What Is Marriage?

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has been chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and has served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds J.D. and M.T.S. degrees from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., and D.Litt. from Oxford University, in addition to twenty-one honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal. Sherif Girgis is an attorney in Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D. student in philosophy at Princeton. He has served as law clerk to Judge Thomas Griffith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, a B.Phil. in philosophy from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy with highest honors from Princeton. He is a coauthor of Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination (2017) and of several book chapters and academic articles in law and philosophy journals. The views expressed in this book and his other work are his own and not those of his law firmRyan T. Anderson is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and he received his doctoral degree in political philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (2018) and Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom (2015), and he is a coauthor of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense (2012) and Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination (2017).

“What Is Marriage? There is the question. Thanks to these three eloquent authors for so cogently reminding us of that, and for showing us how reflective reason answers it.”—Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York<“What Is Marriage? is the most insightful, eloquent, and influential defense of marriage as it has been historically and rightly understood. People of all traditions—and everyone who cares about the future of this central and sacred social institution—owe Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George an extraordinary debt.”—Meir Soloveichik, Associate Rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University“With many countries on the verge of redefining a basic social institution, What Is Marriage? issues an urgent call for full deliberation of what is at stake. The authors make a compelling secular case for marriage as a partnership between a man and a woman, whose special status is based on society’s interest in the nurture and education of children.”—Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University“What a joy to see this book by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, which presents the most philosophically astute and historically accurate defense of traditional marriage to date. It exposes the incoherence of attempts to radically redefine marriage by showing the inherent wisdom in what is our oldest social institution.”—David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies, University of Toronto“Before we even consider fundamentally altering an institution that has been the foundation for all of our family laws, we should understand why marriage has been defined as a conjugal union across centuries and cultures. A lot more is at stake than the definition of a word, and this book reveals just how much is at stake. Its defense of marriage is philosophical and sociological, not theological, but people of all faiths will find it illuminating and edifying.”—Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Zaytuna College“This book brilliantly explains why the definition of marriage is so critical and why the strengthening of marriages is absolutely essential to our freedom and our future.” —Dr. Rick Warren, Author of The Purpose Driven Life and Pastor of Saddleback Church