And despite admirable exceptions, children in America's growing number of single parent families are far more at risk than children in two-parent families. Many people even wonder these days what marriage is. Some say these questions are not society's business, because marriage is a private contract. But as modern prophets recently proclaimed, marriage is ordained of God. Even secular marriage was historically a three-party covenant among a man, a woman, and the state.
Society has a huge interest in the outcome and the offspring of every marriage.
So the public nature of marriage distinguishes it from all other relationships. I once said in exasperation to my wife, Marie, ''The Lord placed Adam and Eve on the earth as full grown people. One night Marie exhausted herself for hours helping that child build a diorama of a Native American village on a cookie sheet. It was a test no hireling would have endured. At first he fought her efforts, but by bedtime, I saw him lay ''his'' diorama proudly on a counter.