Marriage Is Not the Answer

Slate’s Emily Yoffe this week opined that “out-of-wedlock births are a national catastrophe” and marriage is the solution to childhood poverty and economic growth. Lauren Bruce at Offsprung has already taken her to task for her assertions, and notes that gay families are out of luck in Yoffe’s scenario. I’d like to add a bit more to Lauren’s wise words.

Yoffe is, as I understand, in favor of marriage for same-sex couples. Given her position on single mothers, however, it seems that her support for marriage equality may be largely engendered by her view of marriage as the answer for society’s ills. The millions of children raised successfully by LGBT parents, however, without, in most cases, the benefits of marriage (or even “marriage-like” institutions, such as civil unions or domestic partnerships), show that marriage is not in itself necessary to raising well-adjusted children.

This is not to say that LGBT parents shouldn’t fight for the right to marry. There is no reason we shouldn’t have the choice to enter into a marriage. Marriage does bring with it a host of legal and economic benefits, not to mention a stamp of social approval, that make childraising (among other things) easier. Marriage is not, however, the answer to the social ills that Yoffe discusses. As Lauren says, the solution to childhood poverty is not marriage; it is providing parents and children with better resources. Nancy Polikoff, author of Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage puts it this way:

If [the right] can convince the public to blame child poverty on a decline in marriage, births to unmarried women, and a high rate of divorce, they can make what is a public disgrace look like a matter of personal moral failing.

As Polikoff sees it, we should take the focus off marriage (without abandoning the fight for marriage equality as an option for those who choose it), and instead adopt a “valuing-all-families” approach in which the law supports “the diverse families and relationships in which children and adults flourish.” As I understand her, this would make it possible, for example, for a single mother to have her single sister live with her, help with childcare, and have the sister declared a domestic partner. The sister would gain health care coverage and all the various other rights that make life easier for two committed people under the same roof, even though they are not in a sexual relationship. An easier life for the adults usually means an easier life for the children. Everyone benefits.

Wait, some might say. What if the sister decides to start an intimate relationship with someone else, and moves out? Wouldn’t it be better for the child if her mother was in a long-term, monogamous, intimate relationship? There’s a definite argument to be made for stability, but a) there’s no guarantee even a traditional marriage will last forever, and b) why not offer benefits and protections to the person most able to help in the meantime?

Yoffe also blithely ignores the fact that many single mothers do not have a man waiting in the wings. Not all (even the straight ones) become single moms through a relationship with a man. More and more are deciding to become single mothers by choice, and adopting or getting pregnant via a sperm bank or known donor (which doesn’t count as a “relationship.”) The percentage of births to unmarried women over 30 years old doubled between 1970 and 1993, according to Rosanna Hertz, author of Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice. That figure doesn’t even count single-mothers who adopt. Yoffe points to the increasing number of single moms between 25 and 29 and says they are old enough to know what they are doing. That goes double for those over 30—but that doesn’t mean they are all dallying in short-term relationships and refusing to settle down with the fathers of their children. Many are choosing to go it alone.

Not that they are scorning the institutions of fatherhood and marriage. Louise Sloan, a single lesbian mom who wrote Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom, for and about single moms of all orientations, explains:

All of us have given a lot of thought to how we can give our kids the best that life has to offer, including male role models and father figures. . . . What the straight women in this book rejected was not men or marriage—it was the idea of getting into a bad marriage, or the wrong marriage, just to have kids. . . . In fact, many have made the decision to bear a child out of wedlock because they respect marriage too much to enter into it for reasons of social and procreational expedience. Far from seeing men as unnecessary, these are women who, I’d argue, really value men and see them as equals, partners, lovers, soul mates—not as turkey basters attached to a paycheck.

Or as she more succinctly says, “Most of us think that having two good parents is a great thing for a kid—but we have ended up deciding that quality beats quantity where parents are concerned.”

Marriage has come under fire both for not being desired by enough straight people and for being desired by LGBT people. Yoffe is rare in supporting both marriage equality for same-sex couples and for holding up marriage as a magic social cure, like many on the far right. Is she just confused?

If she is, it is understandable. Marriage has evolved over the centuries, as Stephanie Coontz has shown in Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Its personal, legal, social, and religious meanings are intertwined, making what seems like a simple thing, the union of two loving people, very complex. Complexity is not popular in our world of soundbites and scrolling headlines. Until we can grapple with the complexity, though, in a way that Yoffe’s simplistic arguments did not, we will continue to fling rhetoric without making progress.

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