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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2014
Recent debates over same-sex marriage prompt reflection more generally on the competing norms regulating marriages. Two supremacy claims emerged in the debates, one that religious traditions provide the supreme law of marriage, another that civil marriage is entirely secular and its supreme law is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This paper identifies similarities in these claims. Both wrongly ascribe an internal uniformity to cultural communities. Referring to historical amendments to marriage law, the paper argues that both claims are unfaithful to the Canadian tradition of marriage law. Amendments to the prohibited degrees of relationship and the introduction of federal divorce legislation show the federal Parliament to have developed a civil or profane marriage in conscious opposition to religious forms. Since the 1880s, marriage law has been periodically altered on the basis that it is wrong in a plural, secular society to impose religious views on nonbelievers. Parliament has not simply followed top-down norms, but also regarded social practice as a source of marriage norms. Past instances of law reform indicate a rich political tradition of argument and contestation, one in which the churches have not maintained consistently that the civil law of marriage should mirror religious rules. Civil marriage and religious marriage are not, as claimed by the standard bearers of the Charter, unrelated. They stand instead in a constantly adjusting relationship of tension and difference.
Les débats récents concernant le mariage des couples de même sexe appellent à une réflexion plus large sur la rivalité entre les normes qui prétendent gouverner le mariage. Lors de ces débats, deux prétentions prirent l'avant-scène: l'une voulant que la loi suprême du mariage se trouve dans les traditions religieuses, et l'autre selon laquelle le mariage civil serait purement séculaire et trouverait sa loi suprême dans la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Cet article identifie certaines similarités au sein de ces deux prétentions. En particulier, chacune suppose erronément l'uniformité interne des communautés culturelles. Un examen de l'historique des amendements aux lois portant sur le mariage révèle qu'aucune de ces prétentions ne reflète fidèlement la tradition canadienne du droit du mariage. Les amendements aux lois concernant les degrés prohibés de liens de parenté et l'introduction de la loi fédérale sur le divorce illustrent le développement par le Parlement d'un mariage civil ou profane, par opposition consciente aux formes religieuses. Depuis les années 1880, les lois portant sur le mariage ont été modifiées périodiquement au motif que dans une société séculaire et plurielle, l'imposition de normes religieuses aux non-croyants est illégitime. Le Parlement ne s'est pas inspiré uniquement des normes explicites, dites autoritaires, mais a également considéré la pratique sociale comme une source de normes relatives au mariage. En somme, les réformes du passé révèlent une riche tradition de débat et de contestation, au cours de laquelle les Églises elles-mêmes n'ont pas constamment maintenu que les règles du mariage civil devraient être à l'image des règles religieuses. Contrairement aux prétentions des adeptes de la Charte, le mariage civil et le mariage religieux ne sont pas dénués de liens. Ils se situent au contraire dans une relation de tension et de différences qui requiert des ajustements constants.
1 S.C. 2005, c. 33.
2 Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c. 11 [Charter].
3 White, James Boyd, Heracles' Bow: Essays on the Rhetoric and Poetics of the Law (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985) at 35 Google Scholar [White, Heracles' Bow].
4 See, from the pens of law professors speaking qua legal scholars, “Open Letter to The Hon. Stephen Harper from Law Professors Regarding Same-Sex Marriage,” online: University of Toronto, Faculty of Law <http://www.law.utoronto.ca/samesexletter.html≫Google Scholar.
5 See the proposal that when developing policy responses to polygamy, the “objective of achieving equality and full respect for all persons … must remain paramount and take precedence even over other important values, such as respect for religious freedom.” Campbell, Angela, “How Have Policy Approaches to Polygamy Responded to Women's Experiences and Rights? An International, Comparative Analysis” in Polygamy in Canada: Legal and Social Implications for Women and Children (Ottawa: Research Directorate, Status of Women Canada, 2005) at 36 Google Scholar.
6 House of Commons Debates (16 February 2005) at 3580, 3584 Google ScholarPubMed (Hon. Stephen Harper).
7 See the preambular references to freedom of religion under the Charter and the freedom of religious officials to refuse to perform marriages not in accordance with their religious beliefs, a point reiterated in s. 3.
