[JulianMorrison]

I feel that extended family, rather than nuclear family, is the cornerstone (of sensible living anywhere, not particularly of western living). And I think, divorce doesn't have to separate extended families, people have their own relationships which either work or don't regardless of what the couple feel about each other. But I don't think that making marriage consensual makes it trivial. On the contrary, I think that making marriage nonconsensual makes it a mockery. In what sense are people who despise each other married at all?

And the main threat to both extended families and marriage in the west is capitalism, of the particular, late, people-as-replaceable-cogs globalized variety. Who these days can afford to live where they grew up? Fix that, and you will see families reuniting.

As for the case in the original link, it's discriminatory that men have unequal power to end the marriage, but it's far more important, IMO, that marriages which end don't seem to carry the obligations they ought, of extended support and support for the children. This is the real discrimination, since it allows husbands to hold over wives the threat of destitution - or to carry it out.