Just as important, couples are shedding their inhibitions and indulging their inner Goofy. "So many traditions are going out of life that people are creating their own," said David Popenoe, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University and co-director of the National Marriage Project, which analyzes marriage trends. "Consider the Elvis wedding in Las Vegas or even this. Obviously Disney has ingrained itself in our minds."

Today, the response of most feminists, progressives and liberals to a large degree has not been to oppose Bush on the issue of marriage, but rather to say that this institution is important for helping families, overcoming poverty, providing stability for children, and sustaining society.

Anarchists have always consistently opposed the institution of marriage, recognizing its role in the maintenance of capitalism and the nation-state, as well as its constraining effect on the possible range of loving relationships.

Addressing the growing gender imbalance in college through affirmative action for young men addresses the symptoms but not the causes. It insults the efforts and accomplishments of young women. Far worse, it leaves many boys in the same confused condition they are in now. And it lets parents -- especially fathers -- and schoolteachers off the hook for their failure to raise and educate boys to be as accomplished, goal-oriented, engaged and responsible as young women are today. What we have done for our daughters we now need to do for our sons, too.

The absence of women is a problem throughout country Victoria. The young leave to attend university and only the men tend to return to the farms. But the Harrow community has devised a plan to lure back eligible females. Women aged 20 to 40 can, for $175, spend a weekend in the town next month to get a taste of country life and meet its bachelors. "We've got some gorgeous, beaut blokes in our district and . . . we need some girls," publican Ange Newton said.

The Net is changing the way kids communicate with parents and each other, perhaps even altering the balance of power -- with children often the most tech-savvy members of the household. A Mercury News and Kaiser Family Foundation survey of more than 800 residents ages 10 to 17 and their families found that 79 percent have Internet access at home. Among families with at least one parent in the tech industry, home access jumps to 94 percent. The survey also found many valley teens and preteens feel at home on the Net in ways their parents probably never will.

But Connor is wrong, at least based on the terminology he uses. First, how are proponents of same-sex marriage anti-marriage? Yes, some are radicals who want to weaken marriage as an institution. But others, like Andrew Sullivan (scroll down) and Jonathan Rauch, are explicitly pro-marriage. It's unfair�and downright illogical�to imply that gays and lesbians who want to marry (and their straight supporters) are being "anti-marriage."

Second, gay people grow up in families. They live in families. Some raise children in families. So why is it �anti-family� to foster social acceptance of gays and lesbians?

It�s fine for Connor to argue against same-sex marriage, but he should be more precise (and accurate) in his language. As it is, he's being just as unfair as those who immediately accuse opponents of same-sex marriage of bigotry.

The kids do poorly because they are poor, so the argument goes. It's not family structure; it's family income that should be addressed.
...
But a paper just released by the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington shows that marriage is a powerful predictor of children's well-being, regardless of income. Wealth does not inoculate children from the downsides of being raised outside a marriage.

"Family disruption in itself has a big effect on kids," says Mary Parke, a policy analyst who wrote the paper. "People tend to think about this issue with their own lens on, thinking about their own life or their parents', rather than from a public-health perspective."

And from a public-health perspective, the evidence is mounting that this old-fashioned edifice called marriage is still the surest shelter for anyone taking that rocky trip toward adulthood. Even faux marriages do not provide the same protection. Parke cites several studies showing that children who live with two cohabiting adults, or in a step-family, do not do as well as children living with married, biological parents.

First, the good news� American men do more housework and child care than men in any of the other four developed countries that CCF research intern Rachel Henneck surveyed in her paper: France, Italy, Germany, and Japan.

The bad news is that the American government does less to support working wives and mothers than any of the other countries surveyed. America is the only nation that does not guarantee all women workers paid maternity leave and/or subsidized high quality childcare. Nor do its financial benefits for families with children measure up to those provided by other nations.

One surprising finding of comparative studies is that the provision by states of childcare is associated with increased fertility rates more than the provision of maternity leave.

