Is marriage an antiquated institution that should be eliminated?

[Reply]

Note: For the purposes of this thread, I'm talking about marriage in the legal sense, not whatever Religion X chooses to do with its adherents.

I'd like to hear some views from both sides (if there even is an anti- side here). I'm not sure where mine lie, so I'm open to convincing...

Some background: This question recently came up during a classroom discussion on gay marriage, and it really got me wondering. Here is this fascinating socio-legal construct that grants certain privileges to people in a very specific type of arrangement, namely (theoretically) committed long-term heterosexual two-member relationships. This leaves out all the LGBTi folks, polyamorous people, multi-wife/multi-husband arrangements, sugardaddies, single parents, long-term unmarried partners, closer-than-your-spouse best friends, people who love animals more than any other human, etc. -- all of which are very real situations in today's society. Do the historical reasons for emphasizing the "traditional" model still apply today? Is it socially desirable to continue to grant married couples special benefits while denying them to people in other types of relationships?

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I've seen so many failed marriages (my dad has two, my mom one, my uncles one each, my mom's best friend one, etc.) and keep hearing about ever-increasing divorce statistics that I've long since lost faith in the concept, so granted I'm biased to begin with. The latest gay marriage situation in California further left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I swore I'd boycott marriage in favor of civil unions until marriage is available to everyone. But then I wondered... why do it even then? Aside from enriching DeBeers, what are the pros of the whole idea?

I'm cautiously open-minded and I'm definitely listening, so please share your thoughts.

[Reply]

There's a similar thread in GD (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=508457), but that one is more about letting everyone get married whereas this one is about letting no one be married. Instead of expanding the rights to some arbitrary type of human-human/human-anything relationship, can the same rights (financial benefits, medical decision-making, citizenship, etc.) be need- or merit-based, not relationship-based (and if a recipient must be specified, allow it regardless of relationship)?

[Czarcasm]

Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.

[ShibbOleth]

I think it makes sense that marriage, as most people think of it, be a religious /spiritual ceremony with absolutely no legal implications.

Then allow people to enter into civil unions that may be defined however they like; most can be covered with a standard contract, others may set up custom contracts as fit their situation. Then these relationships will be covered by contract law instead of current law. This allows heterosexual, homosexual and various polyamorous situations to be covered, or not, as people see fit.

It also would require a contract up front and (more) clearly understanding what legal situations they are getting into.

"I, Shibb, being of sound mind, do enter into this contractual relationship with (name), hereafter referred to as Mrs. Shibb, foresaking all others (see subsection C, clause I on Infidelity)..."

[suranyi]

No. Maybe it should be expanded (e.g. to include gay marriages), but it should not be eliminated.

Ed

[Lightnin']

No. Maybe it should be expanded (e.g. to include gay marriages), but it should not be eliminated.


Um... care to expand on that, suranyi?

Personally, I think that the legal aspects of marriage should be completely replaced by civil union contracts. If a couple wants to get married, they just file a copy of their contract. If a couple wants to get married in a church, they just file a copy of their contract and then have their ceremony performed by the appropriate religious leader.

Sadly, I think this is an uphill battle- because this will just give the other side an emotional banner: "They want to destroy marriage!"

Sigh.

[suranyi]

Um... care to expand on that, suranyi?

Personally, I think that the legal aspects of marriage should be completely replaced by civil union contracts. If a couple wants to get married, they just file a copy of their contract. If a couple wants to get married in a church, they just file a copy of their contract and then have their ceremony performed by the appropriate religious leader.

Sadly, I think this is an uphill battle- because this will just give the other side an emotional banner: "They want to destroy marriage!"

Sigh.

People may want to be married by the state, not by any church or other organization. For example, by a judge. That's extremely common nowadays. Your proposal would make the ceremony with a judge into something qualitatively different from that performed at a church, say. I don't think people would want that.

Beyond that, I want the state to recognize that I am married.

I think I'm far from alone in this feeling.

P.S. I'm not on the other side: I'm in favor of gay marriage. I'n in favor of ALL marriages.

Ed

[Brown Eyed Girl]

Personally, I think that the legal aspects of marriage should be completely replaced by civil union contracts. If a couple wants to get married, they just file a copy of their contract. If a couple wants to get married in a church, they just file a copy of their contract and then have their ceremony performed by the appropriate religious leader.

