Research shows parents who are married are more likely to stick together and their kids have better outcomes, which has fallout for society. I don't think it is a good idea to do away with something that appears to have a net benefit for society.

Sorry, "more likely" in this case refers to more likely than parents who are living together without marriage.

Does it?

I've seen studies showing kids of co parenting adults doing better than singles - simple economics bears that out without study

But I've never sen research stating that married parents have better outcomes than nonmarried but still cohabiting.

Don't care about research at all. Go down to probate court sometime and see what happens when the state has to decide where property goes when someone dies.

The tribe has always had a vested interest in its offspring. Now, if you wish to live in a world without personal property, just pretend that you will not go to state and local government courts to decide who inherits.

Shucks – tell me what happens to a minor child if they have no parent. Oh, wait – we can already see that in single-mother households…

If marriage was a bad thing, then we would see a resounding success in the single-parent household. Nope.

The lawyers and pols would never allow this. Too much loss of income.

This isn't an argument against marriage; it's an argument for private contracts rather than the state's.

Given how often state "laws" governing marriage and divorce aren't necessarily set in stone, and vary from state to state I see no problem with dropping marriage back over to private contracts

@Bob: I'd expect just the opposite. Instead of the present "one size fits all" marriage, most couples will now want to draft contracts beforehand, probably with the help of lawyers. And most divorces will involve litigating those contracts, which won't all be the same, so the outcomes will be less predictable (and require more argument) than they are today. The lawyers win at both ends.

You probably won't want to hire the same lawyer who wrote your marriage contract to argue the divorce (for the same reason that the lawyer who wrote a will shouldn't be hired to probate it -- he might put in unclear language in order to profit from it).

If we're going to make this change, I suggest amending state constitutions to give couples the right to decide things like child custody under contract law (something no state allows today).

And since many such agreements will cover sex and related behaviors (for example, some couples have already written prenups that impose a penalty for infidelity), the law will also need to be made to allow that sort of thing. Present contract law would forbid some such arrangements as being "penalty clauses" and others as constituting prostitution (because sex may be part of the consideration).

Above all, though, such an enabling amendment would need to spell out just how far a couple can go in deciding things like a child's best interest before family courts can disregard the contract and impose their own opinions. I would limit the latter ability to extreme cases.

I do think getting rid of the crazy quilt of state laws, regulations, and court precedents, and making marriage work the same as any other contract law, would be an excellent thing. One might complain that this would make it more complicated to work out the details of marriage, but as with most aspects of mass-market contract law, most people will simply use boilerplate contracts. People who have unusual situations will have to pay some money to a lawyer to get their contract to capture everything they need, but it's probably better to spend that money up front then when the relationship is breaking up, as happens now.

What's left is whether the state should allow any different legal status to contract-married couples. Once you strip away the legal overlays of marriage licenses and family court, you are pretty much left with two things: (1) tax status, and (2) welfare and government benefits eligibility. Taking the latter first, the existing structure is terrible because most of it actively encourages single motherhood and penalizes married couples. That needs to be fixed; this is one area where, if we're going to continue to have welfare, it needs to be marriage-blind at least. Regarding Social Security and survivor's benefits... that whole mess makes my head hurt. Someone else think about it.

Regarding tax status, I see a lot of arguments about whether the current income tax regime favors or punishes married couples. I think the answer is that it depends on the couple's income and how it is earned. Under the existing tax law, at the low end single mothers do far better than anyone else. In the middle and uppper classes, it depends on how the income is distributed; the couples who come out ahead are ones where one partner earns all the income. The ones who come out worst are the ones who have moderate-to-high income and both partners earn about the same amount. My preferred fix for this? Bypass the proble by eliminating the income tax altogether, and switch to consumption-based taxing.

Nicole has a good point in that, in general, it is in society's interest for most adults to be in couples. How to encourage that, without either being discriminatory or creating a mess like our current tax law, is the hard part. But, in the current anti-marriage (at least for men) environment, I think the government can do a lot by just ceasing to interfere.

"This isn't an argument against marriage; it's an argument for private contracts rather than the state's.

Jesus, do you even read what you write sometimes? Cousin Dave has touched on this, but let me be real clear:

Who runs the courts that these private contracts will be settled in?

This fails for the same reason that "civil union" isn't the same as "marriage".

And in no way do you demonstrate that someone who will not be responsible with a conventional marriage will somehow be a paragon of virtue observing a "contract".

...every aspect of a couple's relationship would have to be contractually worked out from scratch in advance....

Every single aspect. [see below]

People would have to settle questions involving cohabitation, property, and children just as they do for retirement and for death. Millions of gay couples had to do this prior to the Supreme Court's ruling on marriage equality. Millions of unmarried couples do it today.

