gains you.
It wasn’t a comparison, tgt. It was an example, a fairly famous one, of how leaders influence the culture with their personal choices. I don’t care about styles; I don’t say it’s good or bad. I know hat makers thought it was bad. Leaders influence the culture, that’s all the post says, and my guess is that influencing it away from legal relationships in France is a bad idea. That’s why I said it was risky. And it is.
my guess is that influencing it away from legal relationships in France is a bad idea.
And this guess is enough to call France ethics’ dunces. Well done! Do I even need to point out that you just called the president of France’s relationship illegal? How about that you are committing a fallacy by implying that the negative results necessarily outweigh the good?
Ive seen thats nasty Indianna Jones hat you wear. You should follow Kennedys example. 😉
What’s wrong with Indiana Jones hats. I bought one last October when I was in Australia and a few ladies have said how well it suits me.
If JFK not wearing a hat meant that hat wearing became a matter of free choice rather than being the expected thing, then that’s at least one good thing he’s done for us men.
I don’t think that anyone was ever forced to wear a hat. We bald guys were rather happy for the convention. Kennedy just wanted to show off his damn hair.
Lost track of this but….
“The perception of a national leader who eschews marriage creates the impression that marriage is not worth doing or having, and it does that, whatever his real feelings may be.”
I would say that is the problem of the perceiver. Not his problem at all. Although, I don’t think it is true. If it was true, the problem would be that he is being followed by a nation of sheep. That doesn’t sound like France to me.
It’s not a matter of blindly following, Danielle, and has nothing to do with France. Leaders influence the cultural values of those they lead, even those who are no especially dedicated followers, by their conduct, official and personal. This is not in doubt; it is shown by history, experience, surveys, polls, field studies and surveys.
Oh, I do hope you are wrong. I don’t want to be living with millions who have the cultural values of Stephen Harper. That actually sounds like my very worst nightmare… on steroids!
Marriage is an artificial device created by men to control woman and their property and wealth. It is just in the last hundred years that people have started getting married for love and not money. It also grants legal advantages to the married couple that couples who are not married do not receive. That legal protection and advantage is in my opinion why so many homosexuals desire to get married.
I would rather have a leader who is a committed relationship, no matter what you call it, then one who is married and screwing every government clerk and intern he can get his hands on.
So would I. That’s a false comparison, however. Best of all for the country is a stable, loving, sincere and genuine marriage at the top of its government.
I think, if you ask them, gay couples would say that the social validation of their commitment is at least as important as the financial benefits.
best of all for the country is a stable, loving, sincere and genuine marriage.
Best of all for the country is a leader that eats fish, rice, and beans. Therefore, our steak eating leader is an ethically challenged.
Of course, the fallacy is the assumption that the validation comes from the word “marriage” itself, and not the male-female dynamics of the union the word describes.
I don’t see a fallacy there.
What’s best for the country is a true and charismatic leader who believes in and up holds the Constitution and protects the Republic. As you’ve discussed on another post, sometimes the best leaders are border line, if not out and out , psychopaths.
Hollande, not Hallande. You show it both ways.
Will fix. Thanks.
I’m not at all worried about France. If Italy can survive 9 years of Silvio Berlusconi, France should be fine.
By the way, it is more likely that President Hollande and Mme. Trierweiler are following French society and not the other way around. France already has low marriage rates and a higher proportion of children are born to unmarried women than to married women. Interestingly enough, however, there are fewer single parent families in France than in the United States.
See http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1336.pdf for my statistics.
All of which will get worse, rather than better. The issue is whether the leader follows the lowest common denominator, or chooses to set a higher standard. That latter is what responsible leaders do.
Not only are you again assuming that marriage is better than non marriage, you’re now saying that non-marriage is necessarily bad. Ugh.
Apparently, Hollande and Trierweiler need to enter in a social construct that they don’t want to because what responsible leaders do is misrepresent their lives and play games with social institutions.
Clearly, you are having a bad day. Saying a relationship isn’t a legal relationship isn’t at all the same as saying it is illegal, as you should know. My friendship with Fred isn’t given any legal status, but it’s not illegal. My relationship with my dog is legal, because he is licensed; my relationship with the neighbor’s dog is not legal…but it’s also not illegal.
Come on.
