One of the arguments brought to bear regarding gay marriage is that marriage a private affair. Glenn Reynolds today expressed the same sentiment, saying it's "creepy" to think that the state is involved marriage. Huh? It is?

Another argument offered is that marriage is a "right", or should be. Should it?

Let's back up a bit: First, let's note that marriage does involve governmental recognition. Why? Well, why does goverment do anything? Why does the state build roads or run sewer lines? Is it because they're all "rights"? Is there a "right" to have a road or a "right" to garbage collection?

The Constitution says our government exists to "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty." Regarding marriage, note in particular "ensure domestic tranquility" and "promote the general welfare."

Marriage is not and has never been (except on frontiers) a purely private affair. Marriage has always been a matter for the community. When two people get married, what to they do? They take a vow in front of a community. And what does the community do? Often, objections are allowed to be aired -- at least ceremonially. Furthermore, the community is asked to "support" the marriage for as long as it endures. And, of course, it is encouraged to endure as long as possible.

Marriage was understood to be a community affair. That's also why people were punished for adultery -- it was offense against the community. And, indeed, it is the presence of the "community" -- the public profession of vows of fidelity -- which differentiated "marriage" from "shacking up."

Likewise, with the state's involvement: When Bob and Zelda got married, the state does not recognize their marriage because it will make Bob and Zelda feel emotionally validated. No, historically, the reason the state is involved was because it was widely believed that society in general had a strong interest in promoting and protecting marriage, just as it built roads.

In "olden" days -- just a generation ago -- the state took this further by protecting marriage with the force of law. Adultery was an offense against the state, not just the spouse. A man was not just allowed to dump his wife if she displeased him. Divorce had to demonstrate cause. (Given the burdens imposed on society by divorce, this is not an irrational stance.)

Today we're instead drifting (apparently thoughtlessly) towards the idea that marriage is primarily about how the two people getting married feel. It's all about the individual, not society. And, in our conceit, we imagine we're getting "smarter" or "wiser" by doing so.

But again, stop for a moment, let's back up, and ask a couple questions before we embark upon this grand social experiment many people, like Glenn, promote:

1. Does marriage actually benefit society? Conversely, does its dissolution hurt the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility"?
2. Does it do so enough to warrant the state's interest?
3. Does "gay marriage" provide the same benefits?

Last I checked, the way to find these kinds of answers was to do a little thing called "research". Instead, it seems the popular technique today is to just pull assumptions out of thin air. (For inhabitants of an age which prides itself on being "scientific" we do little or no "science" before jumping to our conclusions.)

The answers I arrive at are:

1. Impact on society: Study after study shows the dissolution of marriage DOES harm both "domestic tranquility" and "general welfare". City Journal, for example notes:

The Sexual Organization of the City a recent University of Chicago study of sexual relations in various Chicago neighborhoods, finds "transactional" sexual relationships, infidelity, and domestic violence on the rise throughout the city, but things are worst in Southtown, the pseudonymous African-American neighborhood.... Worse, the study's authors argue, infidelity often leads to violence

Another article in the same publication by Iain Murray is chock-full of evidence connecting stable marriage to a healthy society, or the converse.

One study:

[The study] examined three scenarios, based on the employment status of the mother. In all three—whether the mother was unemployed, worked part-time, or worked full-time—marrying her child’s father boosted her annual family income by around $11,000. This income bump lifts the majority of poor children with single moms out of poverty. For unemployed single-mother-headed families, for example, marriage pushes 65 percent of the children above the poverty line (from all the kids being below it prior to marriage); nearly a third of the children in this family category rises 50 percent above the poverty line. Mothers employed part-time and full-time who wed see even bigger gains for their kids.

And another, in the same article:

... new research from the National Institutes of Mental Health and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development, has uncovered new evidence of how marriage protects kids. Looking at the impact of father absence on the behavior of teenage girls, the study found that the earlier a father was absent from his daughter’s life the more likely she was to engage in risky behavior, particularly early sexual activity—increasing the risk of teen pregnancy. The researchers’ conclusion: “these findings may support social policies that encourage fathers to form and remain in families with their children.”

And these effects are not just limited to our culture: This article reports on the wave of rising poverty in Japan, a wave that researchers find is tied directly to the dissolution of marriage and a skyrocketing divorce rate.

Study after study demonstrates that the dissolution or absense of marriage has long-term consequences for, drug use, crime, increased poverty of women, the mental health and suicide rate or children -- not to mention the obvious effects like STD transmission.

The evidence is so great, the only way around it is to simply ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. Which is, frankly, what so many do.

2. Are the impacts large enough to warrant the government's involvement?

Oh, I don't know -- tell, me: Does the government currently get involved with trying to stop poverty? Does the government take an interest in mental health, suicide, or domestic violence? Are there government programs meant to combat drug use or teen promiscuity or sexually transmitted diseases?

We construct huge, expensive, frequently intrusive, and often questionably effective social programs to combat all of these. In light of that, it is utterly incoherant to argue the state has zero interest in marriage, which impacts every single one of these problems.

3. Does gay marriage provide the same benefits?

A frequent argument we hear is that marriage will help society by extending the benefits of marriage to gays. And once again, the preferred method of "research" elites use is apparently to pull the answers they'd like to believe out of thin air. Unfortunately, both common sense and a bit of research reveals they're dead wrong again.

Yet gay marriages are not like straight marriages. A recent study found that "long term" gay unions lasted, on average, about 18 months, and that men had an average of eight partners outside their marriage.

It is hard to see how these sort of arrangements will benefit society in general, much less children put into such circumstances.

I hate to say it, but the argument that "marriage" will similarly civilize gay men is the height of cluelessness. How many neurons does it take to realize that it is a bond to a rather-different woman which civilizes the man, not just "marriage"?

Wrap-Up

In conclusion, the evidence is plentiful that marriage benefits society; everyone basicly understood this intuitively until this stupid generation. Sadly we, for the first time, have direct scientific evidence of this -- that the breakdown of marriage contributes to a host of social ills including but not limited to disease, crime, poverty, mental illness. But we will not even look at it, nor consider it as part of our policy arguments.

It irrational to create intrusive programs to "solve" these problems, while arguing the state has no interest in marriage, and thus saying, falsely, that marriage has no benefit to society.

Finally, there is no evidence that homosexual marriage is anything like heterosexual marriage (and plenty to the contrary), and thus no particular reason to think the state should have the same interest in promoting it.

But hey, that's apparently a little to sensible for most people.