Isn't that what they're doing with a marriage license? I don't really see the point of requiring a contract up front. I can tell you that having been married for almost eleven years, I would not have anticipated how we would have grown together and some of the things that were important to us when we married are all but forgotten. Some of the things that are important to us were born out of the marriage and would not have been considered at the time we were married.

Finally, I don't think our marriage requires any written guidelines or rules. We seem to be operating just fine without a written contract. So have my parents who are in their 39th year of their first and only marriage.

The fact that it doesn't work out this way for everyone is not an indication that there's something wrong with legal marriage itself. I would say that the secret to a long-lived marriage is marrying the right person for you, understanding that your mate is as human as you are, and nurturing the relationship so when you grow into different people as you age, you grow together.

But hey, I also don't think marriage necessarily has to be forever if the parties don't want it to be. What's wrong with enjoying what works for as long as it works and moving on when it stops working? It's part of emotional growth, isn't it?

[Lightnin']

People may want to be married by the state, not by any church or other organization. For example, by a judge. That's extremely common nowadays. Your proposal would make the ceremony with a judge into something qualitatively different from that performed at a church, say. I don't think people would want that.

Beyond that, I want the state to recognize that I am married.

I think I'm far from alone in this feeling.

P.S. I'm not on the other side: I'm in favor of gay marriage. I'n in favor of ALL marriages.


Actually, I didn't say anything about a judge. Why would a judge even be involved? All you're doing is filing a contract. If you want a ceremony, you can have one- but it wouldn't be necessary.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I think that all civil unions should simply be contracts between two people (or more, if the details can be sufficiently hammered out). File the paperwork, and poof- you're "married" just as much as anyone traditionally married is now.

If you WANT a religious aspect to it, file the paperwork and then have a ceremony in your church. Heck, just sign the papers at your church and have them send it in after they perform the ceremony. Poof- you're married.

There's no difference between the two. All it does is remove the religious aspects from the secular. The two do not contradict each other. This way, an atheist couple is just as married as a theist couple. A gay couple is just as married as a straight couple. The only difference is that the theist couple had a ceremony in a church.

[Lightnin']

Isn't that what they're doing with a marriage license?

There's nothing wrong with marriage, except that at its roots it's a religious institution, which means that homosexuals can't get married because it somehow damages existing marriages. Replacing all (future) marriages with civil unions changes nothing- except that now the various churches have no say in who can or can't get married.

Alternately, allow anyone to get married to anyone. However, as Prop 8 showed us, this isn't acceptable to some people.

Requiring two separate but equal institutions (traditional marriage and civil unions) is making things overly complicated- and "separate but equal" never seems to stay "equal".

[Malthus]

Is marriage as a legally-recognized institution with certain rights not provided to the non-married socially desireable? In my opinion, it is.

The reason is quite simple: it is socially desireable to foster existing long-term sexual, romantic familial relationships between two adult people, for a whole host of reasons:

- for those with children, such long-term relationships have on average a positive effect on childhood development, care and nurture;

- for those with or without children, such long-term relationships have on average a positive effect on care and nurture of *each other* (a married partner is more likely to care for a sick, injured, depressed, or otherwise in difficulties person than an friend or collegue);

- It acts as a pooling of risk, to an extent. My wife lost her job in the recession but it wasn't a disaster for her because I didn't.

The other forms of relationship are all very well, but they do not perform these functions, or not to the same extent. I have a very good friend and if she was out of work I'd help out, but I would not share my last dollar with her as I would my wife; she doesn't help raise my kid; and if I get sick I can expect her to visit every day or so - not stay by my bedside feeding me soup.

The exceptions are long-term committed relationships, and they already have some recognized aspects of "marriage" (i.e. "common law") - and of course committed gay partners, which CAN be married in my jurisdiction and SHOULD have the right to marry everywhere (in my opinion), *precisely* because they, too, fill these functions.

[Brown Eyed Girl]

There's nothing wrong with marriage, except that at its roots it's a religious institution, which means that homosexuals can't get married because it somehow damages existing marriages. Replacing all (future) marriages with civil unions changes nothing- except that now the various churches have no say in who can or can't get married.

