Marriage:
A Social Institution
Social institutions
• result from intentional actions on the
part of collections of humans for the
purpose of achieving some objective [or
social good].
• incorporate humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction
and are designed and evolved to
regulate [private] incentive problems
An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage Laws
Douglas Allen
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol29_No3_Allen.pdf
Private incentives
• Cooperation [to achieve a social
good] also enables people to take
advantage of one another or behave
opportunistically.
• Successful societies create institutions that constrain opportunistic
behaviour.
An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage Laws
Douglas Allen
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol29_No3_Allen.pdf
Marriage: a social institution
Marriage is designed to regulate
individual selfish behaviour that
gets in the way of producing
successful children.
An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage Laws
Douglas Allen
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol29_No3_Allen.pdf
Whenever a child is born, a mother
will always be close by. That’s a fact of
biology. The question for culture and
the question for law is whether a
father will be close by. And if so, for
how long?
Marriage Matters, and Redefining It Has Social Costs
Ryan T. Anderson, January 15th, 2014
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/01/11880/
Marriage – two views
1. Conjugal view: a sexual union of
husband and wife who promised each
other sexual fidelity, mutual caretaking
and the joint parenting of any children
they may have.
2. Partnership view: a relationship
created by the couple for the fulfilment
of the two individuals who enter into it.
Marriage equality or the destruction of difference?
Roger Scruton and Phillip Blond
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/02/04/3682721.htm
Marriage – the partnership view
fails to acknowledge …
• the fact of sexual difference;
• the enormous tide of heterosexual desire
in human life;
• the procreativity of male-female bonding;
• the unique social ecology of parenting
which offers children vital and
fundamental bonds with their biological
parents
Marriage equality or the destruction of difference?
Roger Scruton and Phillip Blond
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/02/04/3682721.htm
Marriage – the conjugal view
Union across sexual difference is the most
powerful aspect of conjugal marriage. It
provides the sole institution that can
successfully cope with the generative
power of opposite-sex unions.
Marriage equality or the destruction of difference?
Roger Scruton and Phillip Blond
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/02/04/3682721.htm
Changing marriage constraints
Divorce reformers felt that marriage
was the domain of lovers. Issues of
specific investments, paternity, and the
like simply were not considered. ...
Taken together, this view of marriage
failed to account for the economic
realities of marriage, and as a result,
was unable to predict how no fault
divorce would affect behavior.
An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage Laws
Douglas Allen
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol29_No3_Allen.pdf
Effects of no fault divorce - 1
• Divorce has increased fourfold.
• Living together before marriage has
more than quadrupled.
• The proportion of married, natural
parents in charge of children in
families is now the lowest in our
history.
The Future of Marriage
Barry Maley
http://www.cis.org.au/images/stories/policy-monographs/pm-58.pdf
Effects of no fault divorce - 2
• The percentage of children in single
parent families has increased more
than fourfold since the 1960s.
• About 28% of children are living
apart from one of their natural
parents – almost always the father.
The Future of Marriage
Barry Maley
http://www.cis.org.au/images/stories/policy-monographs/pm-58.pdf
Effects of no fault divorce - 3
• In 1960 the average number of births
in a woman’s lifetime was 3.4. By
2000 it had halved to 1.75, and
mother’s age at first birth was
substantially higher.
• Rates of abortion have tripled since
1970.
• In 1960, 5% of births were outside
marriage; in 2000 it was closeTheto
30%.
Future of Marriage
Barry Maley
http://www.cis.org.au/images/stories/policy-monographs/pm-58.pdf
Consequences of legalising samesex marriage? - 1
All of the arguments for no-fault
divorce were well meaning [but] there
was a general failure to understand the
true role of marriage institutions. The
same misunderstandings of marriage
… are found today in the debate over
same-sex marriage.
An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage Laws
Douglas Allen
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol29_No3_Allen.pdf
Consequences of legalising samesex marriage? - 2
Social responsibility, loving partner-ships,
and spousehood are promoted over the
institutional concepts of husband, wife,
and parent. … But the no-fault divorce
experience tells us [these views of
marriage] are not true, and therefore
movements toward same-sex marriage
will have different consequences than
Laws
proponents claim. An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage
Douglas Allen
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol29_No3_Allen.pdf
New Family Structures Survey of 2,988
U.S. adults aged 18-39 (University of Texas, 2012)
n=110
n=116
n=175
n=919
n=73
n=816
n=394
New Family Structures Survey of 2,988
U.S. adults aged 18-39 (University of Texas, 2012)
n=110
n=116
n=175
n=919
n=73
n=816
n=394
New Family Structures Survey of 2,988
U.S. adults aged 18-39 (University of Texas, 2012)
n=110
n=116
n=175
n=919
n=73
n=816
n=394
New Family Structures Survey of 2,988
U.S. adults aged 18-39 (University of Texas, 2012)
n=110
n=116
n=175
n=919
n=73
n=816
n=394
New Family Structures Survey of 2,988
U.S. adults aged 18-39 (University of Texas, 2012)
n=110
n=116
n=175
n=919
n=73
n=816
n=394
New Family Structures Survey of 2,988
U.S. adults aged 18-39 (University of Texas, 2012)
n=110
n=116
n=175
n=919
n=73
n=816
n=394
New Family Structures Survey of 2,988
U.S. adults aged 18-39 (University of Texas, 2012)
n=110
n=116
n=175
n=919
n=73
n=816
n=394
References
An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage Laws - Douglas Allen
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol29_No3_Allen.pdf
Marriage Matters, and Redefining It Has Social Costs - Ryan T. Anderson
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/01/11880/
Marriage equality or the destruction of difference? - Roger Scruton, Phillip Blond
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/02/04/3682721.htm
The Future of Marriage - Barry Maley
http://www.cis.org.au/images/stories/policy-monographs/pm-58.pdf
The New Family Structures Study - University of Texas at Austin
http://www.prc.utexas.edu/nfss/index.html
• see
children from different families - Dr. Mark Regnerus, Associate Professor of
Sociology, Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
http://www.familystructurestudies.com/