8 On contemporary human rights and Western Christianity, see Supiot, Alain, Homo juridicus: Essai sur la fonction anthropologique du Droit (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2005) at 277–85Google Scholar. See, more locally, Egerton, George, “Entering the Age of Human Rights: Religion, Politics, and Canadian Liberalism, 1945–50” (2004) 85 Can. Hist. Rev. 451 Google Scholar; Egerton, George, “Writing the Canadian Bill of Rights: Religion, Politics, and the Challenge of Pluralism - 1957–1960” (2004) 19:2 C.J.L.S. 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 House of Commons Debates (16 February 2005) at 3577, 3575 (Hon. P. Martin)Google ScholarPubMed.
10 [2004] 3 S.C.R. 698 at para. 22. See also Halpern v. Canada (A.G.) (2003), 65 O.R. (3d) 161 at para. 53 (C.A.) [Halpern]: “This case is solely about the legal institution of marriage. … We do not view this case as, in any way, dealing or interfering with the religious institution of marriage.”
11 Constitution Act, 1982, supra note 2, s. 52(1).
12 The claim that s. 15 is the chief source of the norms and values underlying Bill C-38 is troublesome. On the private law genealogy of same-sex marriage, see Leckey, Robert, “Private Law as Constitutional Context for Same-Sex Marriage” 2 J.C.L. [forthcoming in 2007]Google Scholar.
13 Allen, Carleton Kemp, Law in the Making, 7th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964) at 1 Google Scholar. The positivist label applies better to religious rules derived from revealed texts than from solely custom.
14 The former understanding of marriage enjoys a respectable pedigree in Christian theology, much of which has argued “that women must be subordinate to men in domestic relationship and in church and that men exercise their maleness precisely by dominating women.” Jordan, Mark D., Blessing Same-Sex Unions: The Perils of Queer Romance and the Confusions of Christian Marriage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) at 13 Google Scholar [Jordan, Blessing Same-Sex Unions]. For a comparative survey highlighting the legal inequality still widely evident within marriage in many countries, see Gautier, Arlette, “Legal Regulation of Marital Relations: An Historical and Comparative Approach” (2005) 19 Int'l J. L. Pol'y & Fam. 47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism, exp. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005) at 144–50Google Scholar.
16 Sunder, Madhavi, “Cultural Dissent” (2001) 54 Stan. L. Rev. 495 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 Macdonald, Roderick A. & Sandomierski, David, “Against Nomopolies” 57 N.I.L.Q. [forthcoming in 2007]Google Scholar.
18 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, The Ethics of Identity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005) at 151–52Google Scholar.
19 Benhabib, Seyla, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002) at 16 Google Scholar.
20 Nussbaum, Martha C., Sex and Social Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) at 37 Google Scholar. For recent explorations of the historical diversity internal to Christian and Jewish traditions, see Jordan, Mark D., ed., with Sweeney, Meghan T. & Mellott, David M., Authorizing Marriage? Canon, Tradition, and Critique in the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006)Google Scholar [Jordan, Authorizing Marriage?].
21 Jordan, Blessing Same-Sex Unions, supra note 14 at 5. Once collective illusions are discarded, it becomes apparent that “there is no coherent Christian tradition to claim” respecting marriage, “much less a Judeo-Christian one” (ibid.. at 100).
22 White, Heracles' Bow, supra note 3 at 35.
23 This discourse operates awkwardly given the Supreme Court of Canada's abstinence, in Reference re Same-Sex Marriage, from addressing the constitutionality of the old opposite-sex rule. The last substantive decision is the Chrétien administration's choice not to appeal the judgment in Halpern. The prime minister clings disingenuously to the formal supremacy claim based on a decision's judicial pedigree. When he says “[w]e have heard from courts across the country, including the Supreme Court” (House of Commons Debates (16 February 2005) at 3575 (Hon. P. Martin))Google ScholarPubMed, he avoids noting the highest court's silence on the merits.
24 Warner, Michael, The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (New York: The Free Press, 1999) c. 3 Google Scholar.