No. Not just issues of how much money the couple spends and on what, but issues of how many times a week are they are intimate and how much time are they will spend together. Any changes people go through as they age will have to be put into the contract. What if one of them gets tired of his/her job and wants to change professions - with limited earning potential during the process of gaining expertise? What if the predetermined custodial parent turns out to be a lousy parent? What if one of them loses interest in intimacy? How do you write a contract for a mid-life crisis?

Marriage is not two simply people joining together in a business arrangement. It's entwining the most intimate parts of two people's lives (their hopes, dreams, feelings, fears, etc.). It's joining their growth as human beings to each other, making the other person a part of their own growth. You can't write a contract that covers that.

Marriage involves society. "She's his wife" has a much deeper social implication than "she's his girlfriend / cohabitant." And it should.

Can you imagine the ridiculous lawsuits stemming from things like "Bill signed a contract for twice a week and he hasn't delivered" (because 52-year-old Bill is on medication and can't deliver the way he could when he was 22).

And, yes, people like Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Kardashian have made a dog's breakfast out of marriage - but you don't light the ship on fire because you found a couple of rats on board.

Marriage is imperfect, but it has worked for society for over 2,000 years.

But marriage should confer neither special favors nor goodies from the state.

Those "goodies" flow both ways. The state benefits from the stable relationships that marriage fosters.

According to research by the Heritage Foundation, "married families tend to have better financial health, increased savings, and greater social mobility than unmarried households. Married couples also tend to have a higher average income, more assets, and a greater likelihood of owning their own homes than families led by single adults." That means higher property tax revenues, higher income tax revenues, and higher sales tax revenues.

AND

"Tying the knot can likewise have a profoundly positive effect on men’s and women’s psychological well-being, stress levels, and smoking habits. Marriage is even associated with lower mortality rates." That means lower health care costs.

AND

"Children raised in families headed by a married couple have a greater chance of experiencing economic stability, high academic performance, and emotional maturity. Teens from intact, married families are less likely to be sexually active and also less likely to abuse drugs and/or alcohol, exhibit poor social behaviors, or participate in violent crimes. Consistent parental involvement, especially from fathers, is also related to decreased likelihood of teen pregnancy." That means less welfare, lower crime rates, and people entering the workforce with a higher education and higher skill levels - which translates to more affluence and higher income taxes.

Any changes people go through as they age will have to be put into the contract. What if one of them gets tired of his/her job and wants to change professions - with limited earning potential during the process of gaining expertise? What if the predetermined custodial parent turns out to be a lousy parent? What if one of them loses interest in intimacy? How do you write a contract for a mid-life crisis?

How is that more unfair that the present situation where when a marriage dissolves for any reason men are still held to 90% of the obligation of the marriage contract while women are not?

Maybe forcing people to think about and confront these issues BEFORE they arise will lead to fewer divorces as few people rush into bad marriages.

And here is the thing I dont understand.

How does a single piece of paper which makes it marginally harder for a couple to break up magically turn out better kids?

Two parents v one parent I can see - simple math on available resources.

Two parents together v two parent apart I can see.

But being officially married doesnt stop people from leaving, or cheating

What exactly is the difference between
Two parent together v two parents together(now with fancy sheet of paper)?

marriage has always been a theological thing, related to the passing on and control of titles and wealth... actually for more like 5,000 years, ConanTG [some records from Ur. but likely longer.]

But that is because, until relatively recently, ALL governments were in some way related to the gods. How the ruler ruled, and where their power came from, how people were required to worship, and so forth. That power structure, rolled down to the very fundamental part of the tribe, the couple. All the trappings of gods made regular laws more powerful, and this law of marriage, no different.

So introduce the secular society, where law are elevated to gods... and marriage is now an issue because certain theologies require callbacks to marriage standards and whatnot.

So we secularized most other things about the separation of church and state...
but not that one. Which is why this long journey into letting other non traditional couplings use this heretofore religious thing called marriage for their own uses in a govt. frameworks that is supposed to be secular... more or less.

20 years ago the question could have been decided by anyone with standing to sue, by simply demanding that the government GET OUT OF THE RELIGIOUS BUSINESS.

But obviously people who want favors, didn't WANT the government out of it. They wanted to use the government to bless their marriages, so that everyone would have to accept them.

Everyday in this country millions of transactions happen without hard/fast contracts spelling every eventuality out. That wouldn't be an issue.

The idea that marriages cause better outcomes is as pernicious as the idea that going to college give you a better life outcome, so we should make sure everyone goes to college.

It is the ability to get into college, to do the work necessary to be there, and to figure it all out, that makes better outcomes. NOT THE COLLEGE ITSELF.

People who take the steps to make a marriage work out, to forge their life into a unit have the best outcomes, but having the church of the flying spegetti monster buyoff on it, isn't what makes a good outcome, it's the people who forge the unit.

So what is different in the contracts between what you do in church, and what the govt. would do directly?

In either case, you dissolve it in court.

