Marriage is both a social experience and a legal arrangement and is not static in terms of its social valuation; but rather, it is assigned values according to the milieu of the time. These values are symbolic and often based on expectations, rather than lived experience. This thesis identifies the current arrangement in the contemporary United States to include: expectations of economic stability or advantage, moral virtue or purity, nationalist or patriotic identity, and socially-sanctioned sexual intercourse and approved gender identity. I show these values to be largely intangible and socially constructed and dependent on the fluctuation in both social mores as well as economic demands for relevance and enforcement. I begin with World War II and the economic boom and continue to the present day with a consideration of the debate over same-sex marriage. I show that marriage in the United States is linked to heterosexual values and norms and the inclusion of same-sex marriage causes a ripple effect that is expressed in all four of the valuation categories. I take an assimilationist point and argue that the bond of marriage is flexible and can been modified to accommodate the inclusion of same-sex couple couples.
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