The other day, I said that fact of childhood dependence was one of libertarianism’s fundamental blindspots. Well, I was referring to today’s anything goes version of libertarianism–the sort of libertarianism that wants to abolish legal marriage. Jennifer Roback Morse, on the other hand, offers an extremely thoughtful libertarian case for a state supported culture of marriage. I’m far from an expert on libertarianism, but I suspect that Morse has successfully drawn out the assumptions about the family implicit in classic libertarianism. Roback is right that de-institutionalizing marriage would vastly expand the welfare state. Look at Scandinavia and what you’ll find is welfare-state socialism publicly justified by a “libertarian” (in the post-sixties sense) family ethos.