Family Law Commons^™

Before we can consider the public purposes of marriage in America, we must understand what marriage means in America. In trying to understand what marriage means, we realize how convoluted our definition has become. Without even reaching the issue of same-gender unions, the United States Supreme Court has seemingly led the way over the last forty years in confusing the concept of marriage as both a legal and social institution, ultimately reducing it to a temporary, limited, and potentially harmful relationship to which neither sexuality nor procreation need be bound.

By their insistence in characterizing marriage as a right, the …