Well, it should come as no surprise that I disagree with this. It doesn't (or at least shouldn't) matter a bit whether marriage is rooted in religious tradition or if there was some non-religious marital equivalent prior to written history. The fact is that due to the tendency for humans to treat one another unfairly, marriage was co-opted as a legal contract wholly separate from any spiritual overtones. The government doesn't see religious unions any differently than non-religious unions so long as they file their marriage license and follow all the rules to legalize the union.

The only people that think that same-sex marriage is damaging to opposite-sex marriage are the people who are eager to inject religious-based morality into civil life. Stop associating the legal contractual marriage with the religious spiritual marriage. They aren't the same and the church has no business interfering with the state's rule of law. The church can't say who can and can't get legally married, and they should mind their own damn business.

[Brown Eyed Girl]

Requiring two separate but equal institutions (traditional marriage and civil unions) is making things overly complicated- and "separate but equal" never seems to stay "equal".

This, of course, I completely agree with. However, if they do decide to try this crappy alternative, I'd be fully inclined to have my own marriage redefined as a civil union (if my husband was so equally inclined), just to muddle things up further. There's no way in hell I'm going to align myself with hateful people.

[suranyi]

Actually, I didn't say anything about a judge. Why would a judge even be involved? All you're doing is filing a contract. If you want a ceremony, you can have one- but it wouldn't be necessary.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I think that all civil unions should simply be contracts between two people (or more, if the details can be sufficiently hammered out). File the paperwork, and poof- you're "married" just as much as anyone traditionally married is now.

If you WANT a religious aspect to it, file the paperwork and then have a ceremony in your church. Heck, just sign the papers at your church and have them send it in after they perform the ceremony. Poof- you're married.

There's no difference between the two. All it does is remove the religious aspects from the secular. The two do not contradict each other. This way, an atheist couple is just as married as a theist couple. A gay couple is just as married as a straight couple. The only difference is that the theist couple had a ceremony in a church.

Now I really don't understand you. Do you think atheists can't get married now? There are lots of atheist married couples around right at this moment, and they are just as married as any couple that got married in a Catholic church. There already is no necessary connection between marriage and religion. What there is, is a connection between marriage and the state. And I think that should be kept.

Ed

[runcible spoon]

Okay, so we've gone over the replace-marriabe-with-civil-unions before, but what about just flat out no marriage? To be more precise, any marriage you want, but the government doesn't give a damn. Not that I think this is either a) practical or b) necessarily good, but what would be the consequences? Now, I'm not married, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm surely missing certain things, but here's what I see for the current effects of marriage:

Custody of children - AIUI, biology counts, but marriage counts too. Also for child support, occasionally from what I've heard.

1) Tax effects - don't know what they are, but I know there are changes in how you file.

2) Visitation rights in hospitals and such - I don't know if this is a legal issue or hospital policy.

3) Health insurance/other benefits - adding spouses to policies and the like.

4) Wills/living wills - who gets what, who gets to decide what after you're (brain)dead.

I guess my real question is, why is the government involved in most of this stuff? Taxes are the only really necessarily-governmental issue, and I wonder if we really need to change tax laws based on marriage. What are the pros and cons?

For the rest, I see them as primarily legal issues - a will or living will could clarify who gets what rights, and I don't see a pressing reason why the government needs to be involved in the rest. Leave insurance and hospital issues up to the individual institutions, or if necessary, let anyone specify a designated visitor/emergency contact/insurance recipient.

Of course, the change would be a huge bureaucratic mess, and the benefits probably don't outweigh the drawbacks, but are there any inherent reasons that the government ought to recognize only one kind of relationship? To me, it's about on par with the government issuing 'friendship licenses' that change your tax status.

[suranyi]

Why are the ones arguing for the elimination of marriage precisely the ones that aren't married?

Ed

[runcible spoon]

Why are the ones arguing for the elimination of marriage precisely the ones that aren't married?

Ed

Because we don't have a stake in the continuance of the institution?

[ShibbOleth]

Why are the ones arguing for the elimination of marriage precisely the ones that aren't married?

Ed

I'm married and I think it's a bit ridiculous. We mainly got married for the tax benefit and so my company would shell out benefits for her during a relocation.

