THE EUROPEAN FAMILY DEBATE: THE CASE OF FINLAND: Maggie Gallagher

As I mentioned before, one reason I have not responded in detail to the Badgett/Kurtz debate is that is requires a more detailed knowledge of Euro family stats than I have easy access to.

Stanley Kurtz has taken a look at developments in Finland. Here is what he says:

Finland is not "exactly the same" as the other Scandinavian countries. Rates of what Stanley calls "parental cohabitation" (i.e. men and women living together, having children and not marrying) increased in the 90s. Out of wedlock births jumped from 25 perrcent (very low by Scandinavian standards) in 1990 up to 40 percent in 2001.

But Finland came to this point much later than the rest of Scandinavia; Norway, which took to parental cohabitation after Sweden and Denmark, was already at 39 percent out-of-wedlock births in 1990 and is now just over 50 percent--ten percent higher than Finland.

"So it certainly seems possible that Finland's relative conservatism, including its longer resistance to registered partnerships, is related to its having seen parental cohabitation spread later, and at lower levels, than Sweden, Denmark, and Norway," says Stanley.

Note what Stanley is saying here: Not that SSM came in and single-handedly destroyed a strong marriage culture. But that the trends towards out-of-wedlock births (and parents who cohabit rather than marry) and social pressure to treat same-sex couples as married tend to be mutually reinforcing.

If you see marriage as having a strong relationship to making children and giving them mothers and fathers, you don't do either of these things. As you reject the first, the second becomes plausible and reinforces the idea that public norms no longer take the idea that you need to marry in order to have children very seriously.

Only after decoupling marriage and childbearing, did the Finns seriously consider what Stanley calls "de facto gay marriage." (Myself, I believe it is possible to distinguish between civil unions and marriage, but doing so requires a culture committed to that proposition.)

Stanley also argues, "It's also hard to imagine that Finland's geographic and cultural proximity to Sweden, Denmark, and Norway has not been a key force in prompting increased parental cohabitation." He suggests that, "Finland tried to resist the trend of its neighbors toward parental cohabitation and toward same-sex registered partnerships. It eventually failed on both counts."

If, once again, the mechanism by which SSM helps weaken marriage is cultural changes in the meaning of marriage--in particular, decoupling the idea of marriage from the idea of children, such that saying "children need moms and dads and marriage is how you get them for people" constitutes an "offensive slap" at childless couples--this is not implausible.

Law is an educator, the definer of what social norms are public and shared.Isn't this the most powerful reason why same-sex marriage advocates want SSM? They believe it will affirm a new social norm of equality between gay couples and other couples. That it will also make important changes in how marriage in general is viewed should therefore be equally plausible.

Whether these changes in marriage are good or bad is the single most important question. It cannot be dismissed so easily.
posted by Eve at 10:50 PM | link

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