Hunter thinks marriage, like any other decision regarding
sex, should in law be a totally private one.
She (he?) refuses even to engage in a defense of couples with children having the option of no-fault,
unilateral divorce that at least addresses the
points that, both for their own sake and for the sake of the others among whom
they will live, kids need effective upbringing, and this is best
provided by natural parents living together at home with their own
children.
That is the “creepy” argument Cuccinelli is making against easy, no-fault divorce for parents with dependent children.
He is speaking for the conservative view that people who
choose not only to marry but to have kids are thereby volunteering to do a job,
and important job, for society, and society may insist
they can’t just opt out when they discover they don’t much like the partner
with whom they have engaged to do that job.
That view rests on the idea that parents moderately coerced
by law and social pressure into staying together and fulfilling parental responsibilities will do a better job with the kids than divorced
parents, single parents, orphanages, Foster parents, or whatever.
Despite the liberal view, marriage is not and cannot be just bffs with
benefits.
And that same conservative line of reflection leads, by the
way, to the notion that cohabitation and having children together “seals the
deal” and commits the parties to marriage in the eyes of the law, and the responsibilities of marriage, whether they like it or not.
And the further notion that stood behind the ancient social practice
of the shotgun wedding.
And the still further notion that society may coerce people into marriage - still for the purpose of child-rearing - by doings its best to make the pleasures of sex otherwise unavailable, even to the point of punishing fornicators.
And if you need to invoke the will of God and natural duty to get people to comply, well . . . . .
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