the content of culture

Sometime in April of 2003, the Associated Press reported the following :

What are we to make of this?

Is there a "right" and a "wrong" when it comes to unmarried coupling? Ought the State to take a position on this? Ought the state to jail and fine unmarried couples?

Well first, we must realize that the issue clearly is not about unmarried coupling. It is about the style or manner in which a man and a woman engage in the unmarried coupling. They must not be brazen. If they are demure, quiet, shy, perhaps embarrassed, but above all discreet, than nary a word from the state.

However, a couple mustn't live together "openly and notoriously." For this they shall be punished. Jailed and fined. Perhaps repeatedly, until they give up their loathsome notoriety. Until they and we realize who has the freedom to act as they will, and who must not upstage the public space with the spectacle of their immoral lifestyle.

As a preliminary issue, although it is best not to dwell too long here, we might wonder how, for example, it shall be determined when an unmarried, cohabiting couple is being "notorious." How shall we define notorious behavior?

This is not at all an easy question to answer, though perhaps we can ask a few leading questions which will light the way.

Does "notorious" behavior include shopping together for such household goods as, say, food? Or, say, light bulbs? Surely such behavior indicates to one and all, and above all, to the cashier and the stockboys, that this couple is living together, for what couple would shop together for quotidian household objects if they didn't live together?

Would "notorious" behavior include, say, public dancing? Well maybe, but it's tricky. Sometimes perfect strangers will dance together publically, and indeed, this may be one of the primary ways in which unmarried couples become married couples. Also, unmarried couples not living together will, on occasion, dance together, and however "notorious" the dancing, it would not be punishable by jailtime and a fine unless the dancing couple is also found to live together.

Perhaps the state could figure out a way--with ID cards or wrist bracelets---to differentiate the unmarried, cohabiting couples, from the singles who are dancing for dates?

Well, no. Public dancing would be too difficult to regulate. It seems the state might need to lean on its theory a bit more: what is notorious? It is when appropriately private behavior is unduly made public. Dancing, then, could be "notorious" only when an unmarried, cohabiting couple dances together in the place they call home with the blinds up and the windows open.

Or, perhaps, we can identify "notorious" cooking, or the "notorious" tending to baby, or "notorious" dog grooming when an unmarried couple engages in these behaviors in plain sight of the neighbors

Okay, enough of that silliness. It is tough to know when behavior warrants the epithet "notorious." But let's say we can trust the state to decide such matters. What we've learned is that the key element is the publicity of an act "normally" kept private. The offense occurs when an unmarried, cohabiting couple lives their life together in a too-public manner.

And so a further question presents itself.

What do we suppose will be the effect of witnessing the brazen behavior of the unmarried couple, witnessing their lack of shame, their evident pride in scoffing common decency, common standards? What is it about their enjoyment, their lack of decorum, their pleasure, the vision of their pleasure, the example of their unlicenced pleasure, that so rubs North Dakotans the wrong way such that in 2003 they need to threaten jail time and a hefty fine?

A clue is present in Senator John Andrist's quotation. He says the law will "remind" citizens that there is a right and there is a wrong.

From the point of view of Law, then, it would seem "forgetting" is a major issue here. In the face of such notorious openness, society forgets itself. Forgets its manners. Forgets its morals, its standards. Forgets in the shining and stunning light of the example of this couple the lessons of decency and morality they have learned elsewhere. And most of all, what the good citizens of North Dakota might have learned from the State itself---that couples are legitimate when the State says they are legitimate, and not before.

And we might ask, what prompts the forgetting? It is the sight of the openness and notoriousness. It is the couple. Look at them! How they kiss! How they snuggle! Look at how they trust one another! How they fight! How they rely on one another! And look, they don't need permission from the State, from religion, from anyone.

It is the stunning sight of their freedom that blinds us to all but them, all but their spectacle.

And their independence is a reminder of our own unfreedom.

On whose authority do they act to live together? On no one's authority but their own. They take the authority to bind their fates together on the strength of their own decision to do so. Perhaps they did not decide. Perhaps they just acted without thinking. Perhaps it is their mutual passion, or maybe a one-sided passion. Perhaps it is a matter of cold calculation. Perhaps it is because they love one another's cooking? Who knows? No one knows. Only they know! It is a private affair, having nothing to do with the community. In saying 'yes' to each other they are saying 'no' to the community. They are free, and they have acted on their freedom.

And yet, they are unwilling to keep the satisfaction of their private freedom private. They wave it in our faces, and we cannot look away from their privacy made public.

And here, the forgetting sets in. What is right? What is wrong? In the couple's expression of open freedom, they shine brightly and brilliantly, causing amnesia in all who look upon them. They are like the sun, outshining the stars at noon-time, overpowering the force of all the prohibitions, internal and external, which call for hesitation and validation, for public approval, for sanction by the Law. Unmarried cohabitation is illegal and notorious in that it sets the example to scoff at Law's self-appointed power to designate the legitimate taking place of passion and home.

And this means that it is not at all what the good Senator says. It is not that when we look on such a brilliant sight we forget that there is a wrong and a right, but rather this: we are sure that there is something right, and it is what we see right in front of us, that which in seeing it blinds us to the State's demand that we heed it, that we find it necessary. The startling vision of private love made public puts the lie to the law's claim for its necessity.

And a final word on the way in which the "notorious" couples discomfits the State.

The struggle over the authorization of how to live is never about life only. It is also about death, over which the State demands total power. The State demands the right to kill, and no one but the State can command this power without retribution. From the State's perspective, marriage designates the proper unit of analysis when it comes to doling out social security checks, informing loved ones of deaths in combat, collecting taxes, assigning wills, and so forth. The State expects that humans will align their relations in ways convenient to the accounting practices of the State. To live and die without proper accounting is to designate one's homelife in a territory apart. It is to laugh on one's own, without echo in the halls of the keepers of files. It is to enjoy sovereignty over one's life and death without mediation by Law.

And for this: 30 days and $1,000 fine. Just to show you who's boss.

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