This essay explores further changes that may lie ahead as same-sex marriage debates increasingly affect both family law and the social meanings of marriage. Marriage as an institution has changed most dramatically because of the cumulative effects of the last half-century of de-gendering family law.Same-sex marriage–and perhaps even more so, the highly visible cultural debate over it–is contributing to this process.ame-sex relationships have already significantly altered family law, by leading to new formal relationship statuses and incorporation of the principle that both of a child’s legal parents can be of the same sex.