France: Marriage Rate Drops as Birth Rate Rises

[Gabu]

Thats bizzare and disturbing.

If they're in monogamous, loving relationships, what difference does it make if they have some ceremony at the start of it?

[Gabu]

And those kids will always be always be wondering why. They’ll be wondering if their parents really love each other, and then they’ll be wondering if they really love them.

My parents were never married purely because they never wanted to.  As a child unaccidentally born out of wedlock, I can attest to the fact that I never paid a second thought to the matter.  It was really not an issue whatsoever.  I knew my parents loved me, and I didn't require them to jump through hoops to prove it.

[Gabu]

There is a broad body of social and legal research that shows marriage is the best structure for the successful raising of children. A child that grows up out of wedlock has a greater chance of experiencing problems in psychological development, health, school performance, even in the quality of future relationships. Marriage may not be the perfect solution for everyone. But when it comes to raising children, it certainly is the least imperfect of all available family structures.

Has it been shown that this is due solely to marriage, or due to the type of relationship that tends to lead to marriage (in North America, given that I suspect that these studies were mostly taken there)?

If you have two people in a horribly dysfunctional relationship, having them get married is not going to make their relationship any better, and if you have two people in a loving, monogamous relationship, the fact that they're not married does not make their relationship any worse.  It seems to me that marriage would be more an effect of being in a loving, monogamous relationship rather than a cause of such a thing.

[Gabu]

Children should be raised in stable homes

I fully agree.

and a part of that stability is a legal relationship between a mother and a father.

But this part I don't think is necessarily true.  Simply getting two people to marry is not going to make their relationship any more stable.  What we really need to focus on is why so many relationships go sour.