Friendship, Marriage, and the Good Life

Utilizing the framework of Stoic virtue ethics, I endeavor to examine how Stoicism is valuable for thinking about the common relationships of friendship and marriage. Friendships are helpfully understood as social relationships where two people are committed to fostering virtue and happiness between each other. Marriage is taken to be the deepest possible friendship into which two people can enter, and by understanding marriage this way, marriage can be understood as a union between either a man and woman, a man and man, or a woman and woman. The issue of homosexual marriage will be examined from a Stoic perspective in an attempt to avoid the criticisms of the traditionalist perspective which holds that marriage is only possible between man and woman.