Stephanie Coontz thinks so. She's a history professor and the author of "Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage." In this NY Times op-ed, she argues that it's time for states to stop deciding who is and isn't married.
(And by the way, this isn't a gay-marriage issue. Not in Coontz's mind, anyway. It's more of a what-exactly-is-the-state-interest-in-regulating-marriage-anymore issue.)
Governments didn't really get into the marriage game in earnest until a century ago, Coontz points out. Maybe it's time for them to go back.
