A NEW CASE FOR GAY AND STRAIGHT MARRIAGE: Jonathan Rauch

Folks, it is time to announce that I am writing a book on same-sex marriage. "The Case for Gay (and Straight) Marriage." To be published by Times Books/Henry Holt in the spring. The book will be about marriage, not just gay marriage. So I am trying to think, write, and learn about how marriage works (and why it fails).

Proponents of same-sex marriage argue, of course, that marriage has welfare-enhancing effects and that these effects would carry over into same-sex marriage at little or not cost to the original article. The second statement is controversial on this blog, but the first isn't. However, in the real world I often hear the first statement challenged by people who say that marriage's alleged benefits are unproved.

The point they make is that marriage is indeed associatedwith improved welfare, but that there is no research demonstrating which way the causality runs. Life's "winners" have an easier time getting and staying married, etc.

Do these skeptics have a point? How much, if anything, do we really know about which way the causality runs? Short of controlled experiments on randomized populations, what can we say rigorously about the effects of marriage-qua-marriage on durability of relationships, welfare of married
couples vs. cohabitants vs. singles, etc.?
posted by maggie at 9:35 PM VOTE

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home