In the third portrait we meet Fanny Ballantine-Himberg, an amazingly insightful nine-year-old who became the daughter of Philip Himberg and Jim Ballantine with the help of their friend who acted as a surrogate birth mother. Nine-year-old Fanny is comfortable with having two dads, and she is active as an on-line pen pal with other children of lesbian and gay parents through the non-profit organization Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE). However, their security as a family is challenged by Philip and Jim�s breakup after thirteen years. Their daughter�s biggest problem now is not that her fathers are gay, but that they are divorced.

And at this juncture, I know someone out there is screaming for me to acknowledge that the lack of a marriage license does not always equal the lack of familial stability and that one can be whole without being hitched. Consider these things acknowledged. But the point here is that blacks' reluctance to embrace marriage is symptomatic of a larger dislocation in the black family. That dislocation is seen in the aforementioned crisis of incarceration -- one in three young black men in prison, on parole or on probation. Seen in the almost 60 percent of black single mothers left to subsist on under $25,000 a year. Seen in the fact that the majority of black children are born out of wedlock and raised separately from their fathers. Seen in the pain of high-income black professional women who cannot find black men of similar achievement with whom to share their lives. And it is seen, too, in an Essence magazine cover that once wounded me and now haunts me. ``Manless,'' it said. Manless. It would be foolish to suggest that everything that ails black folk can be found at the marriage altar. But it would be equally foolish, I think, to underestimate the family and community stability that might be created, the financial burdens that might be eased, the children who might be saved, if more of us were willing to take a shot on forever.

The study, which appeared in the March Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published by the American Psychological Association, also steps into the debate over whether marriage has curative powers for couples and families. For about 15 years, researchers used data from surveys of 24,000 people, mostly Germans. More than 1,000 of those surveyed were married during the study, and their happiness before and after the wedding was analyzed. they were asked to rate "life satisfaction" on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the happiest. Before the wedding, people on average ranked themselves at 7. Happiness increased to 7.7 around the wedding day but then declined to near the premarriage level, the study found. Those averages mask differences among people, suggesting that scientific set points can't fully explain the emotions of marriage, the study authors cautioned.

It seems, instead, that girls are doing better than boys because girls are really better than boys. In a society that no longer needs brawn or values aggression -- that is, in some respects, more feminine -- girls are better endowed by nature to succeed. A socialist (if there are any left) might even suggest that the entire women's liberation movement was capitalism's response to the need for more and better workers -- people with better motor skills, the astounding ability to empathize and express feelings, and the patience to sit still.

Cynthia McKay, the chief executive of Le Gourmet Gift Basket in Denver� said she helped plan a "divorce shower" for a woman whose husband left her and took all their possessions with him. "Women wonder if it's bad taste to throw a party like this; I say no," she said�

Leah Ingram, the author of "You Shouldn't Have: How to Give Gifts They'll Never Forget" (McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books), agreed. "It's a lot like women who go ahead and have a baby on their own," she said. "They figure, why do they have to wait for a man to become a mother and, similarly, why should they have to wait until they get married to be able to get the great gifts they want? Sometimes you have to break with etiquette and do what seems logical."

� it's not about greed, she said. "In the political, big-picture scheme of things I see my registering as a statement that I'm not going to buy into the notion that marriage is proof of adulthood, that I need to wait for a man to propose to validate my wanting quality kitchenware," she said.

The number of people living in high-poverty neighborhoods�where the poverty rate is 40 percent or higher�declined by a dramatic 24 percent, or 2.5 million people, in the 1990s. This improvement marked a significant turnaround from the 1970-1990 period, during which the population in high-poverty neighborhoods doubled.

"Our society values the non-choice," D'Alatri continues. "Everyone wants freedom to escape. Few people love the choices they've made -- whether it be their house, their job, their spouse. And to see people passionate about their family is rare. But at the beginning, the passion's there. So I've always asked: What happens?" What happens is just what If By Chance explores -- an intimate, blow-by-blow account of how a promising marriage of a thirtysomething couple in Milan moves to the brink of collapse. While D'Alatri may be ahead of his time in Italy, which seems to suffer more from the delayed choice than the non-choice (the divorce rate is still one of the lowest in Europe, but couples get married much later than elsewhere), he shines in mapping out the early marital narrative. From the initial thrill of "I do" to the exhaustion and distance that can set in later on, the film follows what transpires in the first years of matrimony.

