{"id":2359428,"date":"2024-10-25T07:47:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T11:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-americas-war-on-marriage-threatens-democracy\/"},"modified":"2024-10-25T07:49:56","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T11:49:56","slug":"how-americas-war-on-marriage-threatens-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-americas-war-on-marriage-threatens-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"How America&#8217;s War On Marriage Threatens Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-americas-war-on-marriage-threatens-democracy%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2359428&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In a discussion\u200c about marriage, divorce attorney \u2062James Sexton offers a grim perspective, describing marriage as a potentially harmful institution akin to owning\u200b a lion, based \u2064on his \u200bfrontline experiences with divorcing\u2063 couples.\u200b He observes that love is often absent from\u200c marriages, which frequently end in divorce, highlighting \u200cthe adversarial \u2062nature of relationships during \u200clegal proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>In stark contrast, Conn Carroll&#8217;s \u2064new book, *Sex and the\u2063 Citizen:\u200d How \u200bthe Assault \u2064on Marriage Is Destroying Democracy*,\u200c posits that marriage is crucial \u200bto \u2063the foundation of Western civilization. \u200cCarroll\u200b argues that the decline of \u200dmarriage rates in the U.S.\u2063 has led to increased inequality, violence, isolation, and\u200b political polarization, threatening the future of \u200cdemocracy \u2062itself. <\/p>\n<p>Tracing the history of marriage through various sexual \u200crevolutions,\u2063 Carroll\u2063 counters the argument\u2062 that marriage is merely a tool of patriarchal control, \u2063asserting that it instead serves to protect the vulnerable. He illustrates his point with \u200chistorical \u2064examples, such as the Viking era, \u200dwhere monogamy could have mitigated violence and instability. Carroll also discusses\u2062 how America&#8217;s Founding Fathers recognized marriage as essential to the republic, noting a shift\u200c in focus \u2063from\u200c family obligations to individualism\u2064 that began to undermine marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Carroll critiques landmark decisions like *Eisenstadt v. Baird*,\u200c arguing that the \u2064expansion of individual liberties\u200b at the expense of marriage has led \u200dto societal \u2064harm rather than progress. \u2064He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pence-unveils-pro-family-plan-at-pray-vote-stand-summit-in-dc\/\" title=\"Pence presents family-focused plan at DC summit.\">offers policy solutions<\/a> \u200dsuch as child tax\u2062 credits and\u2063 better\u200b safety net\u200b programs to\u200c counter the negative impacts of \u2063declining marriage\u2062 rates, ultimately\u2062 suggesting that society\u200d must reassess the\u2063 role \u200dof marriage and its support \u200bby\u2063 government policies\u2064 to address various\u200c social ills.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>&ldquo;Marriage is an inherently negligent activity. It&rsquo;s like owning a lion. The likelihood of someone getting hurt is very, very high.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Those are some cynical words of wisdom from James Sexton, a divorce attorney who appears on an episode of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@SoftWhiteUnderbelly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&ldquo;Soft White Underbelly,&rdquo;<\/a> a YouTube channel that&rsquo;s otherwise devoted to chilling interviews with pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts, and other victims of abuse. Sexton explains his perspective of the sacred institution, colored by his front-row view of divorce, where he sees people at their worst, where husband and wife are &ldquo;weaponized against each other,&rdquo; and where the majority of marriages end in divorce. Love, in his view, has nothing to do with marriage, and it&rsquo;s a failed, outdated technology.<\/p>\n<p>Contrast that dark view with the new book by Conn Carroll, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1637589514\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Sex and the Citizen: How the Assault on Marriage Is Destroying Democracy<\/em><\/a>, which makes the case for why marriage is the singular foundation of Western civilization, how U.S. public policy (and society, writ large) has eroded it, the consequences that resulted, and what America can do to restore its place in society.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The assault on marriage has been a disaster for the United States,&rdquo; Carroll writes. &ldquo;As a direct result of falling marriage rates, America is now more unequal, less socially mobile, more violent, more isolated, more polarized, and less able to project our way of life into the future. The very future of democracy is at stake.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Carroll begins his book by tracing the emergence of marriage across three sexual revolutions &mdash; from monogamy to polygamy, and back to monogamy again &mdash; in an engaging and well-researched narrative that comprises biology, anthropology, sociology, and history. Carroll&rsquo;s history of marriage confronts a modern argument against marriage &mdash; that it&rsquo;s &ldquo;an institution invented by powerful men to control women&rsquo;s sexual behavior,&rdquo; as Carroll writes. &ldquo;In fact, it is the opposite. It is an institution created to protect the most vulnerable among us by controlling the sexual behavior of the most powerful.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Carroll uses historical examples to make his point. To wit, among Vikings, powerful men accumulated multiple wives, leaving less powerful men with fewer options for partners. That, in turn, drove them to raid Ireland, enslave or murder Irish men, and abscond with Irish women. Carroll writes that monogamy would have constrained those powerful men, leaving more marriageable women available for the less powerful Vikings, eliminating the need to raid other societies.