I am currently, as I’ve noted before , teaching a course on the family in political thought. This past week, we discussed Tocqueville; after Spring Break, we’ll tackle Hegel, Mill, and that book about marriage whose title I can’t recall . From time to time, I’ll also pass along to the students something currently in the wind. This piece is one example. Today’s essay at the invaluable Public Discourse is another.
This essay on how economists view and study the family does a very good job of highlighting the limits of that approach. Here’s a taste:
Superficially, economic models catch a little of the truth of marriage in our culture. There is even something noble in economists’ assumption that social life is based on mutually beneficial exchange, rather than on coercion and plunder. But this is not nearly so noble and beautiful as what philosophy, theology, literature, and married men and women throughout history can tell us about the real substance of marriage. This substance is love, which is willing the good of another as other. Love in marriage is willing the good of your spouse, full stop. It is not willing the good of your spouse so that your spouse will return the favor.
Love is not an exchange. It is more correctly seen as a transformation. Love transforms the lover into the one who is loved. When we love our spouse, we become one with our spouse. Thus a model of self-interested exchange between two autonomous individuals cannot capture the heart of marriage.
As they say, read the whole thing.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