One potential conflict involves Islamic law, known as Sharia. The charter proposes to continue Kenya's "kadhi" courts, which follow Sharia in dealing with such personal matters as marriage, divorce and inheritance for Muslims, who account for 5 percent to 15 percent of the population. But some aspects of Sharia contradict the rights of women stipulated in the draft constitution, like in a divorce, where the proceedings can be weighted toward the man. Christian groups, particularly evangelicals, want kadhi courts removed from the charter and done away with entirely. Muslim leaders answer that their traditions have to trump contemporary mores if their culture is to be respected -- another right guaranteed in the draft Constitution.

Normal marriage is normative. Marriage does not merely reflect individual desire, it shapes and channels it. Marriage as a social institution communicates that a certain kind of sexual union, is, in fact, our shared ideal: One where a man and woman joined not only their bodies, but their hearts and bank accounts, in a context where children are welcome. Of course not everybody wants or achieves this social ideal. . .Marriage as a universal human idea does not require the ruthless or puritanical suppression of alternatives. It is consistent with a variety of attitudes towards alternate forms of sexual expression, from stigma to acceptance. What it is not consistent with is a legal regime such as that suggested by the Vermont court: that there is no rational relation between the law of marriage and procreation. . . .If our law rejects the presumption that children need mothers and fathers, and that marriage is the way in which we do our best to get them for children, then we cannot expect private tastes and opinions alone to sustain the marriage idea.

. . .contrary to her claim there is no evidence to support the offensive proposition that only one size of family must fit all. Most studies--including the ones that Gallagher relies on--reflect the common sense that what counts is not the faily structure, but the quality of dedication, commitment, self-sacrifice, and love in the household. . .The denial of marriage to same-sex couples helps no-one. But what it does do is harm lesbians and gay men, our children and those who care about us. . .the law should help support families and enlarge peoples possibilities, not tear them apart or put barriers in their way.

To read Gallagher's essay, one would not know that for decades the law of the land (America, that is, unlike, perhaps, more theocratic or women-subordinating societies) has been to recognize that marriage is not just about procreation--indeed, is not necessarily about procreation at all.

At least some of today's 20-somethings are about half a decade behind their parents in reaching certain adult milestones, reports Tom Smith, author of a study on emerging adulthood released by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago� Those polled in Smith's study believe that people aren't really grown up until at least age 26.

So if they're not engaging in those mature, responsible adult activities, what exactly are they doing? Honestly, you don't want to know. But here goes anyway. They're hanging out a lot, dating, having multiple partners, using drugs and alcohol and working, maybe, on and off.

The study, based on the 1997 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is the first to shed light on the deeper problems many sole parent beneficiaries face. Previous studies have focused on their poorer educational qualifications, work experiences, transport and child-care problems. Dr Butterworth said he was surprised the differences were so marked between the life experiences of a significant group of sole mothers on welfare and the other mothers. For example, 19 per cent of the sole mothers reported having been raped compared to 6 per cent of mothers not on welfare; and 26 per cent had been the victim of a serious physical attack compared to less than 10 per cent of other mothers. As well, 21 per cent of the sole mothers had been "threatened with a weapon or tortured" compared to 7 per cent of the other women. But even these figures under-estimated the extent of trauma suffered by many sole parent beneficiaries, the study found.

Accountants claim the Inland Revenue is adopting a "Victorian attitude" to the taxation of small businesses owned by husbands and wives. In contrast to the divorce courts - which usually apportion half the couple's assets to the wife, regardless of her financial contribution - the Revenue disregards many wives' non-financial, but vital, role in family businesses. David Rothenberg of accountant Blick Rothenberg said: "The Revenue is claiming that these businesses have been avoiding tax, with the husband passing on the profits to his wife to reduce his taxable income, as well as making use of her personal allowances and lower tax rates. "While the courts have recognised that the creation of wealth within a marriage arises from the contributions of both husband and wife - even where the wife is not directly involved in business activities - the Inland Revenue is insisting that the wife's income is that of her husband."