A duty to pick the best spouse?
Our choice of spouse greatly impacts the quality of children's lives
My wife and I are in the middle of the adoption process. It is a noble calling with a treacherous and winding path, to say the least. And in the course of this process, it occurred to me how important it is to pick a good spouse for the sake of one’s future children, especially if they are biological, but not only then. Even if one adopts, there is still, presumably, a moral duty to pick the best spouse. This is because, when adopting, the traits had by one’s spouse will influence their parenting style, and how well they manage situations that arise raising children.
Why think choice of spouse matters? First off, with respect to biological parents and their children, genetics are shared. And half of those genes come from whomever one chooses to have children with. In addition, many of the traits one’s spouse has will, to a large degree, influence how they parent, and that matters whether one is having children or adopting them (even when it comes to picking the kids to adopt).
Indeed, whether it is how our children grow and develop, or how much responsibility we bear for the outcome—with exceptions like abuse and neglect—as it happens, genetic traits are a huge influence on how children will develop and on how parents will parent. As the economist, Bryan Caplan, explains,
Once upon a time, nature versus nurture was a matter of opinion, but now there are hard answers: Nature wins, especially in the long run. If your child had grown up in a very different family—or if you had been a very different parent—he probably would have turned out about the same. […] You don’t have to live up to the exhausting standards of the Supermom and Superdad next door. Instead, you can raise your kids in the way that feels comfortable for you, and stop worrying. They’ll still turn out fine.
So how does the duty to pick the best spouse arise if the genetics decide much of what and how your children develop? The answer is most straightforward for the biological parents: picking the best spouse that one can (e.g., temperament, hygiene, etc.) will have a major impact on how one’s children develop. Pick a dim and cruel spouse, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that one’s genetic children act similarly. Similarly, pick an intelligent and kind spouse with a dynamite sense of humor and you are very likely to have (at least some) children with those qualities.
What about for parents who adopt? The genetics admittedly matters less here for the obvious reason that your adopted kids got their genetic traits from someone else. It doesn’t mean, though, that who one picks to be their spouse doesn’t matter. As Caplan explains, there is stuff under parental control (outside of genetic influence),
Half a century from now, your children will remember how you treated them. If you showed them kindness, they probably won’t forget. If you habitually lost your temper, they probably won’t forget that, either. Out of all the wishes on the Parental Wish List, “good memories” are one of the few that clearly depend upon how you raise your child. Don’t forget it.
Amen. And how you and your spouse raise the children, with good memories or bad, will depend to a large degree on the spouse you picked. Will she mistreat the kids in your absence? Will he neglect the kids to drink and gamble? And so forth and so on. This is good reason to think that the choice of spouse matters, not just to the person marrying them but also the children they may have or adopt.
But why think we a moral duty to choose the best spouse? Good question. It would appear to follow from a general principle that governs how we should treat our kids. And it roughly says that,
(PD) Parents have a moral duty to do what they can, where possible and not immoral, to increase the chances that their children will thrive.
And since one choice their spouse, then one has control over who they end up with. So they have some capacity to take steps to ensure their children will thrive. And if principle PD, or something like it, were true, then it would explain a lot, like the fact that abusing and neglecting one’s children is wrong, but leaving them an estate that is worth millions of dollars isn’t morally required.
What do you think?