On Marriage

In an upcoming post, Jeremy is going to write about gay marriage, but before he does that we wanted to take a look at marriage in general, and examine if it should be an activity the state sponsors. For this discussion let’s assume the status quo, with the limitation that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Should the state be involved in the licensing of marriages, and should the state provide benefits to married couples?

For proponents of state-sponsored marriage (and for sake the of this post, let’s assume the U.S. model, which has financial incentives for the married), I think the argument quickly becomes that the state should try to influence the actions of individuals to help them achieve a better life. In the case of marriage, the argument made by many proponents -- and the one that has the most resonance to me -- is that traditional nuclear family creates an environment that has a higher rate of success for children. We, as a society, want to encourage the success of children. Therefore we ought to increase the incentives, financially and by establishing social norms, towards the nuclear family.

The article “Marriage from a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do about It?” does a really good job at sorting out the settings in which children have the best outcome.  The first thing to note is that children from married, low-conflict, households have the best outcomes. What’s equally interesting to me are the caveats that the authors note. The quality of the parents’ marriage is hugely important, as is the fact that both parents be biologically related to the child (stepparents might actually be worse than single parent households depending on what study you read).  Co-habitation produces worse outcomes than marriage as well, but a major reason for this is noted in the study in that these relationships tend to be more fragile and are more likely to end within five years.

So if low-conflict marriage is clearly the best way for children to be raised, why wouldn’t it make sense for the state to incentivize this? Is there an argument against the government trying to establish circumstances in which people who want to pursue a nuclear family have the best chance of flourishing?

There are numerous reasons why someone might argue against the government being involved in marriage, but I’m going to present the two that appeal to me. First, the data is unclear.  If both parents are in a healthy marriage the same personality traits that make them successful partners seem likely to also carry over to child-raising. These personality traits are difficult to control for and incredibly important. Just as interesting to me is the fact that children with stepparents do notably worse than children without stepparents, even if both types of marriage can be considered healthy. This raises all sorts of questions about whether the type of parental relationship matters or how the parents themselves relate to the child. To claim that children raised in nuclear family households are more successful is one thing; to claim that they are more successful because they are raised in a nuclear family household is a much more difficult claim to prove, and one that the above authors are not making.

The second reason the government’s role in supporting marriages makes me uncomfortable is that it reinforces hetero-normative values that might be causing problems for other families from non-traditional backgrounds. While I don’t think this explains away the advantages of children in a low-conflict, two parent, household it certainly makes us ask important questions. Do we want to, as a society, engage in social engineering that necessarily results in those who are already outside the norm facing more disadvantages? If we are uncertain, and it seems impossible to ascertain, what the exact role family structure plays in the outcomes of a child wouldn’t it be better to provide financial support for all families generally?

I admit that this issue is somewhat personal for me.  I come from a single-parent household, and there were times when the pressures faced by me, but especially my mom, where exacerbated by hetero-normative expectations. The fact that I had a loving mother and father makes me incredibly lucky, but I have an inherent dislike of the government being involved in this. I hesitate though because granting the government a positive reading, that they want to help children by fostering a society in which the nuclear family can flourish, it seems that a lot of good might indeed come from marriage. Wouldn’t it be easier to admit that, yes, nuclear families have children with the best outcomes, we want that for our children, let’s figure out ways to support the flourishing of nuclear families? In the end however I think the truth is far too muddled for this type of action by the government. Yes children have better outcomes when the come from nuclear families, but as noted above, it is certainly unclear that these nuclear families are the cause of the better outcomes. There are real negatives in this too. Not only does in reinforce hetero-normative values which can have negative effects on non-traditional families, but it also establishes a precedent for the government to fundamentally involve itself in the personal lives of its citizens based on imperfect reasons. With these reasons in mind, and Jeremy might disagree with me in his later post, I tentatively argue against the state being involved with marriage.

-Bo