Ross Douthat, a columnist for the Times, wrote that a "marital ideal" would be lost-but he admitted that this ideal was disconnected from reality.

The problem, says Douthat, is that such people are prone to a form of hubris in which they overestimate their ability to understand and manipulate the world.

But Douthat says the same sort of phenomenon has cropped up in the realm of public policy with such endeavors as the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, or the European Union's creation of a common currency.