Marriage is an outdated institution that no longer reflects modern society

As to the question of whether marriage causes developmental success in children, I will offer some defense of my stated view that it does, though I won’t spend a great deal of time on it because it is not directly the resolution that I need to focus on in order to win this debate; it is the icing, not the cake. But for now, let me start by drawing your attention to another topic of intense statistical examination: tobacco. Because of the relative ease of demonstrating correlation, and the difficulty in proving causation, tobacco companies were able to successfully persuade many people for decades that yes, there may be a correlation between smokers and heart or lung disease, but based on the data there’s no conclusive evidence showing that smoking causes those diseases. I use this as a precedent to show that just one study doesn’t conclusively prove that marriage fails to cause better outcomes for children than cohabitation. After more research is done we may eventually demonstrate causality. The authors of Pro’s source point out that there has been little research on causation. With respect to causality, they go on to say: “The clearest potential – but debatable – causal pathway between parents’ formal marital status and children’s social and emotional development allowed for by our work is therefore early relationship quality. To show that this is indeed a causal pathway, it would need to be established that marriage leads to large improvements in relationship quality by the time the child is 9 months old, which in turn lead to better social and emotional outcomes for children. This cannot be ascertained from our current study. ” Their results are not, and do not claim to be, conclusive. My point is that more data is needed, but in the meantime neither my view nor my opponents’ is defeated by the data alone. Where I think my opponent is decisively defeated is in his interpretation of what marriage and divorce rates mean. Specifically he points to a failure/divorce rate of 51% and acts as if it negates the value of marriage and makes it obsolete. Contrast this with an economic example: 95% of new companies fail. By the sort of logic my opponent uses, no one should then ever start a business, and the idea itself is obsolete. Not only is it now, but it always has been obsolete, or at least since 1957 when the failure rate was 51% (assuming that is the threshold for obsolescence in my opponent’s view) [5]. If that were right, and if the founders of Google, Apple, Walmart, Microsoft, and Home Depot agreed with that mentality, none of those businesses, which employ millions, would be around today. As Teddy Roosevelt wrote these immortal words about failure and risk: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. [6] In the case of marriage, the man in the arena is more likely to have his face marred by spit ups than dust and blood, but you get the idea. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And as long as I’m striking upon a patriotic theme, my opponent mentioned his dismissal of the value of marriage as being nothing more than a piece of paper and a metal ring. But then, is the flag nothing more than a piece of cloth on a metal pole? Is it obsolete? Why have men and women laid down their lives for it, and why do they still? For human beings, symbols matter, because these things represent larger but less tangible ideas. The flag is not just a cloth. It is an ideal, and its meaning tied not to the physical material it is composed of, but to the resolve and values of those who raise it high. When people come from war torn, impoverished, or politically oppressed homelands and see the statue of liberty, it is not just metal, it is a symbol of hope. Marriage is much the same. It is the vows of commitment that are the real source of strength in a relationship. It is true that marriage is no guarantee that the trust and commitment in the relationship can never be compromised. Moreover, marriage is not the only way to make such a commitment. However, the fact that many who divorce try again and get married a second time is a testament to the enduring nature of hope and love, and the position of marriage as a unique vehicle for those emotions. Marriage is much more commonplace than my opponent suggests. Figure the adult marriageable life as lasting about 50 years (age 18 to age 68ish). Some are married older or younger, but I’m just ball parking it. So to get an idea of the probability of someone randomly not getting married in a given year, it is 1 - .0068, or .9932. Sounds like no one is getting married, right? But that’s only for one year. What about the probability that someone is unmarried 2 years from now. That’s .9932 * .9932 = .98644. Now play that out over the 60 years and we get .9932 ^ 60 = only 0.66! In other words, there’s a 66% chance that the person will spend their whole adult life unmarried. That leaves 34% that will get married at some point – hardly a negligible proportion of the population! Moreover, these are of course only estimates and inaccurate projections, because the probability of marriage does not remain constant throughout a person’s life – it spikes much higher than this in the late 20’s and early 30’s. The actual number of people who are married over the age of 20 is about half of the population. Admittedly the number used to be considerably higher, but don’t count it out by any means. [7] I lastly want to reiterate that my burden is not to demonstrate that marriage yields superior results to cohabitation. To illustrate my point, imagine a plane ride from Dallas to New York. You could take coach, or you could pay much more money to sit in first class. Either way will get you to the positive result of arriving in New York. Overall, my opponent might see more merit in the value of coach over the comfort of first class, but the fact of his preference doesn’t make it fair to say that first class is obsolete! As long as there are large numbers of people in line paying to sit first class, it is not obsolete. If no one was paying for it, and airlines didn’t bother offering it, then that’s something we could call obsolete. But as long as it has at least some benefits that alternatives do not (in the case of marriage, these are legal or economic as well as social), then it is a viable option. So as I close, let me be clear – I am not putting words in Pro’s mouth. I do not assume that he actually believes entrepreneurship is dead or saluting the flag is pointless, or that first class flying is obsolete. However, I have given strong reason to believe that one would have to hold those kinds of positions in order to remain logically consistent with the criteria he is using to try to establish the obsolescence of marriage. I also want to be clear that I am not contending that marriage is the only meaningful expression of love. That is not the resolution. The resolution is that marriage is obsolete, and I’ve seen no reason to be convinced that it is. 5) . http://www.gpo.gov... 6) . http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com... 7) . http://www.prb.org...