[Malthus]

Okay, so we've gone over the replace-marriabe-with-civil-unions before, but what about just flat out no marriage? To be more precise, any marriage you want, but the government doesn't give a damn. Not that I think this is either a) practical or b) necessarily good, but what would be the consequences? Now, I'm not married, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm surely missing certain things, but here's what I see for the current effects of marriage:

Custody of children - AIUI, biology counts, but marriage counts too. Also for child support, occasionally from what I've heard.

1) Tax effects - don't know what they are, but I know there are changes in how you file.

2) Visitation rights in hospitals and such - I don't know if this is a legal issue or hospital policy.

3) Health insurance/other benefits - adding spouses to policies and the like.

4) Wills/living wills - who gets what, who gets to decide what after you're (brain)dead.

I guess my real question is, why is the government involved in most of this stuff? Taxes are the only really necessarily-governmental issue, and I wonder if we really need to change tax laws based on marriage. What are the pros and cons?

For the rest, I see them as primarily legal issues - a will or living will could clarify who gets what rights, and I don't see a pressing reason why the government needs to be involved in the rest. Leave insurance and hospital issues up to the individual institutions, or if necessary, let anyone specify a designated visitor/emergency contact/insurance recipient.

Of course, the change would be a huge bureaucratic mess, and the benefits probably don't outweigh the drawbacks, but are there any inherent reasons that the government ought to recognize only one kind of relationship? To me, it's about on par with the government issuing 'friendship licenses' that change your tax status.

I think aside from taxes and entitlement to gov't programs and the like, most of that stuff can in fact be done through living wills etc.

The "rights" of marriage legally speaking seem to me mostly like a lot of what you might call "safety net" rights: stuff that can kick in if you lack the means or incentive to plan out in detail this sort of thing with your lawyer (and how many people have a lawyer on call? Many do and many more don't).

[Lightnin']

Now I really don't understand you. Do you think atheists can't get married now? There are lots of atheist married couples around right at this moment, and they are just as married as any couple that got married in a Catholic church. There already is no necessary connection between marriage and religion. What there is, is a connection between marriage and the state. And I think that should be kept.



Sure, atheists can get married. However, if there's anything that Prop 8 taught us, it's that theists believe marriage belongs to them. Separating the religious aspects of marriage from the secular aspects will remove their ability to bitch when marriage gets "redefined". Allowing civil unions (through the state) with non-binding marriages (through their choice of church) resolves the situation nicely, without the church complaining when the state changes the rules and allows non-traditional marriages. The church would be free to say, "Homosexuals can't marry", but would be prevented from telling homosexuals that they don't get the rights that civil unions would allow.

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept.

And, for the record, I've been married for eleven years now.

[suranyi]

Sure, atheists can get married. However, if there's anything that Prop 8 taught us, it's that theists believe marriage belongs to them. Separating the religious aspects of marriage from the secular aspects will remove their ability to bitch when marriage gets "redefined". Allowing civil unions (through the state) with non-binding marriages (through their choice of church) resolves the situation nicely, without the church complaining when the state changes the rules and allows non-traditional marriages. The church would be free to say, "Homosexuals can't marry", but would be prevented from telling homosexuals that they don't get the rights that civil unions would allow.

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept.

And, for the record, I've been married for eleven years now.

It's not a difficult concept at all. Your proposal would achieve your aims, which would be to drive a wedge between the state and the word "marriage", because in your eyes that word has been tainted with religion.

The problem is that people want to be married. They don't want to enter into a "civil union", which strikes most people as a fake marriage. In California, for example, gay people can already enter into civil unions which are almost the equivalent of marriages. But they want marriage, and I don't blame them. The word carries meaning and history with it.

I don't give a damn what theists think. I don't give a damn what any church thinks. I want to be in a marriage, not a civil union.

Ed

[Bookkeeper]

There's nothing wrong with marriage, except that at its roots it's a religious institution, which means that homosexuals can't get married because it somehow damages existing marriages. Replacing all (future) marriages with civil unions changes nothing- except that now the various churches have no say in who can or can't get married.

Alternately, allow anyone to get married to anyone. However, as Prop 8 showed us, this isn't acceptable to some people.

Requiring two separate but equal institutions (traditional marriage and civil unions) is making things overly complicated- and "separate but equal" never seems to stay "equal".

