I'm officiating a wedding for a couple from my church this month. Tennessee provides a significant discount for the marriage license if the couple goes through pre-marital counseling. I both approve of this and find it fascinating as a moral question behind public policy.
Will a couple *not* get married because of the cost of a license? Of course not. But small actions like incentivizing healthy marriage formation by reducing the cost of a license is one tangible way that government can promote a healthy marriage culture.
As policy and government continue to asses the breakdown of civil society, policy needs to see what it can do to encourage couples to enter marriage prepared and informed about the commitment they are making. A marriage license discount is one small way.
I've thought a lot about incentives when it comes to marriage and public policy. Want to know my most provocative idea? A marriage preservation tax credit. Every year a couple stays married, there's a reduction on their tax liability.
The credit scales according to the number of years married. A newlywed couple receives a smaller credit than a married couple with children at home. Why? Government should incentivize intact marriage at the most critical time of a marriage's existence: Children at home.
The marriage preservation tax credit would sunset the longer the marriage persists. A couple married for 30+ years would see it reduce to an amount similar to the newlyweds.
It's good for law to symbolically recognize the value of marriage to our culture.
Will a tax credit prevent a marriage from collapsing? Doubtful, but it could provide an added layer of incentive for people to fight harder to preserve their marriage for the good of their personal flourishing, their children's well-being, and their community's moral ecology.
All that to say, a hyper-libertarian worldview that treats all relationships as equal contracts is insufficient to the lived realities of human beings. A contract with a plumber for certain services is not the same as the covenant with your spouse. Policy should recognize this.
We cannot be indifferent to the culture of family formation around us and not think it will not come back to bite us. Society is little more than the aggregate number of families bonded together within a community.
The system has a soul.
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