Why Knot?: Why Society Needs Marriage

Reading through some blog posts today, I came upon the statement "two individuals to partake of a contract between them that’s really no one else’s business." But is marriage really of no concern to anyone else? Is marriage simply only between the two individuals that sign the contract? Or is marriage for something more than that?

In his book A Political Philosophy, Roger Scruton addresses Marriage in its social function. Beyond the basics of reproduction and capital, he discusses "social reproduction" and "social capital" (95). As a society, we need more than just children, but rather socialized children for the purpose of continuing our society. Childbearing is necessary for a growing population, but childrearing is important for a growing society. A unique aspect of marriage as an institution is that it is a place for both childbearing and childrearing.

Marriage is in society's best interest because it is an uninterrupted continuation of childrearing from the point of childbearing, as opposed to being two separated stages. When two people conceive a child, that child will need to be cared for. If not by the couple, then by someone else who has to pickup where they left off. The married couple also provides (or should provide) a warm loving environment into which the child is born and to which it should feel a sense of belonging. The difficulty of another person or couple raising the child is that the child loses its inherent sense of belonging. This is not to say that the child does not belong or cannot feel a sense of belonging, but rather that the feeling of inherent belonging is lost. Children do not initially cope well with the news of being someone else's child, because they do not understand the situation and are situationally separated from those who are raising them.

Let us consider this: There are two sides into which a child can be born. A child can either be born in a marriage or out of a marriage. Similarly, children can be raised either in a marriage or out of a marriage. There are three ways in which a child can be raised outside of the relationship into which they were conceived (they must be conceived between a heterosexual couple. I am temporarily ignoring the topic of In vitro fertilization, as it is outside the scope of nature). A child can either be raised by a single parent or legal guardian, by way of adoption, or through care of the state being foster care. More on these three soon.