Actually, from the POV of the Christian religion, the church's original position on marriage was that it was a secular legal issue, not a religious issue. The local priest would happily bless your union if you wanted, much the same as he would bless your new fishing boat at launching, but it wasn't until 5-600 years ago that the church decided that marriages had to be performed by a priest.

[begbert2]

There's nothing wrong with marriage, except that at its roots it's a religious institution, which means that homosexuals can't get married because it somehow damages existing marriages. Replacing all (future) marriages with civil unions changes nothing- except that now the various churches have no say in who can or can't get married.Woah woah woah - since when is marriage a religious institution? Sure, lots and lots of people solemnize it before their preferred god or gods, but what it basically is is a social partnering of two individuals into a union in which they share their life, property, bed, and children (if any). It is an institution that suffers not in the slightest from changes in religion or removal of religion (or weren't there marriages in communist russia?). Really, it's no more a religious institution than eating meals became a religious institution when people started praying over them. It's a social institution, and that's that.

That being the case, the only sensible arguments against it would have to be secular - so far those have been very poor against gays marriage, tending to be slightly stronger against incest, somewhat stronger regarding polygamy (mostly due to complications involved), and ranging to the extremely solid against marriage to minors, pets, and household appliances. (The lack of good secular arguments against gays in particular really bothers those religious people who happen to also be bigots, of course.)

As for disbanding marriage entirely as an institution, I can't see a reason to attempt to do it. If you did, everyone would declare themselves to be married anyway, whether by the authority of a church or by their own will, and the main difference would be that the doors would be opened for insurance companies and hospitals and the like to pick and choose which marriages not to recognize. How often this would be abused, I cannot say - but it would surely complicate things legally speaking.

If your goals are to remove extra government benefits and conditions for married couples, you could theoretically attempt to alter those benefits and conditions directly. It would have to be simpler than getting any politician to denounce marriage as an institution.

If your goal would be to slip gays past the bigoted religious opposition to them being married, I'm doubtful it would help. Each religion would fall back on god as backing their marriages, and recognize the marriages of other religions, and probably even the self-declared secular marriages of types they approved of. But they would still refuse to accept or recognize gay self-declared marriages or treat the partners as they normally would treat married couples.

[Voyager]

It's not a difficult concept at all. Your proposal would achieve your aims, which would be to drive a wedge between the state and the word "marriage", because in your eyes that word has been tainted with religion.

The problem is that people want to be married. They don't want to enter into a "civil union", which strikes most people as a fake marriage. In California, for example, gay people can already enter into civil unions which are almost the equivalent of marriages. But they want marriage, and I don't blame them. The word carries meaning and history with it.

I don't give a damn what theists think. I don't give a damn what any church thinks. I want to be in a marriage, not a civil union.

Ed

Not only that, but the moment we cede marriage to the churches the nasty ones will start trying to do away with civil unions too. I got married in a nice ceremony with no mention of god or religion. I'm with you, I don't want theists to take that away from me.

[Voyager]

Okay, so we've gone over the replace-marriabe-with-civil-unions before, but what about just flat out no marriage? To be more precise, any marriage you want, but the government doesn't give a damn. Not that I think this is either a) practical or b) necessarily good, but what would be the consequences? Now, I'm not married, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm surely missing certain things, but here's what I see for the current effects of marriage:

Custody of children - AIUI, biology counts, but marriage counts too. Also for child support, occasionally from what I've heard.

1) Tax effects - don't know what they are, but I know there are changes in how you file.

2) Visitation rights in hospitals and such - I don't know if this is a legal issue or hospital policy.

3) Health insurance/other benefits - adding spouses to policies and the like.

4) Wills/living wills - who gets what, who gets to decide what after you're (brain)dead.

I guess my real question is, why is the government involved in most of this stuff? Taxes are the only really necessarily-governmental issue, and I wonder if we really need to change tax laws based on marriage. What are the pros and cons?

You left out the most important one, in common property states like California, at least, which is the sharing of assets as befits a long term relationship. The readiness to do this, as the default, is the think distinguishing marriages from civil unions or less. It is not something to be entered into lightly, which is the point.

I'm for civil unions today, as a stopgap until gays are allowed to marry, as they should. After marriage is available to anyone, I'd have no problem with doing away with them as unnecessary. I'm also for letting a couple marry themselves, as in Pennsylvania. The license is the important part, not who says the words.