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward from Viking days to America&rsquo;s founding, and <em>Sex and the Citizen<\/em> reveals that the Founding Fathers viewed marriage as an essential building block of the republic and how U.S. presidents, Congress, and the courts undertook steps to encourage marriage. Alas, that didn&rsquo;t last. Carroll writes that the &ldquo;new focus on individual actualization over family obligations proved popular enough in elite circles that the Supreme Court managed to completely rewrite federal family policy in the span of just five years.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Drilling down further, Carroll connects the dots between the Sexual Revolution, feminist thought in the 1960s, and court decisions that &ldquo;coldly tossed marriage aside, elevating individuals&rsquo; wants and desires over the sanctity of the family unit,&rdquo; resulting in various harms, <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">including federal social safety net policies<\/a> that punish marriage, rather than elevate it.<\/p>\n<p>For many, Carroll&rsquo;s thesis about this assault on marriage would be considered moralistic, outdated, and anti-feminist. In one instance, he criticizes <em>Eisenstadt v. Baird<\/em>, in which the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law that allowed only married couples to obtain contraception and criminalized it for unmarried people. Instead of seeing the case as a victory for individual liberty and against the government&rsquo;s interference in the private lives of single Americans, Carroll describes it as a turning point in how the court &ldquo;completely dismantled state authority to channel individual sexual desires through the institution of marriage.&rdquo; Carroll&rsquo;s view would surely draw the ire of civil libertarians and progressives alike, who would celebrate <em>Eisenstadt&rsquo;s<\/em> expansion of privacy rights and support of personal autonomy over governmental interference.<\/p>\n<p>Carroll doesn&rsquo;t call for a reversal of those decisions, but they&rsquo;re central to his argument that when the government stopped supporting marriage, it led to a decline in marriage, resulting in consequences including greater racial inequality, poverty, crime, isolation, deaths from the opioid epidemic, political polarization, and population decline. He prescribes a series of policy solutions to alleviate those ills, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-releases-life-of-linda-to-push-cradle-to-grave-build-back-better-agenda\/\" title=\"Biden Releases \u2018Life Of Linda\u2019 To Push Cradle-To-Grave \u2018Build Back Better\u2019 Agenda\">including child tax credits<\/a>, safety net programs, reducing the cost of childcare, curbing illegal immigration, building new infrastructure, creating jobs, and cutting zoning regulations to increase the housing supply. Ultimately, he concludes that we need to ask whether a given policy will make it easier or harder for Americans to get or stay married, and to change the way we think about family issues.<\/p>\n<p>I read <em>Sex and the Citizen<\/em> in between watching hours of episodes of &ldquo;Soft White Underbelly.&rdquo; In episode after episode, there is one common theme: broken families and abusive childhoods are the tragic beginnings of too many lives. Take the story of Nate, a fentanyl addict originally from Indianapolis. Nate grew up without a father and was sexually abused by his brother, who shot him up with heroin when he was just 13 years old. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I just had a mom who worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week,&rdquo; Nate says. &ldquo;I had to raise myself.&rdquo; Today, Nate is an addict living in Los Angeles and he is very aware of what not having a father meant to his life. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know how to live my life. I didn&rsquo;t know how to do things by myself &hellip; that really impacted me in growing up to be the man I am,&rdquo; he laments.<\/p>\n<p>For Carroll, Nate&rsquo;s story would probably be emblematic of the societal decline resulting from a decades-long assault on marriage. And unlike divorce attorney Sexton, he doesn&rsquo;t see monogamous marriage as a failed or outdated technology. Rather, Carroll makes the case that it&rsquo;s an institution in decline that needs to be restored and that in doing so, America will be stronger for it. &ldquo;Marriage does not guarantee anyone&rsquo;s happiness&hellip; Many marriages fall apart. But no institution better channels our primal emotions of loneliness, lust, anger, jealousy, and joy into productive behavior of loving another person, than monogamous marriage.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Mike Brownfield is an attorney and communications expert with a diverse background in public policy, government, law, and politics. He resides in Royal Oak, Michigan. <a>@mikebrownfield<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marriage is risky, akin to owning a lion; injuries are likely,&#8221; says divorce attorney James Sexton on &#8220;Soft White Underbelly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3488,"featured_media":2359429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sex1.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43705,5521,6205,43706,39273],"class_list":["post-2359428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-civilrights","tag-democracy","tag-marriage","tag-policyimpact","tag-socialissues"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sex1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3488"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2359428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2359429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2359428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2359428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2359428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}