The limited-government case for marriage

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., “The Limited-Government Case for Marriage.” Indivisible: Social and Economic Foundations of American Liberty. Heritage Foundation. 37-42.

Marriage is a pre-political, spontaneously arising, universal social institution. The essential purpose of marriage is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. Human beings are born alive and immature, through the sexual relations of a man and a woman. Every human child needs adult assistance in order to survive. Marriage exists, in all times and places, to solve this social problem. If our offspring were born as adults, ready to live independently, or if we reproduced through some asexual process, we might not need marriage (though marriage might still be valuable for other reasons).