Single and Paying for it

Why should formally committed couples, straight or gay, enjoy special privileges in the first place?

Many marriage-based benefits, for instance, are seen as proxies for helping families with children. Yet marriage is no longer a good indicator of parenthood. As of 2000, one in three children were born to unmarried parents. Distributing benefits intended to support child rearing on the basis of marital status gives a windfall to childless married couples while leaving empty handed single parents and their children — who as a group already face harsher realities.

Benefits are also defended as vehicles for promoting marriage. Their effectiveness in achieving this goal is dubious at best, counterproductive at worst. Common sense says that couples who are otherwise unprepared to take on the obligations of marriage and who do so for financial reasons only are prime candidates for divorce.