[Chase Ransom]

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I've seen so many failed marriages (my dad has two, my mom one, my uncles one each, my mom's best friend one, etc.) and keep hearing about ever-increasing divorce statistics that I've long since lost faith in the concept, so granted I'm biased to begin with.

AFAIAC, the high rate of divorce isn't a direct portrayal of marriage as an institution. It is just a reflection of the amount of people who probably should have never been married to begin with, plus some that due to circumstances, just didn't make it.

To say that the institution of marriage is void of validity due to the rate of divorce is like saying that law school, or med school, is worthless because they have such a high rate of people who ultimately don't finish the career or don't pass the tests.

That having been said, there really is not much disparity between being married and having a civil union contract. So basically, you would have a lot of defaulted civil union contracts. The vehicle has changed, but the passengers are still the same.

Additionally, I don't see why all people, as long as they are both consenting adults and of an age proper to make that choice, shouldn't be allowed to participate in marriage, civil union, or what not. Poligamy = if it works for you, fine. Marrying my cat? No, my cat can't be considered a consenting adult.

[Lightnin']

Woah woah woah - since when is marriage a religious institution? Sure, lots and lots of people solemnize it before their preferred god or gods, but what it basically is is a social partnering of two individuals into a union in which they share their life, property, bed, and children (if any).

Then why were the most vocal proponents of Prop 8 the religious?

Don't get me wrong- I think the best solution by far is to simply allow anyone to marry anyone (assuming, of course, that all parties are consenting and able to give consent). However, if that's going to be fought tooth-and-nail, then I say we do the legal equivalent of taking our ball home. "You say that your God doesn't approve of homosexuality, and because of that you won't let gays marry? Fine. Nobody gets married- everyone now gets civil unions, which we CAN construct in a manner that's fair to everyone."

So to sum up:
Best solution- anyone can marry anyone.
Second best solution- nobody can marry anyone, at least not in a state-sanctioned manner, so that theists can't restrict it to only those people they agree with.
Unacceptable- marriage for normal people, "civil unions" for you dirty perverted heathens.

[Hari Seldon]

Why are the ones arguing for the elimination of marriage precisely the ones that aren't married?

Ed

Ah, I have been married for 45 years and I think the trouble is that the state cannot decide if it is a religious or civil institution. What I would advocate is that there be an institution of civil union, certified by the state in terms of a licence, an optional pre-nuptial agreement and so on. Abrogating this union (aka divorce) would be the same as abrogating any other contract. If the parties agree, fine, if not it could get very messy, as it can right now. Meantime, if the parties want a religious ceremony, that is their business, having nothing to do with the government. If their church forbids divorce, that is their problem, but the state can still recognize the end of the agreement.

Currently no law in the US that I am aware of makes any provision for multi-party agreements and it is not clear how income-splitting (for tax purposes) would work in such cases, nor how intestate laws could accomodate this kind of thing. A problem, but not insuperable, I would think. Perhaps the state would require a pre-nuptial agreement and a will in such cases before recognizing the situation.

[wsbenge]

Marraige isn't really doing so well, actually. My wife and I were the only parents not divorced at least once, in my daughter's grade school classmates.

All of my siblings have been divorced.

My uncle was married 5 times, 3 times to the same woman. He was behind the pulpit when my brother declared himself for Christ. Religious affiliation, or lack there of, doesn't seem to matter, in my near circle.

Marraige does give children some legal stability.

[begbert2]

Then why were the most vocal proponents of Prop 8 the religious?'Cause some of them have a religious 'problem' with gay people. Which doesn't make marriage a religious institution, any more than their opposition to abortion makes natural childbirth in mammals a religious institution.


Don't get me wrong- I think the best solution by far is to simply allow anyone to marry anyone (assuming, of course, that all parties are consenting and able to give consent). However, if that's going to be fought tooth-and-nail, then I say we do the legal equivalent of taking our ball home. "You say that your God doesn't approve of homosexuality, and because of that you won't let gays marry? Fine. Nobody gets married- everyone now gets civil unions, which we CAN construct in a manner that's fair to everyone."

