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What about the children?

Sofa King may indeed be pointing the direction of the future, with the government not caring one bit that the kids were born out of wedlock, and continuing to vigorously enforce child support paid by men who mostly no longer live with their child's mother. Except for strong faith communities, the future for the nation's children seems to be one in which broken families are the norm. Sofa King, explain to me how this is NOT your plan.

Government ALREADY doesn't care whether or not children are being born in wedlock, or whether or not a child who was born in wedlock's parents get divorced. Government regulation of marriage has done nothing to lessen either. You've failed to demonstrate how de-regulating marriage will increase the number of children who effectively only have one parrent.

Government regulation of marriage has done nothing to lessen either. You've failed to demonstrate how de-regulating marriage will increase the number of children who effectively only have one parrent.

Good points. Really, as far as I am concerned, marriage as a legal (as opposed to romantic and religious) concept mostly died when the state legislatures adopted no-fault divorce. What is really needed, but won't happen for many decades, is to go back to having divorce limited to situations in which the suing party is not at the fault and the one being sued is at fault. If both parties are at fault, the couple should be forced to stay together for the sake of the children, or, if child abusers, jailed. In the first half of the last century, this system was ridiculed because of divorcing husbands and wives who made a mockery of the law by staging infidelity. However, the difficulty in showing one side to be at fault contributed to a low divorce rate and more stability for children.

Perhaps, SK, getting back to the original intention of tax INCENTIVES for marriage would help? I typically loathe such social engineering, but since a strong family is the most important indicator of success in life for a child, it is time to get back to that. We've tried the other over the past 50 years and it is now certain that approach fails.