Transcript

8/3/2019 A Response to Keith Ablow

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/a-response-to-keith-ablow 1/2

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078

www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: [email protected] • 760/295-9278©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.

A Response to Keith Ablow

By Jennifer Roback Morse

This article was first published December 29, 2011, at www.nationalreview.com.

Celebrity therapist and “life coach” Dr.Keith Ablow just jumped on the “let’s get

the government out of the marriage

 business” bandwagon. I have been writingagainst the “privatizing marriage” mantra,

going all the way back to 2005. (See also

here and here.) I do not wish to rehearse

those arguments here. But Dr. Ablow’scontribution to this unfortunate genre is

doubly regrettable. He is, first of all, deeply

mistaken about the government’s role indiscouraging people from marriage. As a

 psychiatrist, he has no particular expertise in

 policy analysis, and I am sorry to say, itshows. My second regret about his foray

into policy analysis is that he forsakes the

area of his greatest expertise, namely,helping people live happier lives. His

 proposal to “get the government out of the

marriage business” substitutes an easy exit

strategy for the genuine work of building upmarriage and family relationships.

Dr. Ablow claims that government intrusion

is the cause of marriage decline because

marriage amounts to signing a “draconian

contract with the state to manage thedivision of your estate in the event of a

divorce.” Now he is certainly correct thatunder the current divorce regime, the familycourt micro-manages people’s private lives.

But his argument is completely backwards.

He has no explanation for why people are

less inclined to marry now, and whygovernment is more intrusive now than in

say, 1960. I can answer that: no-fault

divorce.

California instituted the first “no-fault”

divorce in 1968, with other states quicklyfollowing suit. The state no longer 

recognized marriage as a lifelong union,

dissolvable only for cause. Under no-fault,either party could get divorced for any

reason or no reason. The current “marriage

contract,” if you want to call it that, is less

 binding than a contract to purchase a homeor to take delivery for a load of concrete. For 

sure, it is easier to end a marriage than for 

the L.A. Unified School District to fire atenured teacher.

Most importantly, the legal change to the

no-fault regime created unilateral divorce:

The state now permits one party to break the

marriage contract, regardless of the wishesof the other. This means that the divorce has

to be enforced against the reluctant spouse.

Somebody has to be separated from the jointassets of the marriage, most often, the

family home and the children. The coercive

machinery of the state is wheeled into place.The state begins the micromanaging of 

divorcing couples that Dr. Ablow rightly

decries.

Dr Ablow is correct that people are not

getting married because they are afraid of divorce, including the state’s involvement in

their post-divorce lives. State governments

undermine marriage by siding with the least

8/3/2019 A Response to Keith Ablow

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/a-response-to-keith-ablow 2/2

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078

www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: [email protected] • 760/295-9278©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.

committed spouse. Unilateral divorce was a

 policy change that just happened to increasethe power of the state over people’s lives.

 No-fault, unilateral divorce is the policy that

ought to be reversed. That is not “getting thegovernment out of the marriage business.”

But Dr. Ablow’s ill-advised foray into policy analysis is not the least of the

 problems with his article. He comments, in

an off-hand way, that in his clinicalobservations, “the vast majority of married

 people consider their unions a source of 

 pain, not pleasure, and that too few of them

are equipped with the psychological and behavioral tools to achieve true intimacy or 

maintain real passion.” Translation: People

don’t have good enough relationship skillsto get and stay married, so let’s give them an

easier way out.

This statement is both illogical and

appalling.

It is illogical because a therapist typically

treats people who are having problems.

Happily married people don’t usually go to atherapist. He really shouldn’t draw

conclusions about the “vast majority of 

married people,” based on a sample of clients in his own practice.

But suppose his clients really and truly don’t

have good relationship skills. His job as a

life coach is precisely to give them those

tools. It is appalling that he abandons thatfield, where he undoubtedly has something

to contribute. Instead, he goes off on a

tangent of abolishing marriage as a public

institution. His policy proposal

accommodates the present instability of marriage, when he should be leading the

charge to combat it.

But, Dr. Ablow, isn’t it your clinical

observation that people actually want to get

married and stay married? Don’t peoplewant intimacy and passion? And, don’t

children want and deserve parents who

remain committed to each other?

This is where our current debate over the

definition of marriage has led us. A noted psychiatrist joins the parade of people

celebrating a cockamamie scheme for 

destroying marriage as an object of publicconcern. In the process, he is diverted from

the serious business of helping people

develop their capacity for love andrelationship.

What a loss.

 Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is an

economist and the Founder and President of 

the  Ruth Institute , a nonprofit educational 

organization devoted to bringing hope and encouragement for lifelong married love.She is also the author of 77 Non-Religious

 Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage ,  Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to

 Raise a Village and Smart Sex: Finding 

 Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World and 101 Tips for a Happier Marriage: You can

improve your marriage even if your spouse

doesn’t change a bit.


Top Related