Should laws support the institution of marriage?

Pro: The institution of marriage helps to maintain social stability by placing limits on the pursuit of potential mates: those who are interested in developing intimate relationships are discouraged from disrupting marriages.

Pro: Children fare better in homes that have two parents who are married to each other.

Con: Marriage is a form of legalized prostitution. The basis for this view is that, in many marriages, the rights to sexual congress and household labor have been exchanged for promises of financial support or security. Since marriage subordinates women to men, even makes women the property of men, it institutionalizes injustice. Marriage enforces an unjust social arrangement that limits the opportunities of women for self-realization and advancement in careers.

Reply: Those who view marriage as only economic deal-making readily come to one of two conclusions: avoid marriage altogether or approach it with a view toward maximizing the return on the investment.

Con: The breakdown of the family does not herald the end of our civilization. For no certain connection can be drawn between the rearrangement of personal relationships and economic disaster or military conquest. Vast natural catastrophes or thermonuclear misadventures are more likely to devastate entire societies in the short run. What part the decay of traditional family units plays in the disintegration of the state in the long run is at best uncertain.

Notwithstanding all this, the fragmentation of the nuclear family as an institution has produced, and will continue to produce, painful consequences for individuals. Some of those consequences are short lasting, and some others may cripple many generations. But physically sound, mentally brilliant, and emotionally resilient people can emerge from the worst of environments. Therefore governments cannot be assured that policies that buttress particular institutions or social arrangements are always well-advised, since the effects of those policies on millions of people now and in the future are impossible to predict with even moderate confidence.