There have been a spate of articles lately reporting on the demise of marriage (see as examples http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2904596,CST-NWS-marriage18.article and http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100928/ap_on_bi_ge/us_census_recession_s_impact_5). Perhaps we’ll see that it is greatly exaggerated, but it does cause a divorce lawyer to begin to wonder – if there are fewer marriages, there will be fewer divorces, so what does this mean for me?
Actually, what I think we will see is a broadening of the definition of marriage, the one man/one woman movement notwithstanding. Eventually, the law will catch up with justice, and will recognize that the prohibition against allowing same-sex couples to marry is obscene and, more importantly, arcane. While we as a society lament the institution of divorce, it is a very efficient way to divide property, assets and debts accumulated by two people in a romantic relationship when that relationship ends. If you have any doubt about this, ask people who own a home together but are not married and have recently broken up. While not impossible, there is no framework for these people as efficient and well-defined as divorce, and it makes the process of dividing assets and the like difficult and painful. So, as more same sex couples find their public footing and accumulate the trappings of marriage, (i.e. kids, houses and dogs), they will need a way to deal with these trappings when the relationship dissolves. In a way, society, at least a contemporary one, needs divorce. That’s where divorce lawyers come in.
Finally, if anyone thinks allowing same-sex marriage will be the downfall of the institution of marriage should come do what I do for two days. Heterosexuals are doing a fine job of mucking it up on their own. Maybe extending the right to marry to people who have been denied that right would, in fact, strengthen a re-defined, inclusive institution of marriage.
