On divorce

Reading Marx's opinion on the Divorce Bill of 1842, there is something that stands out to a contemporary reader. Although he definitely appears to be in favor of divorce, his approach is quite unlike the progressive liberal most people would adopt today. Let's be clear, Marx doesn't necessarily oppose divorce:

The dissolution of a marriage is nothing but the declaration: This marriage is a dead marriage, whose existence is only a snare and a delusion. It is self-evident, of course, that neither the capricious will of the legislator nor the capricious will of the private person, but only the nature of the case, can decide whether a marriage is dead or not, for it is well-known that a declaration of death depends on the factual evidence and not on the wishes of the parties concerned.

(pp. 85-86)

There is an appeal to the objective here that feels somehow foreign to our contemporary postmodern sensitivity. In Marx's view, the divorce, understood and practiced correctly, already exists before it takes legal form. It's not the legislator (or the judge) who decides that it will take place. Neither do the members of the marriage decide so. It's already there. It's a fait accompli. The political power simply gives it a formal, legal entity. It's not up to the individuals.

The key, perhaps, is something he had written a page earlier:

In so far as the opponents of the Bill denounce any of these shortcomings, we agree with them, but we cannot possibly accept their unconditional apology for the previous system. We repeat a statement we have uttered before: 'If legislation cannot enact public morality, still less can it accept immorality as law.' If we ask on what these opponents (who are not opponents of the ecclesiastical treatment and of the other shortcomings indicated) rest their reasoning, we are met with constant talk of the unhappiness of the marriage partners, bound against their will. These opponents adopt a eudaemonistic standpoint, they think only of the two individuals, they forget the family, they forget that almost every dissolution of a marriage is the dissolution of a family, and that even from a purely legal standpoint the children and their expectations cannot be made dependent on caprice and its whims. If marriage were not the basis of the family, it would no more be the object of legislation than friendship is, for instance. The opponents, therefore, consider only the individual will, or rather, the arbitrary will, of the marriage partner; they do not consider the will of the marriage, the moral substance of this relationship. The legislator, however, has to regard himself as a scientist. He does not make any laws, he does not invent them, he only formulates them, he expresses as conscious positive laws the inner laws of intellectual and spiritual [geistiger] relationships. Just as the legislator is accused of gross arbritrariness the moment he replaces the essential nature of the matter woth his own whims and fancies, so the legislator has a corresponding right to regard it as a gross arbritariness when private persons seek to uphold their caprices against the essential natura of the matter. No one is forced to contract a marriage, but everyone must be forced, the moment he contracts a marriage, to resolve upon obedience to the laws of marriage. A person who contracts a marriage no more makes or invents marriage than a swimmer invents nature and the laws of water and of gravity. Marriage, therefore, cannot adapt itself to his caprice, to his arbitrary will, but his caprice, his arbitrary will, must adapt itself to marriage. The person who arbitrarily breaks a marriage maintains: Caprice, lawlessness, is the law of marriage, for no rational person would have the presumption to regard his actions as privileged actions, as actions appropriate for him only. On the contrary, he will claim that they are lawful actions, appropriate for everyone. What then are you opposing? You oppose arbitrary legislation, but you cannot seek to make caprice into law in the very moment that you accuse the legislator of capriciousness.

(pp. 84-85)

A couple of things drew my atention here. First of all, notice Marx's conviction that "legislation cannot enact public morality". Not only is this very far from people's usual understanding of what Marxism is all about, but also clearly at odds with a culture, our contemporary culture, where plenty of people think that it is indeed possible to legislate morality. Certainly, what is trendy at the moment is not the old, traditional form of morality. Rather, it's a progressive, liberal morality. But, one way or another, we are still trying to legislate public morality and, as Marx states, it's far from clear that that is even possible. In the past, whenever we tried legislating public morality, be it on the right or the left, it always ended in fiasco. In part, because it was going against human nature. We are all fallible. We are all weak. But also because public matters and private matters may be linked and interrelated, but are not necessarily the same thing. Second, notice how Marx goes beyond the will (or, as he puts it, the capriciousness) of the individuals involved in the marriage to point out that there is also something else, something that goes beyond those two individuals, i.e. the family. His approach to the subject is social, not individual. This is quite far from today's me-first attitude. The postmodern culture in late capitalism, after decades of self-centered consumerism and constant promotion of the individual and his/her own satisfaction, cannot conceive of anything more important than oneself.