So government promotes marriage to provide an institution for the raising and nurturing of children. Note that government has no direct interest in whether or not the couple that forms the foundation of the family love one another (at least in the romantic sense); marriage is not society’s stamp of approval on two people’s feelings for each other. Many marriages have little romantic feelings left in them, but still produce capable and well-adjusted children. To the degree that those feelings keep the marriage together and healthy, there is an indirect interest, but directly, the government and society have no compelling interest in marriage as an indicator of the couple’s love for each other. And the fact that some marriages never serve this role (of raising and nurturing children) does not invalidate society’s need to promote marriage and families. I suppose we could make each couple considering marriage indicate whether or not they intend to have children, and test them to make sure they are capable of doing so. If not, no marriage license would be granted. Then, if they changed their mind, decided to adopt, or “had an accident”, they could re-apply and government would grant the marriage license. This, or something like it, is a real alternative. But not a very serious one, because societies have deemed it trivial to allow such couples to marry. These cases, relatively few in number, have been going on for generations, and have not threatened the institution of marriage in general, so why impose the costs? Note that same-sex marriage advocates make a similar argument – however, I will argue below that in the case of same-sex marriage, it does threaten the institution of marriage.
Now let’s take a closer look at the children.
Children are raised by one or more adults who serve as society’s models. Mostly, this function is served by the children’s natural mother and father. In some cases, through death or divorce, a single parent is left to fulfill this role. In other cases, both parents are lost to death, are deemed unfit, or simply refuse to fill that role. In such cases, grandparents, other relatives, or state institutions step in. But clearly, society has recognized over time that families are the best institution to raise children. The fact that some families do it poorly does not invalidate this conclusion. It is very instructive to note what societies do when a child loses his or her family of origin. Put them in full-time daycare? Put them in an orphanage? (Note that western societies have pretty much abandoned orphanages.) Some sort of shared responsibilities arrangement within a community? No, societies ideally try to find another family to place the children into – mostly with relatives, through adoption, or as a last resort, foster family-type programs. Even foster family programs, with all the stories of children being passed around and the attendant impacts on those children, are considered better than non-family alternatives (at least in general). If they aren’t, then why don’t we implement whatever it is that is better? Return to orphanages, perhaps?
So children need families. If a better alternative is out there, we have not found it, and we would be unwise (to put it mildly) to create alternatives without lots of serious consideration, planning, and testing.
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