Everybody is acting like this is some kind of impossible to surmount issue, but it isn't...

And it would get you a million miles further on, if the govt. butted out entirely of the religious part, or the part where they re-write the meanings of a probably 10,000 year old concept...

and everybody realized what GOVT. is actually for. It doesn't bless anything, or make it whole, and it sure as hell doesn't make things work out.

People do that. Or not.

Based on the states I a familiar with, in regards to government and marriage there is little requirements. I know it is quite different in some states.

Basically what it inherently is, is a tax status and in community property states there is that. Beyond that it was just defaults - e.g. default will for inheritance, default power of attorney, etc. Oh...and in some cases a requirement of support instead of government aid. I am sure the government isn't going to give up that last one. I guess private contracts would just eliminate community property and the tax status.

Things like fidelity are not part of the marriage rules in those states.

Another Kentucky clerk goes all a-flutter over gay marriage, and this time calls in to a radio show to conflate his misunderstandings of the Supreme Court, Jesus, war, patriotism, and whether or not he'll go to his death denying marriage licenses to gay people.

Quite the little diva, apparently.

"Another Kentucky clerk goes all a-flutter over gay marriage,"

In my dyslexia, I originally read this sentence as "Anthony Kennedy clerk". Which made perfect sense to me, since his clerk undoubtedly wrote the pages full of emotional vomit that passes for a Supreme Court Opinion....in Obergefeld.

When I saw who made the post, I knew I had read it wrong. :-)

"But marriage should confer neither special favors nor goodies from the state."

But that's the thing, for the majority of couples marriage imposes penalties much larger than any goodies. That is why marriage has so fallen out of favor. For the majority of couples it is a bad deal. And if you are a responsible parent who might use welfare you won't marry. It would foolishly penalize your children.

This is what the author is really getting at. If you favor traditional monogamous marriage you need to either end the welfare state (good luck with that) or get government out of marriage (a much more likely option). The two cannot survive together.

Lujip, it's because the cohabitating non-married parents tend to break up.

I don't know why they are more likely to break up, but they are. Having the piece of paper does correlate to a stronger relationship.

... maybe less serious relationships are less likely to get married to begin with.

... maybe people teetering on the verge of splitting see the hassle of divorce and decide to give it another go.

... maybe something else.

Effectively, all marriage is, is an official announcement that you want to stay together. Of course there may be some people who stay together but don't want to officially announce it, and some who announce it but later change their minds, but ultimately, should it come as a surprise that people who announce it and and sign a document stating their intention are more likely to than those who don't?

"I don't know why they are more likely to break up, but they are. Having the piece of paper does correlate to a stronger relationship."

It does make you wonder which one is cause and which one is effect, though. Do couples stay together because they are married, or do they get married because they stay together?

"It does make you wonder which one is cause and which one is effect, though. Do couples stay together because they are married, or do they get married because they stay together?"

Why is this a question?

Don't you know anybody? Hasn't the struggle for gay marriage solved this enormous question for you?

Marriage doesn't cause commitment - it is the sigil of commitment.

And marriage isn't a bad idea because people screw it up, either. It remains the easiest way to show states and even other nations that someone shares responsibilities for your family.

I agree with Rad. Marriage is a sign of commitment. Married people break up less than cohabitors because their relationship was stronger to begin with.

Kind of like the adds that people who switch to x insurance saved an average of $450. If you won't save at least $40/mo, why switch? Another one is home owners tend to be more educated, wealthier, and have more stable life styles. The house didn't cause any of that, it is a symptom. Not that the government wants to hear any of that. After all, the 2008 crash was so much fun we should do it again. And then there is the 'people who see a doctor once a year are healthier' one. Once again, seeing the doctor once a year and being willing to pay for it shows health is important to that person. Subsidizing or forcing people to go to a doctor once a year doesn't improve their health.

Marriage is a good thing. I can't do it all. Neither can you. Truth is nobody can. Having someone to help makes a huge difference. As does the savings from sharing room and board. But the welfare state is inherently opposed to marriage and has made it unaffordable for many Americans.

Marriage is a sign of commitment. Married people break up less than cohabitors because their relationship was stronger to begin with.

Marriage is not simply a "sign of commitment." It is a commitment; one witnessed by friends and family and sanctioned by the community at large.

Conan, by that terminology marriage is a simple contract that can be ended at any time by any party for any reason. Doesn't sound like much of a commitment to me. Two people, a clerk, and two witnesses signing a piece of paper doesn't mean much. The commitment between two people came first. The ceremony is only a visible declaration that that level of commitment exists.

As proof look at the relationship between the cost of a wedding and the length of the marriage. The more you spend the shorter the marriage. If the ceremony was the important part then there is no commitment to make the marriage last.

I don't need the government to keep me faithful to my wife. I doubt they could stop me if I wanted to stray.