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Marriage is a contract, and government oversees contract law, enforces contract, and settles disputes when a contract is broken or invalid... Many philosophers believe that one of the reasons humans need government and why government is useful to humans and government needs to exist in human society is to maintain social order by enforcing contracts between parties and settling disputes when contracts are broken.
I tend to find the argument that government should get out of marriage interesting for a few reasons.
1. As long as people value the meaning of marriage and want to marry, there will be a divorce rate (or breaking of the marriage contract). I really don't think it's feasible the believe that everybody in this country could settle a divorce dispute without lawyers or a court system. The government will get involved eventually, because as Locke, Hume, and other philosophers say, settling disputes between people and maintaining order is one of the most basic and fundamental roles of government.
2. If you eliminate marriage laws and benefits of marriage, it's radically changing our concept of a family in the eyes of the law. We would no longer have rights to our partner.. their property is separate, their retirement.. although our assets would really be tangled.
If my husband suddenly dies, I wouldn't inherit his property or military benefits, or be covered under any of his employer benefit programs? I mean, if I could... then anybody could, right? .. since I wouldn't be viewed as family in the eyes of the law.
Eliminating legal marriage wouldn't simplify property rights, survivor benefits, or inheritance laws, it will make them super complicated.
3. If you don't believe the government actually plays a role in maintaining order and people can do that themselves without government, then why aren't you an anarchist?
That would be all handled by personal contracts. The only role the gov would have is as an arbiter.
What's the difference between marriage now and a personal contract? We get married and agree to marriage based on our personal reasons, and we expect different things from our marriages. We get a divorce for different reasons, and when that happens... the court system may have to step in and settle a dispute, if we can't. The thinking behind allowing the court in as a third party, is that they are there to be unbiased and to protect us.
We don't write personal contracts and tell the government how to do their job... You can't tell the government to send your military pay, veterans pay, SS, or medicare benefits to xyz when you're dead. If the federal government doesn't recognize marriage, then military spouses would lose all their rights, even when their spouse is in a war zone. There would be no more military benefits for being married either.
The entire concept of a step parent or step guardian will be void and null... so this entire proposal is going to hit the family court system as well and radically change that too.
So are you anarchist?
You can't tell the government to send your military pay, veterans pay, SS, or medicare benefits to xyz when you're dead. If the federal government doesn't recognize marriage, then military spouses would lose all their rights, even when their spouse is in a war zone. There would be no more military benefits for being married either.
Why would all these "benefits" go away with the government stepping out of the marriage realm? Even if I'm not married, I can leave my life insurance policy to whoever I want. Why can't the same thing happen in other cases?
Who handles military benefits?? The government or Farmers Insurance??
Those are really good questions. I think more of the answers, though, lie from the other end - what it gives people in terms of choice.
1. I think the entire problem here is the expectation people have about relationships, which is totally contrary to the reality of human relationships. The longer we are living, the more obvious this contradiction becomes. We only have this problem because people have a false idea of what they know about the future, propagated by the idea of marriage.
In addition, there are other ways to deal with this in a more flexible, customizable way. To desire a legal contract for any joint endeavor makes sense, but separating it from the connotation of marriage both allows it to be a more honest discussion, and creates flexibility in what sort of agreement the people want to enter into.
Many problems you present with non-married couples are currently addressed with commonwealth law, which I think needs to be tightened up and slimmed down.
2. Why do you need to have a right to your partner? Again, there's a philosophical component to this.
On the practical side, again, it's a similar matter to #1. It just requires the couple to spend a bit more time looking at what they're signing, which can't do anything but help. I also think people should be allowed to assign their inheritance, benefits, property, etc, to whomever they please or no one at all, regardless of what their specific connection is.
3. I think marriage is a false concept. And some societies are already abandoning it in large numbers. It clearly doesn't prevent people from being in relationships or having kids. It just allows them to start from a more honest framework.
EDIT: xpiher said it in far fewer words and without the philosophy wank.
