Some might appeal to historical inevitability as a reason to avoid answering the question of what marriage is—as if it were an already moot question. However, changes in public opinion are driven by human choice, not by blind historical forces. The question is not what will happen, but what we should do. It is no surprise that there is already evidence of this occurring. A federal judge in Utah allowed a legal challenge to anti-bigamy laws. [45] A bill that would allow a child to have three legal parents passed both houses of the California state legislature in 2012 before it was vetoed by the governor, who claimed he wanted “to take more time to consider all of the implications of this change.” [46] The impetus for the bill was a lesbian same-sex relationship in which one partner was impregnated by a man. The child possessed a biological mother and father, but the law recognized the biological mother and her same-sex spouse, a “presumed mother,” as the child’s parents. [47] Social science confirms the importance of marriage for children. According to the best available sociological evidence, children fare best on virtually every examined indicator when reared by their wedded biological parents. Studies that control for other factors, including poverty and even genetics, suggest that children reared in intact homes do best on educational achievement, emotional health, familial and sexual development, and delinquency and incarceration. [9] Stanley, T. D., & Jarrell, S. B. (1989). Meta-regression analysis: a quantitative method of literature surveys. Journal of Economic Surveys, 3(2), 161–170.

Registration of Marriages Regulations 2021 The Registration of Marriages Regulations 2021

Bersani, B., & DiPietro, S. M. (2013). An examination of the “marriage effect” on desistance from crime among US immigrants. D.C.: Washington. David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 146. Indeed, that undermining already has begun. Disastrous policies such as “no-fault” divorce were also motivated by the idea that a marriage is made by romantic attachment and satisfaction—and comes undone when these fade. Same-sex marriage would require a more formal and final redefinition of marriage as simple romantic companionship, obliterating the meaning that the marriage movement had sought to restore to the institution.Seffrin, P. M. (2009). Structural disadvantage, heterosexual relationships and crime: life course consequences of environmental uncertainty. Bowling Green State University.

The marriage effect Mobility and money in U.S. states: The marriage effect

Sampson, R. J. (2015). Crime and the life course in a changing world: Insights from Chicago and implications for global criminology. Asian Criminology, 10, 277–286. Marriage is society’s least restrictive means of ensuring the well-being of children. Marital breakdown weakens civil society and limited government.Recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages would legally abolish that ideal. It would deny the significance of both mothering and fathering to children: that boys and girls tend to benefit from fathers and mothers in different ways. Indeed, the law, public schools, and media would teach that mothers and fathers are fully interchangeable and that thinking otherwise is bigoted.

The Marriage Effect: A marriage of convenience sports romance

This is not hypothetical. In 2009, Newsweek reported that there were over 500,000 polyamorous households in America. [25] Prominent scholars and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) activists have called for “marriage equality” for multipartner relationships since at least 2006. [26] Traditional marriage defined as being between a man and a woman as defined by the American psychological association by defining it as "a marriage of husband and wife, wherein the former is the primary or sole breadwinner and the latter holds primary or sole responsibility for maintaining the home and managing child care." [2] This union, when intentionally invested in, can have health benefits for the individuals involved. Furthermore, the American Sociological Association noted on their findings that is it not necessarily being in a marriage that brings the benefits, rather it is being in a "good marriage" quality that brings benefits of better health and well-being. [3] Individuals can be in marriage and have their health plummet because the relationship is abusive. Thus, it is evident that the quality of the marriage is a determining factor if people receive health benefits.Elder, G. H. (1974). Children of the great depression: social change in life experience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. In recent decades, marriage has been weakened by a revisionist view of marriage that is more about adults’ desires than children’s needs. This view reduces marriage primarily to emotional bonds or legal privileges. Redefining marriage represents the culmination of this revisionism and would leave emotional intensity as the only thing that sets marriage apart from other bonds.

Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get

Forrest, W. (2014). Cohabitation, relationship quality, and desistance from crime. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76(3), 539–556. Social Trends Institute, “The Sustainable Demographic Dividend: What Do Marriage and Fertility Have to Do with the Economy?” 2011, http://sustaindemographicdividend.org/articles/the-sustainable-demographic (accessed March 4, 2013). a b c d "The Effects of Marriage on Health: A Synthesis of Recent Research Evidence. Research Brief". ASPE. 2016-04-11 . Retrieved 2018-05-04. In 2009, Newsweek reported that the United States already had over 500,000 polyamorous households. [34] The author concluded: [P]erhaps the practice is more natural than we think: a response to the challenges of monogamous relationships, whose shortcomings…are clear. Everyone in a relationship wrestles at some point with an eternal question: can one person really satisfy every need? Polyamorists think the answer is obvious—and that it’s only a matter of time before the monogamous world sees there’s more than one way to live and love. [35] This understanding of marriage as the union of man and woman is shared by the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions; by ancient Greek and Roman thinkers untouched by these religions; and by various Enlightenment philosophers. It is affirmed by both common and civil law and by ancient Greek and Roman law. Far from having been intended to exclude same-sex relationships, marriage as the union of husband and wife arose in many places, over several centuries, in which same-sex marriage was nowhere on the radar. Indeed, it arose in cultures that had no concept of sexual orientation and in some that fully accepted homoeroticism and even took it for granted. [7]Van Schellen, M. (2012). Marriage and crime over the life course: the criminal careers of convicts and their spouses. The Netherlands: Utrecht University. Government promotes marriage to make men and women responsible to each other and to any children they might have. Promoting marital norms serves these same ends. The norms of monogamy and sexual exclusivity encourage childbearing within a context that makes it most likely that children will be raised by their mother and father. These norms also help to ensure shared responsibility and commitment between spouses, provide sufficient attention from both a mother and a father to their children, and avoid the sexual and kinship jealousy that might otherwise be present. In recent decades, marriage has been weakened by a revisionist view that is more about adults’ desires than children’s needs. This reduces marriage to a system to approve emotional bonds or distribute legal privileges. Douglas W. Allen, Catherine Pakaluk, and Joseph Price, “Nontraditional Families and Childhood Progress Through School: A Comment on Rosenfeld,” Demography, November 2012.