IF you read what the study is saying, the headline is, at best, a half truth.
Kids from parents who are married DO DO BETTER. The study just says that the marrying kind of people raise smarter kids. They’re trying to push its the parents not the marriage itself. The researchers are using a convoluted argument to try and disprove something that everyone knows.
The article is tying it self in knots trying to day that marriage isn’t better for kids.
Its not tied in knots, its just the nature of the beast. It is an attempt to isolate a variable. Like so many aspects of human nature its very difficult to isolate a specific factor and analyze its effects, because there tend to be tangled causes and effects and a host of confounding variables.
The point is that the tendency to marry, to stay married, and to produce well-raised children are all effects of other causes - i.e., the parents themselves. I believe this is true. There is no point in forcing unsuitable people to marry.
Now, how do we go about making sure we get more good parents and fewer bad ones ?