This is certainly a problem worth wrapping our heads around. I think marriage has

a more useful social function than simply child-rearing (namely, encouraging stable

male-female relationships). But I would also suggest is that marriage is not only

about taking care of the children who are born but also encouraging, to an extent,

children to be born. The decrease in birth rates among the women of most first-

world nations is problematic, and I would think that it is a problem that is

necessary for public policy to address. Aristotle talks about this very issue in the

Politics: The city needs a certain amount of citizens. When it has too many, it

tightens up the rules about who can be a citizen; when it has too few, it loosens

them (cf. Politics III.i-ii). So if the state needs to encourage children to be born,

and needs them to be born into stable families, then wouldn’t the state need to

encourage marriage?

Now that I’ve put my one cent in, I need to leave for the weekend. My college

roommate is getting married, so I’ll do a little bit of first-hand research into the

whole phenomenon.