When Laws discriminate instead of introducing more equality : the case of the "Mariage pour tous" law

Béatrice Fracchiolla (1, 2)

1 Crem - Centre de Recherche sur les Médiations
2 LEGS - Laboratoire d'Etudes de Genre et de Sexualité

This communication looks at how, in France, certain laws, against all expectations, fit into the specific pattern that defines what a linguistic systems of discrimination (Fracchiolla 2021). What I call a “linguistics based system of discrimination” is the way language, as a system, organizes in an internalized way of naming everyday reality and its representations in such a way that it actually promotes discrimination of certain categories of persons, without people even noticing it in their language use. This is the case for instance of the law of the marriage for all (2013) but also of that of 2004 on wearing religious signs which, in reality, targets homosexuals for the first, for the second the Islamic veil - and therefore Muslims much more than other religions. However, one can wonder here about the way in which the notion of exception which enters into account in the writing of these laws, tends in reality to a discriminatory treatment of certain categories of people, on the basis of their sex or of their religion, and not an undifferentiated one aimed at fair and equal treatment of all. Thus, while the laws are supposed to exist for everyone, on a principle of equity, we can see how some, on the contrary, introduce a double standard. My contribution will demonstrate how, based on a discourse analysis of fifteen interviews with mothers of lesbian families in France. The corpus has been collected from 2015 to 2020, and all the interviews were transcribed. Each of the interviews lasts for about an hour, and they all are about the family story and what the marriage for all changed in their life and their children’s life. As a matter of fact, one of the specificities of all the lesbian marriages contracted by the persons I interviewed is that they all decided to get married not as a couple love proof, but in order to be able to proceed with the adoption of the child or children by the non-biological mother, and thus become a real family. In their case, the marriage has in fact become a mandatory and unavoidable step in becoming a real family. This, already, shows a specificity in the reason why marriage exists, compared to common (heterosexual) law marriages. I will put in evidence the way in which, in this specific case, the law introduces a certain type of violence under the guise of a recognition of rights. I will also explain how it even organizes and systematizes discrimination through aspects that are not expected in the daily life. My main theoretical framework will be the theory of speech acts (Austin 1962). Fracchiolla, B (2021) "Définition du système discursif de discrimination de genre : à partir des systèmes genrés d’adresse et de la loi du mariage pour tous ", Etudes de Linguistique Appliquée. Stein, D. (2000) Law and Language: Theory and Society. (ed. With F. Olsen & A. Lorz), Düsseldorf University Press. Stollznow, K. (2017) The language of Discrimination, Lincom Studies in Semantica.

Mots clés: Pragmatics; theory of speech acts; forensic linguistics; gender studies; discrimination

Domaines: Linguistique; Etudes sur le genre; Droit; Sociologie

Béatrice Fracchiolla. When Laws discriminate instead of introducing more equality : the case of the "Mariage pour tous" law. 5th International Language and Law Conference, University of Alicante (ILLA), Sep 2021, Alicante, Spain. ⟨halshs-03338992⟩