marriage and divorce

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A census poll casts a statistician's eye on marriage and divorce in the United States.

I wonder who made up marriage in the first place. Was it the church, with nothing better to do? Was it the politicians who saw some advantage? Was it a matter of heaping a pleasant ritual on top of the notion that human beings tended towards monogamy (even if they weren't honestly convinced by it)?

You can make the argument that marriage smooths the social path, but I wonder how much worse off society would be without it.

Just curious.
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