Paradox? What Paradox?

Ross Douthat finds a paradox where none exists:

We’ve known for a while that America has a marriage gap: college graduates divorce infrequently and bear few children out of wedlock, while in the rest of the country unwed parenthood and family breakdown are becoming a new normal. This gap has been one of the paradoxes of the culture war: highly educated Americans live like Ozzie and Harriet despite being cultural liberals, while middle America hews to traditional values but has trouble living up to them.

The explanation is pretty obvious, isn't it? People who do a good job managing their lives and relationships want the government to trust individual choices and keep out of their relationships. People who don't, or who by virtue of culture believe that to be the role of others, are more apt to see a need for state imposed controls on relationships, who you may have them with, when and under what circumstances they may end, etc.