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Read several extremely fascinating articles recently on this topic. If this thread gains any traction, I'll post some excerpts.
Basically, two different models which are pretty much incompatible.
One model posits that "marriage" is primarily a social institution whose main purpose is to promote inter-generational stability: love, sex, children, lifetime commitment to the other partner, all are interconnected to form a social unit called the "family" and it is a vehicle by which we bring children from infancy to self-sufficiency and adulthood so that they can then repeat the process and perpetuate a healthy society.
A different model posits that "marriage" is primarily devoted to the pleasure and enjoyment that the partners find in being with each other. The purpose of marriage is to have society recognize that these two people share a special bond between them. Thanks to birth control, you can have plenty of sex without getting married; if you can't find a decent man, you can still have children if you want and raise them on your own. The interconnectedness of the traditional model is all severed; each of the elements that had previously been interconnected now all stand separately, each on its own.
For those who like to slog through long thoughtful articles, which recognize the validity of both models for certain people and speculate about long-term consequences of one or the other....
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/201...e-of-marriage/
http://stateofourunions.org/2010/whe...disappears.php
Basically, two different models which are pretty much incompatible.
One model posits that "marriage" is primarily a social institution whose main purpose is to promote inter-generational stability: love, sex, children, lifetime commitment to the other partner, all are interconnected to form a social unit called the "family" and it is a vehicle by which we bring children from infancy to self-sufficiency and adulthood so that they can then repeat the process and perpetuate a healthy society.
A different model posits that "marriage" is primarily devoted to the pleasure and enjoyment that the partners find in being with each other. The purpose of marriage is to have society recognize that these two people share a special bond between them. Thanks to birth control, you can have plenty of sex without getting married; if you can't find a decent man, you can still have children if you want and raise them on your own. The interconnectedness of the traditional model is all severed; each of the elements that had previously been interconnected now all stand separately, each on its own.
For those who like to slog through long thoughtful articles, which recognize the validity of both models for certain people and speculate about long-term consequences of one or the other....
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/201...e-of-marriage/
http://stateofourunions.org/2010/whe...disappears.php
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