2 Men Might Make a Lady, but Never a Woman

[Draggingtree]

Patheos : 2 Men Might Make a Lady, but Never a Woman

July 9, 2015 by Elizabeth Scalia

Colonel Pickering and Henry Higgins might have made a lady out of Eliza Doolittle, but together they could not have made the woman.

Guest post by Russell Shaw

 

Does Henry Higgins hold the key to settling the same-sex marriage debate?

 

Not quite. But in the wake of the Supreme Court decision declaring a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, it’s well worth considering what Higgins has to tell us.

 

In “My Fair Lady” Professor Higgins sings a song called “Why Can’t a Woman Be Like a Man?”. It’s an amusing account of his misogyny. But by the end of the story, the professor has learned a great lesson: not only can’t women be like men—or men like women either—it’s a very good thing for both that they can’t.

 

This lesson has a name: complementarity. It needs to be re-learned now in the midst of widespread confusion about marriage.