Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Publication Title

Arizona State Law Journal

Abstract

Governments across the globe lately have been raising the alarm about declining marriage rates and adopting a wide variety of measures to increase these rates. This article presents a framework, distilled from human rights law, for assessing whether such measures are in keeping with States’ international obligations to eliminate all forms of coercion and discrimination in their policies and practices concerning diverse family structure and composition. The framework draws clear boundaries between measures that are permissible under human rights law and measures that are prohibited by human rights law. It also provides a tool for evaluating marriage-promotion measures that, although not inherently coercive or discriminatory, run the risk of coercing or discriminating against individuals depending on the circumstances.

Overall, the framework presented in this article underlines States’ obligations to work simultaneously to make it more possible for individuals to choose to marry and to make it more possible for individuals to choose not to marry. States must remove social, economic, and legal barriers to forming both marital and nonmarital relationships and to thriving in these relationships. Marriage-promotion measures that are permissible under human rights law do not privilege marriage over other family forms but instead facilitate and support marriage as one option available on equal terms to freely consenting adults.

Volume

58

Issue

2

First Page

789

Last Page

861

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