capitalism

318 Marxism
free of duress. However, marriage, unlike other contractual
relationships, imposes a legal status that cannot be terminated
at the will of both parties, but requires the intercession
of a court. With few exceptions, a marriage contracted
in one place is regarded as valid everywhere. The earlier
British and American laws of marriage were characterized
chiefly by the view that husband and wife are one legal
entity for whom the husband acts. Starting with the “married
women’s property” statutes at the end of the 19th century,
however, women have for the most part obtained equal
rights and obligations within marriage.
Courts today are generally unwilling to address the
ongoing marital relationship; as a consequence, legal regulations
limit themselves to addressing the formation and
dissolution of marriage. The major restriction on who may
marry in the United States is the constraint on the right of
same-sex couples to marry or receive any of the benefits of
marriage. Although one state currently allows same-sex
couples to marry, the federal Defense of Marriage Act permits,
indeed encourages, other states not to recognize marriages
between same-sex couples. At the same time, the
federal government restricts the numerous federal benefits
of marriage to heterosexual couples only.
The laws governing the dissolution of a marriage and
the financial and custodial arrangements that might follow
prevent many couples from arriving at some voluntary
arrangement. Between 1969 and 1985, all the states either
replaced their laws respecting the grounds necessary for a
divorce—adultery, desertion, cruelty, and so on—with nofault
divorces or added no-fault divorces to the grounds in
place previously. In effect, these no-fault laws permit either
spouse to dissolve a marriage unilaterally. During the earlier
era, most unsuccessful marriages failed for reasons
other than the fault of one of the parties. The result was that
couples often negotiated the dissolution of their marriage
using fabricated testimony to establish fault. In these negotiations,
they could effectively ignore the statutes controlling
the financial and custodial arrangements at divorce.
The no-fault divorce laws not only changed the grounds for
divorce, but they increased the importance of the statutes
governing the financial and custodial arrangements at
divorce. These laws usually provide for an equal division
of legally recognized property, short-term rehabilitative
spousal support, and child support. The courts continue to
favor mothers in the case of physical custody of children
while generally providing for joint legal custody.
The current divorce laws in the United States tend to
reduce social benefits relative to the outcomes that would
have occurred had voluntary agreements between spouses
been permitted. Current laws permit a party who initiates a
divorce to ignore some of the costs of divorce. First, current
law does not adequately compensate a spouse who has limited
his or her career in order to provide household services
to the partner. Second, divorced spouses may still be
strongly attracted to their spouse and children and suffer
accordingly, a suffering uncompensated by the courts.
Third, the marriage in the process of being dissolved was
potentially the result of a long and costly search, for which
the divorced spouse will remain uncompensated. Last, the
quality of life of the divorced couple’s children could well
deteriorate relative to what might have prevailed in the
absence of the divorce. It is often impossible to negotiate a
superior agreement than that imposed by the courts because
of the heterogeneous and limited resources of the spouses
and because of high transaction costs.
In summary, from a libertarian perspective, social welfare
could be improved by permitting people more freedom
to choose their spouse and to determine the grounds under
which their marriage can be dissolved, together with associated
financial and custodial arrangements. For many
people, welfare would be increased by choosing mutual
consent as the basis for a divorce—especially for established
marriages—because then it is more likely that a
divorce would only occur when the net benefits are positive.
For both married and unmarried parents, laws that
require parents to protect and support their children are
appropriate because of the external effects of the parents’
actions on their children.
See also Children; Civil Society; Family; Feminism and Women’s
Rights; Separation of Church and State; Sexuality
Further Readings
Becker, Gary S. A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Dnes, Antony W., and Robert Rowthorn. The Law and
Economics of Marriage and Divorce. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Parkman, Allen M. Good Intentions Gone Awry. Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
Posner, Richard A. Sex and Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1992.
MARXISM
AMP
Marxism purports to offer a scientific account of human
history based on the economic and material conditions
through which societies pass. Marxism is a species of communism
in that it holds that the best society is one in which
all property is held in common. Specifically, Marxism
holds industrial communism to be the highest and final
stage of social development. Its founder, Karl Marx
(1818–1883), believed that this final stage of history was
rapidly approaching, and he worked tirelessly to advance