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Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the relations between the nuclear family, gay marriage and Western capitalism through a theoretical analysis with the help of Herbert Marcuse’s Eros & Civilization and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus. Respectively, these theoreticians allow the use of a Freudo-Marxian and a schizoanalytic perspective to answer the following theoretical question: How can Marcuse’s terminology together with that of Deleuze and Guattari’s be applied to explore desire within the relationship between the nuclear family and the societal structure of capitalism to understand the historical emergence of gay marriage. Moreover, to help exemplify the analysis, this paper introduces two journalistic articles: First, the life story of the gay man, Erik Ladegaard, in Christian Bennike’s (2017) article “Sådan holdt Danmark op med at hade homoseksuelle”, and secondly, an article by Michael Nebeling Petersen (2012) titled “De ikke rigtigt rigtige”, which contains reflections about the legalization of gay marriage in Denmark the same year.
This paper concludes that through a Marcusian and Deleuzoguattarian theoretical optic, gaymarriage can be viewed as a continuation of the nuclear family as a fundamental institution within the structure of capitalism, i.e., when talking about the historical emergence of gay-marriage, capitalism as a societal structure cannot be discarded. To be more in detail, viewed through Marcuse, gay marriage is at risk of continuing the sur-repressive nature of the nuclear family, and thereby continually structure desire to center around reproduction. Moreover, through the schizoanalytic perspective of Deleuze and Guattari, gay marriage can be viewed as the result of the inhibition mechanic, which is inherent to capitalism – also called the double operation of de- and reterritorialization. Due to this mechanism, gay marriage is at risk of being yet another oedipalizing structure within capitalism, which contributes to the production of repressed subjects with oedipalized desires.
Lastly, by applying Kiva Maria Krohn’s (2021) division of levels within theory of socialization, the paper points out the absence of a subject-level within its analysis. This lack of a subjectlevel can be construed as an analytic deficit, since it leaves out significant matters relevant to the subject of this paper.