You're still thinking of this as though people wouldn't be able to choose to assign those rights to their partner if they want to. That's the entire point of getting rid of the institution, to me. It gets rid of all the pitfalls and allows people to allocate rights as they wish. Because obviously they still need to be able to - taking it out of the context of the marriage instiution allows it to be done better and more in accordance to the person whose resources they originally are.
joint parenting;
joint adoption;
joint foster care, custody, and visitation (including non-biological parents);
status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent;
joint insurance policies for home, auto and health;
dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support;
immigration and residency for partners from other countries;
inheritance automatically in the absence of a will;
joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment;
inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship (which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate);
benefits such as annuities, pension plans, Social Security, and Medicare;
spousal exemptions to property tax increases upon the death of one partner who is a co-owner of the home;
veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns;
joint filing of customs claims when traveling;
wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children;
bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child;
decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her;
crime victims' recovery benefits;
loss of consortium tort benefits;
domestic violence protection orders;
judicial protections and evidentiary immunity;
and more....
My parents were born in the 20's. They married for love. They stayed married for life, despite various ups and downs. My mother was never the same after my father passed; when her friends told her she should consider dating, she said that she had never wanted any other man and never would. 57 years.
This used to be commonplace.
Honestly, that's really confusing. Why get rid of legal marriage, if you just want people to have the same results when they are married? Why make something more complicated for the hell of it?
And if you think people should have the right to give their military benefits, death benefits, insurance benefits, etc. to ANYBODY else, then why not just change the law without nullifying a legal marriage contract?
In reality, it's going to be hard though... all the hoops and loops to jump through to get to the same place if you simply signed a marriage cert.
1,400 legal rights are conferred upon married couples in the U.S. Typically these are composed of about 400 state benefits and over 1,000 federal benefits. Among them are the rights to:
1,400 is a lot of hoops to jump through. I'd especially hope they wouldn't miss the one where they'd get to make burial or cremation arrangements when their spouse dies.
Legal and economic benefits of marriage
Why would all these "benefits" go away with the government stepping out of the marriage realm?
Even if I'm not married, I can leave my life insurance policy to whoever I want. Why can't the same thing happen in other cases?
That would be all handled by personal contracts. The only role the gov would have is as an arbiter.
The government, but I was talking about my military life insurance. My point was, there isn't any reason why these "benefits" wouldn't still exist without the government defining marriage.
Because then the legal contract is pointless, and it is absolutely nothing more than saying that the government gets to decide if you really love each other.
I think making it realistic will take time, and I admit that (as per my first post - I don't think it's immediately realistic). But that's only because of the precident of marriage, not because we need it.
yes, it did.
My parents were married for 66 years, until they died within a month of each other. My wife's parents have been married nearly 70 years now, and still are. At 90, it's hard to see how either one would get along without the other. I've been married for 43 years now, and couldn't imagine cheating or leaving at this point.
I think it's a matter of putting someone else first in your life. If every child brought into this world were to be born into a relationship in which both each parent put the other first, our society would be drastically better than it is.
Could it be that most of our societal problems boil down to selfishness?
But a legal marriage contract takes care of all those things with one simple contract, instead of several small ones that almost everyone who wants to have a real marriage, taking on those responsibilities, would want, at least for the most part.
Why have several small contracts that can be consolidated into one single contract to cover all those things?
To get a bit more esoteric with this, I am going to challenge that. I'm not making a point, necessarily - just describing a differing position that I'm curious of your position on. To do that, I'm going to use myself as an example.
I obviously disagree with the institution of marriage. I also happen to be childfree (no kids, under any circumstances).
So what does that leave me with?
Well, first it leaves me with tons of time for other pursuits in life. Some of these pursuits happen to be very humanitarian. I want to positively change the world, and I work towards that. I haven't placed anyone higher than me, and yet that doesn't mean I act selfishly.
Secondly, it requires me to completely reframe how I see relationships. I do not focus on an end goal. The relationship lasts however long it does, whether that's forever or until next week. While I am more than willing to work out problems, I'm not going to beat a dead horse. But what is absolutely critical to me is true honesty and caring, intellectual enjoyment, etc.
I'm friends with all of my ex's, with the exception of one who turned out to be a crazy stalker dude. My partners and ex's tell me I am the least dramatic person they've ever been involved with, and we learned a lot from each other.
I am not placing them above me. I won't sacrifice my happiness. But that doesn't mean I'm being selfish. It just means I have different goals in a relationship. And that I use my desire to affect positive change differently. And I think more productively.
Do you think what I'm doing hurts society? Do you think I'm selfish, because I think marriage is, for me, a waste of time and a false road to accomplishment?
As long as you stick to the no children policy, it doesn't hurt society.
Selfish is when someone does enter into a marriage contract, then is not willing to give his/her partner equal status.
No, I don't think your selfish. I think you're missing out on an important part of life, though.
My question is, what should the government's involvement in marriage be?
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