25 The discourses share another similarity, not germane here, concerning the separation of powers. Each privileges an institution of governance: the religious discourse takes it that Parliament should regulate marriage in accordance with religious norms; the Charter discourse holds the courts responsible for announcing changes to the rules of marriage. Both ignore the possibility that regulating marriage might be an institutionally shared enterprise, one borne out by the fact that in the same-sex litigation, the impugned rule was in some provinces a nineteenth-century common law rule announced by judges and, in Quebec, a rule enacted federally in 2001. Compare Halpern; Hendricks v. Quebec (A.G.), [2002] R.J.Q. 2506 Google Scholar (Sup. Ct.).
26 Senate Debates (27 April 1880) at 387, 388 Google ScholarPubMed; (28 March 1882) at 180 (Hon. Mr. Kaulbach).
27 Binney, Hibbert, Bishop of Nova Scotia, Reasons for Rejecting the Proposed Alterations in the Marriage Law of the Dominion (Halifax: Baillie & Anderson, 1880) at 6, 3, 8 Google Scholar.
28 Rev. Blair, D.B., A Dissertation on the Degrees of Kindred Which Bar Marriage According to Leviticus XVIII and XX (Halifax: Nova Scotia Printing, 1873) at 42 Google Scholar.
29 House of Commons Debates (27 February 1880) at 298 (Mr. Abbott)Google ScholarPubMed.
30 In the common law provinces, the prohibition had been received with English law. In Quebec, it appeared in art. 125 C.C.L.C.
31 For a catalogue of prior attempts, see House of Commons Debates (27 February 1880) at 291–92 (Mr.Girouard, )Google Scholar.
32 An Act concerning Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, S.C., 45 Vict., c. 42. Eight years later, Parliament permitted marriage to a dead wife's niece: An Act to amend An Act concerning Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, S.C., 53 Vict., c. 36.
33 Such suspicions rested upon an idiosyncratic reading of Parliament's constitutional authority to legislate respecting “Marriage and Divorce” (Constitution Act, 1867 (U.K.), 30 & 31 Vict., c. 3, ss. 91(26), reprinted in R.S.C. 1985, App. II, No. 5) as limited to “marriage in relation to divorce.” Mignault, P.B., Le droit civil canadien basé sur les “Répétition écrites sur le Code civil” de Fréderic Mourlon avec Revue de la jurisprudence de nos tribunaux, t. 1 (Montreal: C. Théoret, 1895) at 340 Google Scholar [Mignault, Le droit civil].
34 Specifically, 32 Henry VIII, c. 38, declared the levitical degrees to be the impediments to marriage enforceable within the king's realm and “any of his Grace's other land and dominions.” Blumenstein, J.H., “Matrimonial Jurisdiction in Canada” (1928) 6 Can. Bar Rev. 570 at 575 Google Scholar.
35 14 Geo. III, c. 83 (U.K.), reprinted in R.S.C. 1985, App. II, No. 2.
36 Such arguments likely exaggerated the potential harm: the federal statute did not purport to repeal art. 129 C.C.L.C., which provided that one could not compel a priest to solemnize a marriage against which there existed some impediment under his religious doctrines and beliefs and the discipline of his church.
37 Girouard, Désiré, Considérations sur les Lois civiles du mariage (Montreal: Nouveau Monde, 1868) at 25 Google Scholar [Girouard, Considérations]. A later scholar opines, rather cynically, that the ecclesiastical rule's “historical venerableness” becomes less compelling as it was for centuries “a prolific source of Church revenue,” dispensation being always available for a price. Raney, E.F., Marriage and Divorce Laws of Canada (Social Service Council of Canada, 1914) at 4 Google Scholar.
38 Napoleon, Val, “ Delgamuukw: A Legal Straitjacket for Oral Histories?” (2005) 20:2 C.J.L.S. 123 at 125 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister: A Bible Argument, with Facts Long Obscured, By a Clergyman, (Hamilton: Office of the “Churchman,” 1871) at 3 Google Scholar. See also Review of Several Late Publications on Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Condemning This Proposed Innovation on Our Religious Institutions (Halifax: Wesleyan Conference Steam Press, 1859)Google Scholar; Laing, John, Marriage with the Sister of a Deceased Wife, Considered in Connection with the Standards and Practice of the Canada Presbyterian Church (Toronto: Adam, Stevenson & Co., 1868)Google Scholar.
