Why does marriage emerge in virtually all civilizations and cultures? This is simply a fact of history, as the various cultures of the world have found their way toward the recognition of committed heterosexual couples as the privileged unit of society. In their own way, these cultures recognize and formalize these couplings through public ceremonies and an entire network of social, legal, and relational protections.
Most significant to Morse's argument is the fact that government is not needed in order for marriage to emerge. "Marriage is an organic, pre-political institution that emerges spontaneously from society," she argues. Furthermore, the actual operation of marriage as an institution depends only to a very small extent upon government at all. "This culture around marriage may have some legal or governmental elements," she acknowledges. "But in most times and places, the greater part of that cultural machinery is more informal than legal and is based more on kinship than on law."
How does this work? "We do things this way because our parents did things this way; our friends and neighbors look at us funny if we go too far outside the norm. The formal legal and political structures provide some support and enforcement for the norms, but by far, the bulk of the daily enforcement of the social expectations about marriage takes place informally."
Essentially, the entire logic of marriage has been reversed within postmodern American culture. "The modern alternative idea about marriage is that society does not need such an institution," Morse explains. Accordingly, "no particular arrangement should be legally or culturally privileged as the ideal context for sex or childbearing." As she sees it, this simply and necessarily means the end of marriage. When marriage disappears, it is replaced by "a legalistic concept of a bundle of benefits granted by the state." Of course, this is no lasting substitute.
This new legalistic concept, understood to be created by the state, is simply no substitute for the informal culture of marriage.
At this point, one of Morse's central concerns appears -- where the informal culture of marriage fails, the government must step in with litigation, laws, supervision, and bureaucratic intrusion. Inevitably, this means "a disaster for the cause of limited government."
All this is part and parcel of the entitlement society -- a cultural assumption that all privileges should be equally accessible to all citizens (even if the government must mandate this access). As Morse conventionally argues, sexual activity is now considered such an entitlement. Marriage has simply been sidelined, "no longer the only socially acceptable outlet for sexual activity or for the rearing of children." Instead, "It is now considered an unacceptable infringement on the modern person's liberty to insist that the necessary context of sexual activity is marriage, with rights and responsibilities, both implicit and explicit. It is equally unacceptable to argue that having children outside of marriage is irresponsible. Women are entitled to have as many children as they choose in any context they choose. In this sense, children have become a kind of consumer good."
