Marriage

Originally posted by FMF
[b]As marriage is an economic arrangement, I think enforcement of contracts is one role that government has.

Sure, there is an economic component to marriage, but what business is it of the state? Should it not be between the two married parties?

If you disagree there still is another question to ponder. Those who choose not to marry are still legally economically bound to each other even though they may not be married are they not? Why then is marriage a factor?

Originally posted by whodey
Sure, there is an economic component to marriage, but what business is it of the state? Should it not be between the two married parties?

So you only read the first half of the single sentence of mine that you quoted in your reply?

Originally posted by whodey
If you disagree there still is another question to ponder. Those who choose not to marry are still legally economically bound to each other even though they may not be married are they not? Why then is marriage a factor?

Please read the post of mine you are replying to.

Originally posted by FMF
So you only read the first half of the single sentence of mine that you quoted in your reply?

Ok then, so it is your opinion that marriage need not be state sponsered so long as equal benefits are realized for all couples?

Originally posted by whodey
Ok then, so it is your opinion that marriage need not be state sponsered so long as equal benefits are realized for all couples?

Well that isn't what I said. Please read my post where I expressed my opinion.

Originally posted by whodey
Just out of curiosity, how many here think that the state has no business in deciding who can marry and who does not? Should the state OK a marriage or should they keep their nose out of our affairs?

I think the state should only set rules regarding marriage in order to protect citizens from harm. For example, marriage of a minor is child abuse and thus should be prevented on those grounds.
One could add the clause that all participants in the contract should be willing. This too may exclude children as one could argue that they are not old enough to judge the consequences.
Regarding polygamy, I think that since marriage is a contract, it should state in the contract whether or not further spouses will be allowed. The state should not enforce two person contracts. But if someone enters a two person contract then violates it by marrying someone else, then the courts should judge accordingly.
I think the state should still be involved in marriage as far as ensuring that rights are upheld etc, but generally should not dictate who should or shouldn't get married.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I think the state should only set rules regarding marriage in order to protect citizens from harm. For example, marriage of a minor is child abuse and thus should be prevented on those grounds.
One could add the clause that all participants in the contract should be willing. This too may exclude children as one could argue that they are not old enough to ...[text shortened]... at rights are upheld etc, but generally should not dictate who should or shouldn't get married.

The whole argument as to whether children should get married is really an arugment over what age sexual consent should be given, not over when they should marry, correct?

As for a "contract", why should it be a legal one that the state recognizes? If your spouse cheats you are free to move on. Why do we need protracted and ugly divorces that allow lawyers to continue to feast off the populace?

Originally posted by whodey
Why must the state recognize a living arrangement?

It needn't, I suppose, but it has and does recognise living arrangements in formal unions known as marriages. That's a simple, matter-of-fact definition of what a marriage is. If the state no longer officially recognises living arrangements and bestows upon the practitioners of particular relationships the formal recognition of marriage, there simply will be no such thing as marriage as understood by that common definition. You can call 'any private contract between any number of consenting adults regarding their living arrangements' a marriage from now on if you wish, but please do acknowledge that you will radically have changed the definition of 'marriage' in so doing.

Originally posted by whodey
As for a "contract", why should it be a legal one that the state recognizes? If your spouse cheats you are free to move on. Why do we need protracted and ugly divorces that allow lawyers to continue to feast off the populace?

Free to move on? In many contexts around the world, a marriage contract goes some considerable way - albeit imperfectly - towards protecting women, who are so often relatively economically powerless and marginalised in other ways too.

Originally posted by DrKF
The state entirely tolerates - by continuing to grant the full panoply of basic rights to participants - all manner of 'unconventional' relationships. So long as the living arrangements and sexual relations within those arrangements do not break laws (protecting animals and children, preventing non-consensual arrangments, etc),

I see you very subtlely implied that rules against bestiality are for the protection of animals. They are not. I hate to put it this way, but a cow doesn't give a hoot whether a person sticks his whatever in its whatever. Cows do not need protection from being "married" to a human being. On the contrary, the cow's life would no doubt improve exponentially.

Bestiality laws are based on morality... that's right, morality. You know... the thing that the state is not supposed to legislate? There are still some things that repulse us so, that we're willing to legislate against them even in the absence of any compelling reason to do so and even if doing so is in contradiction to our governing philosophy.

As far as marriage is concerned, why not simply call it "domestic partnerships" and make sex completely irrelevant. Let any 2 adults (including immediate relatives) form a partnership and get all relevant government benefits. As far as "marriage" is concerned, let people do what they want with that term. A government induced arrangement that requires sex as a central component is asking for trouble.

Originally posted by FMF
Free to move on? In many contexts around the world, a marriage contract goes some considerable way - albeit imperfectly - towards protecting women, who are so often relatively economically powerless and marginalised in other ways too.

So your saying that marriage is only needed to protect women? I guess I could go along with that. In fact, it is arguable that historically that is why marriage was created in the first place. So if that is the case, then in the case of a man and a man or a woman and a woman getting married then no such protection would be needed, right?

Do realize that I was only discussing women in the US. So do you think that women in the US need such protection seeing that they seem to have more rights than the average woman historically?

Originally posted by whodey
So your saying that marriage is only needed to protect women? I guess I could go along with that. So in the case of a man and a man or a woman and a woman getting married then no such protection would be needed?

Contracts are for protection. But they need to be enforced if necessary.

Originally posted by sh76
I see you very subtlely implied that rules against bestiality are for the protection of animals. They are not. I hate to put it this way, but a cow doesn't give a hoot whether a person sticks his whatever in its whatever. Cows do not need protection from being "married" to a human being. On the contrary, the cow's life would no doubt improve exponentially.

B nt induced arrangement that requires sex as a central component is asking for trouble.

Again, we are not discussing marriage, rather, we are really discussing sexual consent at this point. There is a difference because one need not marry to have sexual relations.

Originally posted by whodey
Again, we are not discussing marriage, rather, we are really discussing sexual consent at this point. There is a difference because one need not marry to have sexual relations.

State recognition and regulation of marriage is an anachronism; a relic of the days when it was considered proper for the state to regulate sex and when sex was considered moral only in the context of marriage.

Originally posted by sh76
I see you very subtlely implied that rules against bestiality are for the protection of animals. They are not. I hate to put it this way, but a cow doesn't give a hoot whether a person sticks his whatever in its whatever. Cows do not need protection from being "married" to a human being. On the contrary, the cow's life would no doubt improve exponentially.

B ...[text shortened]... nt induced arrangement that requires sex as a central component is asking for trouble.

You are, of course, correct - but, personally, I have no problem with the state legislating on morality (it is, in fact, what states do), and marriage is one very clear-cut example of it doing just that.

As I said before, the state is entirely tolerant of unconventional living arrangements: the house of a man who lives with three different women, all of whom consent to the arrangement, will not be raided by the police, for example. Presumably, the courts would act to uphold a valid private contract between any and all of those people regarding the division of assets in the event of one person leaving. And in everyday speech, all of those participants can call themselves husbands or wives.

But in recognising marriage in specific forms, the state acts to maintain common forms of life: in some countries, this means that polygamy would be officially recognised by the state (and not simply as the unconventional living arrangements of private citizens) and in others would not (leaving participants in unconventional living arrangements to form their own contracts). Again, I see no problem with that.

Your suggestion that the state grant the full panoply of benefits attached to marriage to anyone who asks is injurious to the maintenance of common forms of life (and, ultimately, possibly also to civil peace): it replaces political settlement with jurisprudence and is, in the last analysis, another example of anarchism by way of the discourse on rights.