The sexual revolution, that great social experiment in love, marriage and family life, has not delivered the goods it promised. No more unhappy marriages; no more unwanted children; no more sexually and economically oppressed women: who today can take these promises seriously? Valentine's Day, the day of romance, is a good day to reflect upon why the upheaval in family norms has proven so disappointing.

We usually associate the sexual revolution with the Life Style Left. So it is surprising to see how many of the ideas of the sixties appealed to the Free Market Right, especially the ideas of freedom of choice and contract. This revolution in personal relationships makes love, marriage and family more like the market place, than like a home.

We were told that we ought to "pursue our own self-interest" inside our marriages and families. People should do what satisfies them, without sacrificing themselves for the marriage or the children. If the relationship isn't satisfying, we are entitled to exchange it for a different one. Then, by some kind of Invisible Hand, everyone will be happier and better off. Adam Smith would be proud.

If marriage is only a contract, people can negotiate their relationships. Couples can choose any kind of living arrangement they want, married or not, permanent or temporary. For some couples, the contract idea becomes the vehicle for creating equality inside the relationship. "I did this for you, so you need to do that for me."

All of this appealed to both the Life Style Left, and to the Free Market Right. This is part of the reason the revolution in sexual and family roles swept through society so quickly and thoroughly. The Left was able to promote its objectives in the language of the Right: equality, freedom, contract.

So why didn't it work? Because the family and the market are two very different kinds of social institutions, not only with different purposes, but also with different internal dynamics. The market gives the consumer what he wants at the least possible cost. The market allows strangers to exchange goods and services with a minimum of conflict. The family, on the other hand, is an institution that creates a community of life and love among people who have committed intimate relationships with each other. Marriage is not exactly an exchange: it is mutual self-giving. The family is not supposed to be cost minimizing; it is supposed to be love maximizing.

This is why the Invisible Hand idea doesn't work inside the family. Pursuing your own self-interest might be OK with the butcher or the baker whom you'll never see again. But your family members don't find you much fun to be around if you are literally only thinking of yourself. Your family members are not in your household to satisfy your desires at minimum cost.

Instead, the family is a school of mutual growth. We can't take our desires as given inside the family. Our spouses and children have their ways of pointing to us that some of what we want is not really good for us. We often misinterpret the inevitable conflict between spouses. We sometimes think that something must be dreadfully wrong with the relationship. If we are having so much discomfort, maybe we married the wrong person. Let's cut our losses and cash in this relationship for a new, more satisfying model.

But conflict need not represent a fundamental problem. Sometimes, our spouses are simply holding us accountable for our misbehavior. We all have our episodes of wrong-headedness, meanness, self-centeredness, and shortsightedness. It can be in our interests to have our spouses, in a loving way, call this to our attention, even though it is no fun while it is happening. Look at it this way: would you rather hear about your character flaws from your spouse who loves you and is trying to help, or from your soon-to-be ex-boss, during an exit interview?

Treating marriage as a contract also undermines the self-giving love that is at the heart of married life. "I'll do this for you, if you do that for me," has mistrust built into it. Instead of giving generously of the self, the exchange mentality invites us to hold ourselves back, waiting to see what our spouse will do. But someone needs to give first. Marriage needs openhearted generosity more than strict accounting.

Marriage and the market have different ways of measuring and affirming the value of the individual person. Money is the shorthand measuring rod for value to other people inside the market. But marriage allows a man and a woman to create a community based on self-giving love. Freely giving ourselves to another person presupposes and affirms our value. After all, there wouldn't be much point in giving ourselves as a gift, if we really thought we were a piece of worthless trash. The fact that our partner accepts us also affirms our value. We need not measure our success or value in terms of accomplishments or possessions.

The gift of self is a life-affirming act of generosity that presupposes and enhances our value as persons. This is what we miss if we embrace the modern, market approach to love and marriage. We miss the opportunity to receive our spouse as a gift, and to be received by our spouses as a gift. Marriage is much more than a contract. It is a gift.