Comment is yearned for

As Friday progresses towards the weekend, it is not out of order to strike a lighter note. If you have a good memory you'll know I have been a defender of the blogosphere as a resource for extending public discussion of questions of importance. I should therefore like to register a qualification by saying that it also sometimes encourages discussions of a quite needless kind. Yesterday Comment is Free - which, one might have thought, had little need to stoke up participant talk beyond the levels that occur there organically - invited visitors to respond to the question:

Does this venerable institution [i.e. marriage] have a role in the modern world?

Since there is a single intelligent answer to that question, and which is very short indeed - to wit, yes - one can only take their asking it as the symptom of a discursive restlessness that is of no use to anybody.