Yup. They are also more pro gay marriage. If that's the trade, it's one I'm happy, frankly, to make.
I would bet that a host of government incentives that punish marriage and reward single-parenthood financially also have something to do with it.
However, if you want to not run a deficit, then you have to reduce social spending. If you want to reduce social spending, then you have to increase social strength. If you want to increase social strength, then you've got to look for ways to enable all of those structures that government is trying (and failing) to take the place of.
I don't know - what do
you think should be done with (say) an unwanted three month old? Should the child be thrown off a cliff a'la the Spartans?
If you are merely expanding the definition of marriage to include homosexual and polygamous relationships, then you are keeping a government role in marriage, and simply modifying the relationships that they involve themselves in.
That is because families are (generally) joint economic ventures.
Yes there should be - however, it shouldn't be as it is, where low-income workers are punished for getting married. Stable marriages form the basis for a stable society. Lose the one, and you'll watch the second degrade. They additionally make the best environment for the raising of children, whom society has additional vested interests in protecting.
There was also precious little divorce back then. Poverty kept us together.
That is unfortunately not true. Societies that broadly practice polygamy face higher rates of crime, violence, and instability as a result. The main internal problem facing societies is how to civilize and integrate the energies of young males (women, it seems, are less likely to getting into small groups and deciding it might be fun to shoot up a crowd). Pairing them with a woman via marriage is the single best-known methodology for doing that. Polygamy removes that possibility for a portion of the young male populace by soaking up the supply of available females. That is why polygamous societies also tend to be more warlike - you've got to direct the aggressive tendencies of young males outwards and (hopefully) kill enough of them off that the competition over women doesn't threaten social stability. Polygamy tends to damage the societies that feature it.
And much to the worse. What is going to happen when suddenly you lack a basis for buying a car for your wife without having to pay gift tax, or a widow finds herself having to pay gift tax in order to access her financial assets in the event of the death of her husband?
Sure. But if we want to do that, we have to provide alternatives to problem-solving for the gaps that would be created by a shrinking government. And that is why you have to start with social conservatism before you can
get to fiscal conservatism.