40 In favour of the change, see e.g. Deceased Wife's Sister: Letters by The Rev. D.V. Lucas, M.A., in Reply to The Rev. H. Roe, D.D. (Montreal: Gazette Printing Company, 1882)Google Scholar (letters previously published in The Gazette).
41 Armstrong, James, A Treatise on the Law Relating to Marriages, in Lower Canada (Montreal: John Lovell, 1857)Google Scholar.
42 Jordan, F.J.E., “The Federal Divorce Act (1968) and the Constitution” (1968) 14 McGill L.J. 209 at 211–15Google Scholar.
43 See the hope that “divorce is more likely to be prevented by leaving the subject among the functions of the local legislatures, at all events as far as Lower Canada is concerned, than by leaving it to the Federal Parliament.” Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 3rd Session, 8th Provincial Parliament of Canada (Quebec: Hunter, Rose & Co., 1865) at 691 Google Scholar (6 March 1865) (Hon. Mr. Dorion).
44 Carbonnier, Jean, Flexible droit: pour une sociologie du droit sans rigueur, 10th ed. (Paris: L.G.D.J., 2001) at 310 Google Scholar.
45 Girouard, Considérations, supra note 37 at 33.
46 So, too, was the state of affairs prevailing in Nova Scotia in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. On the “very serious disputes” over the claim of Episcopal clergy, supported by the executive, to the “exclusive right of marrying,” see Murdoch, Beamish, Epitome of the Laws of Nova-Scotia (1832; Holmes Beach, Fla.: Wm. W. Gaunt & Sons, 1971), vol. 2 at 20 Google Scholar. The author writes “that if all the sects were equalized in this respect, it would give much satisfaction to those who think the present practice a serious grievance, and it would produce no injury to any description of persons” (ibid.). On the special legislative dispensation granted in the mid-1790s for the solemnization of marriages by lay persons “where the inhabitants were remote from any clergyman,” see ibid. at 19. In that province, religious adherents other than Anglicans urging the state to follow “traditional matrimonial practices” must mean a somewhat liberalized version. I am grateful to Bruce MacDougall and Philip Girard for this point.
47 Baudouin, L., “Validity of Marriage Between Two Roman Catholics Solemnized by Protestant Minister—Nature of Marriage in Quebec” (1951) 29 Can. Bar Rev. 437 Google Scholar.
48 Baudouin, Louis, “La famille face à un code moderne” (1967) 27 R. du B. 221 at 225 Google Scholar.
49 S.Q. 1969, c. 74 Google ScholarPubMed.
50 Mark D. Jordan, “Introduction” in Jordan, Authorizing Marriage?, supra note 20, 1 at 4.
51 Halperin, David M., How to Do the History of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002) at 4 Google Scholar.
52 Art. 185 C.C.L.C.
53 See Mignault, Le droit civil, supra note 33 at 551–60.
54 Report of the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on Divorce (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967) at 47 Google Scholar (Joint Chairmen: The Hon. A.W. Roebuck & A.J.P. Cameron) [Report on Divorce].
55 Divorce Act, S.C. 1967–1968, c. 24 Google ScholarPubMed.
56 House of Commons Debates (5 December 1967) at 5083, 5086 (Hon. P.-E. Trudeau)Google ScholarPubMed.
57 Report on Divorce, supra note 54 at 92. The procedure of “consulting religions” privileges hierarchical, organized traditions that have identifiable spokespersons and authorities over other formations. The effect would seem to be that, when religions are consulted regarding marriage matters, not all religions can be treated equally.
58 House of Commons Debates (5 December 1967) at 5085 (Hon. P.-E. Trudeau)Google ScholarPubMed. It took Parliament until the mid-1980s to instate the no-fault approach advocated by the Protestant churches in the 1960s.
59 Godron, Jacques, Le mariage: Principes catholiques, solutions légales (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1946) at 105 Google Scholar [Godron, Le mariage]. The civil law defines “perpetual” as “established for an unlimited period” (Private Law Dictionary and Bilingual Lexicons, 2d ed. (Cowansville, Qc.: Yvon Blais, 1991)Google Scholar s.v. “perpetual”). “Perpetual” speaks to the unspecified duration; “indissoluble” speaks to the impossibility of voluntary termination.
