Imagine that the creation of the U.S. Department of Marriage is announced tomorrow. The Department employs a team of social scientists tasked with predicting the outcomes of various marriage types. The team analyzes data about the effects of parental income, educational attainment, criminal record, job status, etc. on children’s health, depression, school performance, and long-term employment prospects. The social scientists also analyze data about the effects of spousal income, educational attainment, criminal record, job status, etc. on the happiness of the spouses within a marriage. The Department finds that it is able to make fairly accurate predictions about which marriages will be worse for spouses and children than the average American marriage. It then proceeds to require all prospective marriage partners to fill out a marriage application that requests the relevant information. If the Department computers calculate that a marriage application is sufficiently likely to result in a bad marriage, the marriage is denied legal recognition.

Would you support this system? If not, then can you consistently oppose the legal recognition of plural marriage on the grounds that it tends to be worse than the typical marriage?