Galois: Gay Divorce

May 06, 2004

Gay Divorce

So are gay marriages more likely to end up in divorce than straight marriages? I don't know, but I don't see how it matters in determining whether or not same-sex couples should be able to marry. Social scientists love to try to determine what variables increase the risk of divorce. I have never heard it argued that we should use such information to prevent couples from marrying, though. I can hardly imagine telling two children of divorce that they shouldn't marry because their marriage is more likely to end in divorce. Much less can I imagine them being told that they cannot marry because of it. The studies should rather be used to help discover ways that we might strengthen these marriages. The studies might help in developing more effective methods of marriage counseling.

Part of the reason we would never advise a couple to avoid marriage in these circumstances is because we believe that no matter what the risk of divorce, marriage is more stable than cohabitation. Yes the surest way to reduce the divorce rate is to eliminate marriage, but that hardly solves anything. Divorce is not the problem. It is the family dissolution that underlies divorce. And marriage reduces the chances of dissolution. Now some might claim that marriage has only been shown to decrease the chance of dissolution in opposite-sex couples, it doesn't necessarily follow that it would have the same effect for same-sex couples. While we can't be certain the degree to which marriage might make same-sex relationships more stable, I find it hard to believe that it would not have at least some stabilizing effect. We can see this by looking at how marriage is better at stabilizing than cohabitation. One way is that marriage both encourages and allows a couple to become more economically interdependent. The details on how marriage does this vary from state to state, but marriage always does this. In part it is done by how married couples may own property and by rules for determining who owns the property acquired into the marriage. In part this is done by making spouses legally obligated for certain debts incurred by the other. In part this is done by making it easier for one spouse to financially rely on the other. In fact it seems like a good deal of family law deals with these economic matters. The laws of marriage also encourage more emotional interdependence. A good example of this is spousal privelege which ecourages free communication within the marital relationship.

One overlooked way in which marriage acts as a stabilizing force, though, is divorce itself. While many family advocates complain about the ease of divorce today, it is still more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than merely walking out on somebody. It is reasonable to think that the legal requirements of divorce themselves act as a deterrent to it. Should a couple decide to divorce anyway, the laws which govern it are designed to (at least in theory) provide some amount of protection to a spouse which had been financially dependent on the other. Paradoxially this protection makes it easier for the financial dependence to occur in the first place, which itself makes the divorce less likely to occur. Now nobody gets married in order to get divorced, so we don't hear a lot about gays and lesbians demanding the right to divorce. It is a serious protection, though, that they are being denied.

I have focused in this post on the effects of the laws of marriage in promiting stability, but there is also a very important cultural component. In addition to our legal obligations to care for our spouses, there are also social expectations as well. People are expected to care for their spouses and stick with them in difficult times. Some of this comes though in the law, for example in the Family and Medical Leave Act, but much more comes across in how we act. We ask people how their families are doing. We are understanding when family obligations arise. We offer to help. We congratulate one anoter on a marriage, but express sympathy upon hearing of a divorce. Despite the prevalance of divorce today, it still carries a social stigma that perhaps acts as more of a deterrent than the law. It is because of this cultural component that Jonathan Rauch believes same-sex marriage should be introduced first in those states where gay relationships are more culturally accepted. While he makes a good point, I think there is another lesson to be learned. As with all marriages, same-sex marriages will be more successful with the more support we give them.

(For more on the title of this post see here)

04:26 PM in Divorce | Permalink

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Galois

A mathematician's thoughts on same-sex marriage, election methods, politics, and more and little else of late.

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May 06, 2004

Gay Divorce

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