When the Obamas went out on their highly publicized "date night" a month ago, they probably didn't realize that they were a walking economic stimulus package.Or did they?Daniel Cere's review (link for subscribers only) ofAndrew J. Cherlin's The Marriage-Go-Around: The State of Marriage and Family in America Today published in theJune issue of Commonweal reminded me of Stanley Hauerwas's provocative essay, "Resisting Capitalism: On Marriage and Homosexuality" collected in the volume A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity.As Cere summarizes, Cherlin identifies as the cause of America's "marriage wars"the paradoxical coincidence of an "obsession with the conjugal bond" and a lack of regard for either permanence or offspring, two things traditionally understood as essential to the institution itself.In contrast to this American way, Cherlin notes that thoseevilhedonist-socialist Europeans seem "much more anxious about the birth rights of children."One thing missing from Cherlin's analysis, as presented by Cere, seems to be the economic factors that might beperpetuating America's marriage paradox.According the Hauerwas, it should not be surprising that one of the most capitalist and consumptive countries in the world should be plagued by this paradox.He writes:

Capitalism thrives on short-term commitments. The ceaseless drive for innovation is but the way to undercut labor's power by making the skills of the past irrelevant for tomorrow.Indeed, capitalism is the ultimate form of deconstruction, because how better to keep labor under control than through the scarcity produced through innovation? Allthe better that human relationships are ephemeral, because lasting commitments prove to be inefficient in ever-expanding markets.

This idea was echoed yesterday in a NY Times op-ed by Ross Douthat, who wrote:

The difficult scramble up the meritocratic ladder tends to discourage wild passions and death-defying flings. For bright young overachievers, theres often a definite tameness to the way that collegiate safe sex segues into the upwardly-mobile security of companionate marriages or, if youre feeling more cynical, consumption partnerships.

So, the Obamas and their "date night" feed into an idea of successful marital romance predicatedon a need forconstant innovation to overcome the myth of love's scarcity. If GM is failing,it's time to explore alternative energy. If your marriage is failing, why not try alternative sex? ("How to's" available for $19.99 at your local Barnes and Noble). Because, as everyone knows, in marriage, as in business, you're only as good as what you've done for me today.I only pick on the Obamas because their "date night" did seem to produce the desired (even if unwittingly so) effect. Another NY Times piece, published in the June 7 edition, described how, like all good advertising, the Obamas romantic evening turned the spotlight on the comparatively frigid love lives of all those watching and wishing they could get some of that.

While some commentators were grousing about the presidential dates undisclosed cost to the taxpayers, news of the romantic evening prompted many wives to glare across the breakfast table, trying to remember the last time their husbands made a fuss over them. [...]Ms. OConnors husband, John Bilotta, seems to be taking the hint: Since Mothers Day, he has been sending her flowers weekly. As he was running family errands, Mr. Bilotta, a corporate media consultant, said in a phone interview: It pops up on my BlackBerry on Tuesdays: Send flowers to wife.

...And flower shops everywhere rejoice! It's so easy to "keep the spark alive." Just put it in your BlackBerry, and for only $20 a week, you too can be happily married!Meanwhile, Hauerwas argues that for Christians to really consider the "sanctity of marriage" (this is where homosexuality comes in) and get beyond the "marriage wars,"they have to first loose themselves from the prevailing marriage-as-commodityideology.The occasion for Hauerwas's essay, as he describes it, was his participation on the Methodist Commission for the Study of Homosexuality which was charged with formulating a position on same-sex unions. Instead of diving into the deceptively shallow waters trying to hitch"scientific" accounts of homosexuality to "romantic" accounts of marriage, Hauerwas urged the commission to begin by re-formulating a theological account of marriage rooted in understandings of promiscuity and procreation. It is probably not surprising that Hauerwas quickly realized that he "had no place on the commission." Furthermore, his essay was even rejected from a collection that was put together to contest the conservative position the commission ended up taking on the issue.That neither conservatives nor liberals can abide Hauerwas's take on the issue of same-sex marriage confirms that marriage-as-commodity currently rules the day. Hauerwas suggests that to get a Christian view of marriage off the ground one must affirm the union as "lifelong monogamous fidelity" that is biologically or non-biologically procreative. Without such an understanding, Hauerwas argues, neither heterosexual nor homosexual unions can be considered Christian marriages theologically construed.So, married Christians, gay and straight, fight capitalism and ideology by staying together and letting that consumptive spark die!