Pro

Marriage is not only for procreation, otherwise infertile couples or couples not wishing to have children would be prevented from marrying.

Ability or desire to create offspring has never been a qualification for marriage. From 1970 through 2012 roughly 30% of all US households were married couples without children, and in 2012, married couples without children outnumbered married couples with children by 9%. [96]

6% of married women aged 15-44 are infertile, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [97]

In a 2010 Pew Research Center survey, both married and unmarried people rated love, commitment, and companionship higher than having children as “very important” reasons to get married, and only 44% of unmarried people and 59% of married people rated having children as a very important reason. [42]

As US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan noted, a marriage license would be granted to a couple in which the man and woman are both over the age of 55, even though “there are not a lot of children coming out of that marriage.” [88]

Read More