Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law, by Elizabeth Brake
Reviewed by Long in Reason.com
In the 1970’s Bettelheim wrote a piece for Daedelus that marriage, for the most part of history has been an economic pact for a small businesss (the family, as Talcott Parsons might put it). As economics change and with the legal freeing up of divorce in the US (and conferring economic benefits to the spouse), marriage as economic institution has shifted and will continue to shift.
Note that the major institutions “invested” (economically) in marriage are religious institutions (much of their revenue coming from such life transition ceremonies) and the legal profession (at dissolution).
This book opens discussion about the societal decisions about marriage (and mostly from a Western perspective)
” It constitutes unjust discrimination, she argues, to restrict marriage to romantic or sexual relationships. Instead, the social and legal status of marriage should be available to “caring relationships” of all kinds….”