Marriage at one time encompassed a range of duties: work in the maintenance of the home, maintenance in retirement, medical care (especially in old age), and ca

Marriage at one time encompassed a range of duties: work in the maintenance of the home, maintenance in retirement, medical care (especially in old age), and care for children (and later responsibility for them). Seen as an economic institution, it actually has a fairly large footprint. If we allow that marriage was never entirely about love -- I'm not sure people would have cared that much if it was -- then we can understand why the dissolution and redefinition of marriage has occasioned so much conflict. Ultimately we still lack a sound alternative for describing and enforcing the obligations that surround care for children. People have children in ways that are sometimes impulsive; and they are inclined to abandon them and their spouse in the same way. Marriage is a countervailing force, since it attaches penalties to abandoning the family and also makes it hard to start a new one without some resolution with the old one -- so people's energies are less easily redirected.