I believe that government does have a compelling interest in promoting the formation of stable families. To explain my thinking, let me first return to the framework of capitalism and citizenship at the foundation of this blog.
As I have explained before, I see citizenship and capitalism as the two dominant and indispensable systems structuring American society (see here). But the logic of modern capitalism is fundamentally opposed to a family structure in which the labor of only some family members is sufficient to provide for the needs of all family members. Businesses, seeking greater profits, will tend toward paying each worker the minimum wage necessary to keep only that worker fit to continue working. This system will continually pull more family members into the work force, producing a short-term gain for each family but a long-term decrease in per-person wages. Whenever other developments diminish the relative power of labor, we will see an increase in this trend toward all family members working.
Only a citizenship-based system which values each individual equally and separately from the worth of his or her labor will be able to counterbalance this trend. Theoretically, labor unions can play this role. But the most effective such force would be government. Child labor laws, maximum hours, and minimum wages are all examples of the system of citizenship being brought to bear in limiting the system of capitalism. These laws have balanced economic growth against other values and alternative (non-economic) interpretations of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
But why should the government favor the family as a unit of social organization? Why, in the terms described above, should it care whether some or all family members must work for their support?
My answer is that our democratic system benefits from the way that stable families distribute leisure time for non-economic activities, such as child-rearing, community building, political activism, religious worship, peer mentoring, and education. The opportunity for citizens to direct their non-economic leisure time in such pursuits is a fundamental building block of our pluralistic, participatory democracy.
Families, with their ties of mutual affection, are better suited for that distribution of leisure than any other broadly accessible social organization of which I know. Individuals, alone, can only choose leisure activities based on the time their work affords them. Larger communal organizations place too-great a burden on each individual to conform with communal norms. Families, only one step removed from the individual, based on mutual care and affection, and sufficiently adaptable to varying circumstances, are the best social structure for preserving the opportunity for participatory democracy.
(For the other posts in this sequence on family, see here and here.)