The Marriage Library

by William C. Duncan

First published at familyinamerica.org in the Winter 2009 edition.

The one great principle of the English law,
is to make business for itself.
—Charles Dickens, Bleak House

In the modern state, law—like nature—displays a marked distaste for a vacuum. Spurred by elites distrustful of independent social institutions and a cultural embrace of atomistic individualism, the United States in past decades has experienced a dramatic incursion of legal regulation into mediating institutions like the family. Institutions that had previously been considered outside the domain of state control in order to provide a check on the totalitarian temptation find themselves under increased scrutiny. As changes in family law have dovetailed with societal trends, family breakdown has become more common, triggering yet more legal changes thought to be justified by the parlous state of family life. More and more aspects of the family, ultimately to include the very definition of marriage, family, and parenthood, are thus subjected to the jurisdiction of courts and government agencies. Of the elites advocating invasive legal interventions, none is more exclusive than the American Law Institute; no proposals for the expansion of the state into the family domain better illustrate the expansive tendency of the law than its recent proposals for a revolutionary overhaul of American family law. (more…)

by William C. Duncan

First published at NationalReview.com on May 22, 2009.

At the risk of starting something I might not be able to sustain based on time constraints, perhaps I could make a very tentative response to Jerry Taylor’s questions. I will not address them as posed since I am not convinced they are entirely on point. (more…)