OK.. the questions have been up for a month. Now, here are my answers:

1) What is the purpose of marriage? What should it be?
A: Marriage serves as society's recognition of mutual promises made between partners in a committed relationship. It offers a framework for each partner to secure long term benefits from their association with the other, in exchange for their agreement to provide equivalent long term benefits to the other. This provides the secure environment necessary to facilitate the conception and raising of dependent children, which is a biological imperative of our species.

2) Is marriage dying? Why/why not?
A: Marriage is dying. Economic stresses (largely caused by rampant divorce) reduce the expectation and valuation of the long term benefits of marriage, and societal emphasis on self interest reinforces the expectation that the received benefits must exceed the reciprocally provided benefits or else the marriage must end. "For Better or Worse" is inherently uncertain. Government provides an alternate path to security which competes with marriage. The government path to security is its promise that by divorcing your husband (80% of plaintiffs are female) you will receive guaranteed income transfers from him as CS payments (83.1% of sole custodial parents are female). States maintain the 83.1% rate in order to communicate this promise to mothers, because states are rewarded by federal money (42 U.S.C. 658a) for improving the "performance" (dollar volume) of their CS bureaucracies.

State CS systems are operated as divorce incentive programs. 42 U.S.C. 658a is a divorce incentive incentive.

3) If marriage is dying, what is killing it?
A: Government policies that promise greater and more certain achievement of economic security through divorce than in marriage.

4) If marriage is dying, why are some people trying so hard to win the right to marry?
A: I don't know. To me, it's a lot like arguing for the right to run into a burning building.

5) If marriage dies, what replaces it? What would a marriage-free society look like?
A: We would become a population of individuals seeking only our own selfish interests. Children, when they are born, would almost always be "accidents" and would quickly be turned over to daycare and schools. Daycare would be more directly managed by government bureaucrats, and the only "family" that kids will know is their daycare class. Loyalty to the community of peers would replace loyalty to parents (and ultimately loyalty AS parents to children), but loyalty to self would dominate all others.

6) What would "family" mean in a marriage-free society? What about "parent", and would there be different meanings for men and women?
A: "Family" has no meaning and no place in a marriage free society. "Parent" becomes a historical term to describe the archaic system of oppression of youth by their genetic contributors.

7) Are "marriage" and "family" synonymous? If your spouse divorces you, and you have kids, do you still have family?
They are not synonyms, any more than "heads" and "tails" are. But they are opposite faces of the same phenomenon. I feel like I still have family, but my divorce order says I have "visitors".

8) If marriage is dying, is family dying?
A: Family is dying BECAUSE marriage is being destroyed.

9) If marriage dies, who benefits?
A(short term): Government bureaucrats, childcare workers, teachers (and their unions), the mental health profession, contractors who build prisons for juvenile offenders, abortion clinics who serve teenage girls, drug rehab clinics.
A(long term): Nobody.

10) Why do people file divorces? Why do people do (anything)?
Everybody does everything in an attempt to improve their own situation. Nobody files a divorce with an expectation or hope of being completely taken advantage of, marginalized and exploited in the system. Those who believe they can secure the marginalization and exploitation of the other spouse will often chose to file.

11) Can "family" be strengthened independent of "marriage"? Is "family" more useful to "marriage" as an integral component or as an independent institution?
A: Independent strengthening of families is the key to marriage protection. By providing true, equal protection of the fundamental parental rights of all fit parents through and after divorce (i.e., regardless of marital status), we can eliminate the states' ability to reward divorce plaintiffs for filing economically motivated divorces. When divorce incentives are removed, divorce rates will drop and more children will have the proven benefit of both parents actively engaged in their support.

12) Can marriage be saved? How? What role would government have in this?
A: Marriage can be saved by protecting family relationships against abuses in "family" courts.