It's the No-Fault Divorce, Stupid.

Nevermind blaming the Johnny-come-lately gays because the social fabric of the country fails to cover such widespread family instability that costs taxpayers soooo much in government-sponsored family raising programs.

Instead, it's the No Fault Divorce Rate, Stupid:

Social conservatives insist that the states need to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage for a few reasons — to encourage procreation, for societal stability, and others. However, this is a rather odd argument, given the fact that childbirth outside of marriage has been an epidemic for decades, and societal instability followed along with it. We don’t need help encouraging procreation; we need help in encouraging better parenting. That certainly relies on stable relationships between parents and children, but enforcement of the one-man-one-woman model didn’t keep the societal instability from rapidly expanding, especially in the cities.

American marriage got devalued when we began treating marriages as less important and less binding than business partnerships.Part of the decline of families that began in the 1960s can be blamed on cultural changes and rebellion against older social paradigms, and some on government interventions, such as welfare regulations that undermined marriage specifically. It also resulted from liberalized divorce laws, especially so-called no-fault divorce. While divorce was never illegal, until the latter half of the twentieth century, government treated marriage as an actual contract whose abrogation carried substantial civil liabilities. To obtain a divorce, a spouse needed actual grounds for termination of the marital contract, and courts, at least theoretically, issued property and custody settlements on the basis of fault. At the least, this approach made divorce costly and potentially ruinous, which may have left unhappy marriages in effect, but also solidified the stability that social conservatives seek.

After no-fault divorce and its equivalents prevailed, there were no substantial penalties for abrogating the marital contract. The original intent of no-fault divorce was to make the process easier and get courts less involved, and on those counts, it succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination. One spouse can end a marriage and end up with half the property and custody merely by walking out on the other. It’s the only kind of legal partnership in which one party can opt out with little consequence just because he might find another potential partner a little more attractive, or has unilaterally tired of the other partner.

American marriage didn’t get devalued because New York’s legislature followed that of New Hampshire and Vermont in legalizing same-gender marriage. It got devalued when we began treating marriages as less important and less binding than business partnerships.

Take away the penalties, and social shame, for breaking that most important of essential partnerships, and what do we get?

One man-one woman (fail); same man, new woman (fail); same man, third woman (rinse and repeat, you get the idea...)

Mal's middle-class "financial advisor" nephew, for example, is currently courting his third woman. Born out of wedlock, he too had his son out of wedlock (they cover insurance, food and birth costs for unmarried, comparatively poor -- when you don't add his income -- "single" women ) and only married the second wife when their son was about 4 or 5. Cute enough to participate in the big wedding show -- Daddy's best man, or was it ringbearer? -- he's now moved on to his third woman, herself divorced with two sons...

Funny thing is, nobody seem to blink an eyelash at this man's character, even at 40, or consider how the patterns he's making continue to cost we the taxpayers, in terms of social programs. Personally, I don't care much what you do, or who you do it with, or what kind of morals you adopt... except when you ask me to foot the bill for your growing family. And ask the country as a whole to pay the costs for your family failings. And then blame teh gays for bringing down the institution. This is the new normal??

It got devalued when we began treating marriages as less important and less binding than business partnerships.

Amen.