60 Godron, Le mariage, ibid. at 105; see also Mgr Beaudoin, Lucien, La Dissolution du Lien matrimonial en Droit Canonique et en Droit Civil canadien (Ottawa, 1948) at 262 Google Scholar.
61 Rev. Whelan, M.J., Marriage: The Law of the Church and the Law of the Land (Ottawa, 1911) at 2 Google Scholar. He locates the fundamental rupture between civil and religious marriage effected by divorce at the time of the Reformation.
62 Kahn, Paul W., The Cultural Study of Law: Reconstructing Legal Scholarship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) at 117–18Google Scholar.
63 It may also be worth recollecting the ambivalence, if not downright hostility, towards marriage and family life signalled by the historical Jesus: “he not only avoided marriage and family himself, but also taught people to forsake those institutions and enter into an alternative, eschatological society. The household was part of the world order he was challenging.” Dale B. Martin, “Familiar Idolatry and the Christian Case against Marriage” in Jordan, Authorizing Marriage? supra note 20, 17 at 20.
64 In Halpern, the court rejected the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto's contention that nonrecognition of its marriages infringed its freedom of religion (supra note 10 at paras. 51–57). While the conditions by which the state makes available civil marriage must not discriminate, there is no entitlement to demand a civil imprimatur for a particular religious marriage.
65 Jordan, Blessing Same-Sex Unions, supra note 14 at 4.
66 The United Kingdom's recognition of same-sex relationships short of marriage tacitly confirms marriage's religious dimension by what it explicitly denies civil partnerships: “No religious service is to be used while the civil partnership registrar is officiating at the signing of a civil partnership document” (Civil Partnership Act 2004 (U.K.), 2004, c. 33, s.2(5))Google Scholar.
67 Roderick A. Macdonald & Alexandra Popovici, “Catéchisme de l'islamophobie” [unpublished, on file with author].
68 R.S.C. 1985 (2d Supp.), c. 3, s. 21.1Google ScholarPubMed.
69 Shauna Van Praagh, Book Review of Religion and Culture in Canadian Family Law by Syrtash, John Tibor (1993) 38 McGill L.J. 233 at 248–49Google Scholar.
70 One scholar writes that such a provision “peut être interprétée comme contraignant une partie à faire un acte religieux, s'immisçant par là même dans un domaine qui relève par nature de choix personnels, d'une part, et s'ingérant dans un champ hors de sa compétence, l'ordre normatif religieux, d'autre part”: Saris, Anne, La compénétration des ordres normatifs: Étude des rapports entre les ordres normatifs religieux et étatiques en France et au Québec, 3 vols. (D.C.L. thesis, McGill University, 2005) vol. 1 at 128–29Google Scholar [unpublished].
71 Leckey, Robert, “Harmonizing Family Law's Identities” (2002) 28 Queen's L.J. 221 at 258 Google Scholar.
72 Arthurs, Harry & Arnold, Brent, “Does the Charter Matter?” (2005) 11 Rev. Const. Stud. 37 at 111 Google Scholar.
73 For fuller development of this argument, as well as references to the cases in issue, see MacDougall, Bruce, “Refusing to Officiate at Same-Sex Civil Marriages” (2006) 69 Sask. L. Rev. 351 at 360 Google Scholar.
74 Respectively, Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:13 (NRSV).
75 To invoke freedom of religion, claimants need not demonstrate an objective religious obligation, but while a court is unqualified to rule on the validity of a religious practice, it will inquire into the claimant's sincerity, to ensure that the religious belief asserted “is in good faith, neither fictitious nor capricious, and that it is not an artifice.” Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem, [2004] 2 S.C.R. 551 Google Scholar at paras. 49–52, 2004 SCC 47. A religious adherent's abstaining from a civil duty is, of course, different from a religious institution's treatment of same-sex couples, although even there the delegation to religious officiants of state authority to perform civil marriages in the course of religious marriages may raise questions.