So to sum up:
Best solution- anyone can marry anyone.
Second best solution- nobody can marry anyone, at least not in a state-sanctioned manner, so that theists can't restrict it to only those people they agree with.
Unacceptable- marriage for normal people, "civil unions" for you dirty perverted heathens.I'm curious about who you think the "we" are that are going to take our ball and go home - there are lots more people who would oppose that than who would vote for Prop 8, and prop 8 passed.

And if you actually got the government to say "Nobody gets married", those religious people would laugh in their face. They'd still consider themselves married, becuase they would still have their churches backing them and solemnizing them. They'd lose their tax benefits but would rapidly find ways to restore the rest of their benefits - assuming that hospitals and the like even paused in recognizing religious marriages.

The only people who you would hurt by disbanding marriage at the government level would be those with purely civil marriages, and those who wanted to be married civily - the majority of whom aren't even the people you want to punish anyway. Such people would be forced to try and piggyback on some religion's marriage recognition, further cementing the seemingly religious nature of marriages that you're trying to get rid of.

I fully agree that "marriage for us, civil unions for them if we must" is a terrible way to do things, but what you are proposing is literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater - to the degree that it didn't actually backfire on you.

[suranyi]

Marraige isn't really doing so well, actually. My wife and I were the only parents not divorced at least once, in my daughter's grade school classmates.

All of my siblings have been divorced.

My uncle was married 5 times, 3 times to the same woman. He was behind the pulpit when my brother declared himself for Christ. Religious affiliation, or lack there of, doesn't seem to matter, in my near circle.

Marraige does give children some legal stability.

I also have a family anecdote: There have been no divorces, ever, in my entire extended family. And no, we are not religious.

Ed

[Lightnin']

I fully agree that "marriage for us, civil unions for them if we must" is a terrible way to do things, but what you are proposing is literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater - to the degree that it didn't actually backfire on you.

Fine, so YOU suggest a solution.

Marriage for everyone won't work- at least not for a while. It's apparently too precious to allow just anyone to do it.
Civil Unions? How do you avoid the "separate but equal" problem?

[begbert2]

Fine, so YOU suggest a solution.

Marriage for everyone won't work- at least not for a while. It's apparently too precious to allow just anyone to do it.
Civil Unions? How do you avoid the "separate but equal" problem?Dude, by the time you can get "Have the government ban all marriages" to work, I can get "Have the federal government legalize marriage between any concievable combination of willing adults" to work. Given that to ban the institution you will have to achieved mind control over the politicians, after all.

(And it wouldn't take but one activist supreme court decision to really change the playing field regarding gay marriage. What are the odds of them banning marriage, do you think?)

[Voyager]

Marraige isn't really doing so well, actually. My wife and I were the only parents not divorced at least once, in my daughter's grade school classmates.

All of my siblings have been divorced.

My uncle was married 5 times, 3 times to the same woman. He was behind the pulpit when my brother declared himself for Christ. Religious affiliation, or lack there of, doesn't seem to matter, in my near circle.

Marraige does give children some legal stability.

Anecdotes are not evidence. In fact, the divorce rate is going down:
From here (http://www.divorcereform.org/rates.html#anchor1135037)

Per capita divorce rates 1990-2002:
1991, 0.47%
1992, 0.48%
1993, 0.46%
1994, 0.46%
1995, 0.46%
1995, 0.43%
1997, 0.43%,
1998, 0.42%,
1999, 0.41%,
2000, 0.41%,
2001, 0.40%,
2002, 0.38%

I think it must be due to the good example set by the Clintons. :p

Please, we are in GD, right?

[Voyager]

Fine, so YOU suggest a solution.

Marriage for everyone won't work- at least not for a while. It's apparently too precious to allow just anyone to do it.
Civil Unions? How do you avoid the "separate but equal" problem?

Sigh. The solution to school segregation was not to abolish the classroom and send everyone off to be home-schooled. It was a dual approach of improving the quality of the separate but unequal schools until the country got behind integration. And some parts of the country took a long time to get over it.

[wsbenge]

Anecdotes are ... fun, I suppose. We all have some.

I don't think these types of issues are debatable so much as they are discussable.

Marraige is rather easy to establish, and abolish. The emotional carnage is incredible.

[Beware of Doug]

Don't sweat emotional carnage. It's the currency of humanity.

