Social Reform and Unintended Consequences

Jane Galt writes a very interesting article about gay marriage. What's interesting has nothing directly to do with gay marriage. The big chunk of her article deals with illustrations from history about reformers who, with all the best intentions, changed social structures apparently for the better, only to see the institutions underlying our society be changed in totally unintended ways. She examines three particular examples, of which I will summarize two (the third, capping income tax rates at 10%, I did not find particularly convincing or relevant).

Welfare for unwed mothers State-based financial support for mothers who had lost their husbands, i.e. the primary bread winner, did not extend to unwed mothers. This caused tremendous hardship and was blatantly unfair. So the social reformers in the 1950's argued that these welfare benefits should be extended to unwed mothers. Critics argued that this would result in more unwed mothers, something undesirable in the culture. "Ridiculous, said the proponents of the change. Being an unmarried mother is a brutal, thankless task. What kind of idiot would have a baby out of wedlock just because the state was willing to give her paltry welfare benefits?" What happened? Illegitimacy rates began climbing, especially in poor black areas most dependent on welfare benefits. "By 1990, that rate was over 70%."

Easy divorce "Divorce, in the nineteenth century, was unbelievably hard to get. It took years, was expensive, and required proving that your spouse had abandonned you for an extended period with no financial support; was (if male) not merely discreetly dallying but flagrantly carrying on; or was not just belting you one now and again when you got mouthy, but routinely pummeling you within an inch of your life. After you got divorced, you were a pariah in all but the largest cities." There were many unhappy marriages in which people were stuck with no escape route. So the reformers decided to make divorce easier for these people. Critics argued that would result in more divorce. "That's ridiculous! said the reformers. (Can we sing it all together now?) People stay married because marriage is a bedrock institution of our society, not because of some law! The only people who get divorced will be people who have terrible problems! A few percentage points at most!" Now, the divorce rate is over 50%.

Galt summarizes these examples

Three laws. Three well-meaning reformers who were genuinely, sincerely incapable of imagining that their changes would wreak such institutional havoc. Three sets of utterly logical and convincing, and wrong arguments about how people would behave after a major change.

In the two I've included, Galt argues that the reformers assumed the institution of marriage was an unshakable, unalterable given in society. The constant social pressure to marry would compensate for the financial incentives for illegitimate children. The constant social expectation that people be married would compensate for the simplifications in obtaining divorce. Yet marriage, like any institution, is dynamic. Changing the laws transformed the institution of marriage.

The reformers Galt talks about were well intentioned and attempted to address problems that were real and needed addressing. But their reforms had the unintended side effect of severely undermining the institution of marriage. In particular, in the inner cities, with illegitimacy rates of 70%, marriage has all but ceased to exist. This has ramifications throughout our culture. Does this mean we should avoid any reform? Of course not. Galt writes

Now, of course, this can turn into a sort of precautionary principle that prevents reform from ever happening. That would be bad; all sorts of things need changing all the time, because society and our environment change. But as a matter of principle, it is probably a bad idea to let someone go mucking around with social arrangements, such as the way we treat unwed parenthood, if their idea about that institution is that "it just growed". You don't have to be a rock-ribbed conservative to recognise that there is something of an evolutionary process in society: institutional features are not necessarily the best possible arrangement, but they have been selected for a certain amount of fitness.

But reformers must recognize that there is a reason certain cultural institutions exist (see the excellent quote from GK Chesterton she includes), and consequently they must take great care in making their reforms.