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Gender & Society
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State of our Unions

Marriage Promotion and the Contested Power of Heterosexuality

Melanie Heath

McMaster University

Marriage promotion is a government strategy aimed at ensuring that children are raised in married, heterosexual families, preferably by their biological parents. This article places critical heterosexuality studies in dialogue with feminist state theory to examine marriage promotion as a reaction of the gendered and sexualized state to crisis tendencies of institutionalized heterosexuality. Drawing on the first in-depth study of marriage promotion politics, the author examines polycentric state practices that seek to stabilize the norm of the white, middle-class, heterosexual family. While explicit policy concerns focus on race and class, state-sponsored marriage workshops teach about gender hierarchy to rehearse an implicit ideology of marital heterosexuality. In contrast to feminist state theories that present a monolithic, top-down model of state control, the author offers a more nuanced examination of the relationship between macro and micro levels of power and their uneven consequences for social change.

Key Words: marriage promotion • state • heterosexuality • gender • race • and class

This version was published on February 1, 2009

Gender & Society, Vol. 23, No. 1, 27-48 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0891243208326807
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[Abstract] [PDF]