The distinction between illegal and not legal is a bit confusing (I get it, but the fact that you explained it helps). If you said that what I was doing was “not legal”, I would think that you meant that what I was doing was illegal, not that it was not an activity that was specifically sanctioned or regulated by law. As always, context is everything.
Also, in the case of relationships between people, there is a further wrinkle. In countries like Canada and the US, isn’t there a form of common-law relationship that would make a relationship between two people a “legal” relationship regardless of whether they are formally married?
I can’t speak abount Canada, but the common law marriage rules I’ve seen in the U.S. require the couple to hold themself out as married to the community.
As far as I know is that, in Canada, if you live together in a conjugal relationship Canada for a certain amount of time (which varies from province to province) or if you have a child together in that relationship, you are married under common law. I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know with any certainty.
I stand by my statement. You were clearly using the implication I stated to smear non-marriage relationships. It’s implied equivocation. You could have used a neutral descriptive term “State-recognized” or “legally binding”, but you didn’t.
It depends on what you mean by worse. Why do you say that non-marriage is worse than marriage? It may be that marriage makes both members of the union better off, but if this is the case, then the members of the union will get married (people tend to do things that make them better off). It may be that it makes one member better off while making the other worse off. In this case, the party that would be made better off could issue an ultimatum to the other over getting married such that the other party would have to decide whether marriage was preferable to no union. In both cases, it doesn’t really matter whether the president or anyone else is married. This reasoning would make explain why gay couples want the right to get married because they think it would make them both better off.
Marriage could also be good because it makes any children of the union better off. Having parents who are committed to each other in a stable relationship probably does make children better off, and in this case, famous people who marry may set a good example for society and encourage couples to remain married for their children’s sake. In the case of France, however, It seems that parents are more likely to stay together with or without marriage, so this example does not seem necessary.
When I was younger, I read a lot of Confucius, so I understand the notion that the citizenry bends to the example of its leaders. But unless the leader’s actions are themselves unethical, the example those actions set isn’t unethical either. I don’t see how you can make any argument to the effect that fewer marriages are socially harmful if you’re not prepared to first argue that non-marriage of individual couples is unethical or otherwise bad.
You say in a comment above:
“I think, if you ask them, gay couples would say that the social validation of their commitment is at least as important as the financial benefits.”
Unless you believe that couples who choose not to get married deserve less social validation, you must see the ethical value in setting an example that allows non-marriage to be incorporated into a set of social norms.
I think part of what is what’s confusing in this argument relates to two claims you make that are, if not contradictory, at least in tension:
1. I’m very glad that this country will be able to observe what happens when a nation’s leader, always a culture’s most influential role model, shows by his own conduct that one of the core institutions of civilization is just a meaningless frill, like a mustache, a tattoo, or a dye job.
2. None of my comments are intended to impugn the ethics or wisdom of Hollande in his personal life in any way. He knows himself, and presumably he trusts and understands his partner,Trierweiler. I presume the relationship is healthy and on solid ground.
Your second claim seems to affirm that the couple’s decision not to marry may have been based on a thoughtful and deliberate process in which the couple decided what was best for them. If that’s true, then their decision wasn’t merely an afterthought, or a dismissal of marriage as a meaningless frill.
I’m wondering if your argument is missing a claim like the following, which would help eliminate the tension between (1) and (2):
While you understand that the President and First Lady may have decided against marrying after serious deliberation and taking the alternative of marriage seriously, you don’t think the French masses will understand that–and that as a result, they will simply start to dismiss marriage as a meaningless frill.
Did you have something like this in mind? If not, I must admit that I’m also finding it difficult to understand your argument.
Australia’s current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is unmarried and lives with her partner.
She’s also fanatically opposed to Gay Marriage because it’s “not traditional”.
That’s her sole justification.
This is what is known in the States as a “Double Dunce.” With integrity, however.
I’m struck by the similarities between this article and another story from the eighties. Substitute Jack with Dan Quayle, the French Prime Minister with Murphy Brown, and being unmarried with being a single mother.
The point isn’t and was never that being a single mother (not being married) is a Bad Thing(tm), particularly for the individual in question. The point is that, to the extent that the individual in question is a role model, he or she is going to influence others toward making a similar choice even though it might indeed be a Bad Thing(tm) for them.
A lot of the rest of this discussion is just missing the forest for the trees–much like happened back then.
–Dwayne
Great. Now I’m Dan Quayle. (But your point is dead on. As was mine.)