Intersexuality - Dealing with Intersexuality

Socio-cultural Attitudes - Legal Traditions

Marriage

Traditionally, the law in most countries has regarded marriage as possible only between females and males. The exact number of the marriage partners was not always specified, as various forms of polygamy were permitted in some cultures. However, it was always implied - if not always spelled out - that marriages took place beween persons of different sex. Indeed, the civil codes of many modern Western societies have clearly defined marriage as a union of one woman and one man.
However, as we have seen in this course, it may not always be easy to determine who is a woman and who is a man. Modern sex research has revealed many formerly unsuspected complexities in this area and has discovered a whole spectrum of transitional stages between femaleness and maleness that do not fit the laws as currently written. It has also shown that a person’s sexual self-identifcation can contradict any anatomical appearance. Therefore, an early gender role assignment may eventually have to be changed, and thus it may become necessary to correct the personal identification papers. However, if this person is already married at the time of the correction, the issue arises whether the marriage – now between two persons of the same sex – can remain valid. Same-sex marriages have only recently become possible in a few Western countries, but certain other countries and many religions remain vehemently opposed to them. Indeed, married transsexuals who want new identification papers after a “sex change”, first have to divorce their spouses.
This is a serious issue also for intersexual persons, because many of them marry “in good faith” someone of the other sex. Indeed, their condition may remain undiscovered for years until a doctor looks for the cause of their infertility. He may then find a contradiction between gender role and biological facts. If, in spite of the surprising diagnosis, the person’s sexual self-identification remains unshaken, the issue of the newly discovered “true” physical sex is simply ignored. The doctor and the couple keep it confidential, and the law is none the wiser. However, some cases may, from the very beginning, prove to be more difficult and hard to conceal. If they become publicly known, they may call into question many silent assumptions about marriage. Intersex adocates will point out, for example, that the inability to produce children has never been an obstacle to marriage, because women have always been allowed to marry even after their menopause. Neither has the inability to have sexual intercourse ever been an obstacle, because even chronically ill, severely disabled, and very old persons have been permitted to marry. By implication, therefore, love, friendship, companionship and economic security have always been recognized as sufficient justifications for marriage. It follows that there is no logical reason why it should remain restricted to couples of different sex. Not surprisingly then, modern societies face a growing demand that marriage should be a universal human right, regardless of the physical sex of the partners.