In an era when the average American now spends the majority of his or her life unmarried, it is time to stop glorifying and privileging marriage to the total exclusion of all other patterns of family formation, caregiving relationship, living arrangement and property ownership. Despite its ubiquity, marriage is exactly “one size does not fit all.” Yet at the same time, the high price of being single in the United States is a well-known fact of life. What’s a thinking person to do?
For the majority of children now born outside of marriage, (estimated at roughly half of births today), the ramifications of growing up in an unmarried household are generally immediate and negative: Increased poverty is all but guaranteed. At the same time, promoting marriage at taxpayer expense to solve this problem has been a colossal boondoggle. For starters, there was little demand from its target audience, not to mention that marriage has a nearly 50 percent failure rate. (The fact that marriage doubles as an ex post facto welfare program for much of today’s middle class and is nothing short of a luxury good for the upper crust reflects growing income inequality.) Rather than reinforcing these economic divides, family law and social welfare policy would do well to adapt to the rise of nontraditional family forms in which the spousal pair is no longer the core of family life.
Give up hope. We will progress by accepting decline. Weird.
The article contains a false argument: there is no tax or other government support for marriage and government aid has never been rewarding to married families, quite the opposite. I will agree with the author that inheritance and what amounts to power of attorney rights should not be limited to whom is married to whom, but the legal recognition that marriage grants those privileges does need to stand and not be abolished.
The author writes,
[blockquote]”Yet what binds our common view is the notion that personal relationships are best defined by individuals themselves.” [/blockquote]
My reference book writes,
[blockquote]”What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:9)[/blockquote]
My common view may be out of date, but personal relationships are best defined by God.
Perhaps a review of Wikipedia before writing this would have enlarged her perspective, which for all the bluster, seems stuck on the romanticized concept than practical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage