Should marriage be political?

Can the state avoid having a view on what is virtuous?
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The Arnolfini Marriage 1434 by Jan van Eyck
Marriage: a political arrangement? Photograph: Getty

The Conservative party is determined to make support for marriage into an election issue. The justification is that parents' lives and child-rearing arrangements are a proper subject for social concern. They aren't just a private arrangement between the consenting adults; the rest of us are involved, and suffer or benefit from the consequences. We are therefore entitled to encourage that couples behave in certain ways. The personal becomes the political, an odd turnaround for what was once a libertarian slogan.

But this seems to go against the whole thrust of 200 years of increasing liberal individualism. Can there be anything wrong in consenting adults splitting up? Why should couples who cordially dislike each other stay together for the good of society? Is it because it would be virtuous to do so? Can the state avoid having a view on what is virtuous? And if we argue on that basis, what should be the virtues that the state should encourage within a relationship? Patience, fortitude, fidelity?

Monday's response

Beatrix Campbell: Relationships are automatically political. But Cameron's plans to retreat from public provision for families are bad

Wednesday's response

Mark Vernon: The Conservatives need a more radical policy on marriage to help undo the damage of their neoliberal economics

Thursday's response

R David Muir: The Conservative support for marriage is just a gesture. But it's a gesture the left still can't make

Friday's response

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed: Marriage needs a clear contract at its foundation and the state should make this easier

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