Marital Bedrock
Conjugal America:
On the Public Purposes of Marriage
by Allan Carlson
Transaction Publishers, 2006
(138 pages, $29.95, hardcover)
reviewed by Robert W. Patterson
Fourteen years ago, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead vindicated an embattled Dan Quayle in The Atlantic Monthly by showcasing the social science literature that demonstrates that, yes, Murphy Brown, the country’s experiment with family “diversity”—whether single parenthood, divorce, or step-parenting—has not been good for children.
While ending her 16,500-word feature with the suggestion that “societies can change, particularly when it becomes apparent that certain behaviors damage the s . . .