I think marriage can be salvaged, but only if we make it purely and exclusively about two things: a. money, b. power, or c. some combination of a and b.

(I'm leaving out religion because I don't think it's relevant or meaningful any longer, and if it is, it probably ought not be.)

[ShibbOleth]

Sigh. The solution to school segregation was not to abolish the classroom and send everyone off to be home-schooled. It was a dual approach of improving the quality of the separate but unequal schools until the country got behind integration. And some parts of the country took a long time to get over it.

School desegregation is still a thorny issue and the solution has probably caused almost as many problems as it cured.

Schools desegregate brought on or helped instigate:

White flight
Further ghetto-ization of minority groups
fights over school vouchers and funding for public schools
urban sprawl (bad traffic, air pollution, global warming)

Atlanta is a prime example of these problems, but they hold true for many if not most urban areas.

[Voyager]

School desegregation is still a thorny issue and the solution has probably caused almost as many problems as it cured.

Schools desegregate brought on or helped instigate:

White flight
Further ghetto-ization of minority groups
fights over school vouchers and funding for public schools
urban sprawl (bad traffic, air pollution, global warming)

Atlanta is a prime example of these problems, but they hold true for many if not most urban areas.

Many cities with white flight never had official segregation, only de facto segregation, so government mandated desegregation can't be blamed. I think there is a lot less ghettoization today than when I was a kid, in the sense there are more opportunities for those with money. As for urban sprawl, that is more a function of the interstate highway system and expansion into the suburbs thanks to the Baby Boom.

Making marriage equitable is not going to eliminate discrimination based on sexual preference, not in the short run anyhow.

[runcible spoon]

You left out the most important one, in common property states like California, at least, which is the sharing of assets as befits a long term relationship. The readiness to do this, as the default, is the think distinguishing marriages from civil unions or less. It is not something to be entered into lightly, which is the point.

Can you explain this, please? I couldn't find anything that wasn't way over my head on wikipedia. Is it just to do with how the state treats ownership of property?

Anyways, I think the issue of whether marriage is religious is a red herring - the point (well, my point, anyways :p) is that the government isn't involved in legislating any other social relationships. Why marriage? I'm approaching this more from a utilitarian standpoint, with libertarian streaks: unless there's a demonstrable benefit to society from the government being involved, I'd rather they just left it up to individuals.

[davekhps]

A few thoughts.

Regardless of whether it is in *the state's* interest to recognize, promote & incentivize marriage, it is undoubtedly in *society's* interest.

Children do better with two parents. This can be possibly be gender-neutral-- but we *definitely* know that two parents are best, and biologically, the easiest route to two parents is the same one we've followed for quite a few million years.

Women do better when married. Single motherhood is a blight on society. It may be a tragedy, it may be a choice, but economically and culturally, it is a feedback-loop disaster for children raised in these environments.

Society does better with married, i.e. unavailable men. Crime rates are lower, illegitimacy rates are lower, economic performance is more equitable across socio-economic strata.

Want to see poverty in the Western world? Single parents raising children. Want to see lack of education in the Western world? Single parents raising children. Want to see high crime rates in the Western world? Single parents raising children. Again, and again, and again-- society's greatest ills can be found at the foot of broken marriages (or marriages that never happen to begin with).

Now, I do not believe that it's the fault of people trying to redefine marriage to include them in the definition. "The Gays" aren't destroying marriage-- heterosexuals have done that just fine, thank you very much. "No fault" divorce is the most obvious reason. Yes, it's terrible and surely immoral to keep an abusive marriage together for any reason, even "for the children"-- but those few instances where "no fault" divorce fixed that problem also opened the floodgates for *anyone* to get divorced, no matter what the reason. And once the cultural sanctity & integrity of the institution was damaged, the cracks allowed all sorts of corruption.

Bottom line: marriage has NEVER been about love. It sanctified an economic arrangement to ensure the most stable child-rearing environment-- and simultaneously, get males off the competitive marketplace for women (i.e., there's still a huge benefit to heterosexual marriage *even when* no children are produced-- those are now men who are not off fathering illegitimate children with multiple women, and a stronger economic unit is formed in a marriage).

We used to live in a culture where marriage was easy, but divorce was hard. Now we live in one where marriage is hard-- insofar as everyone thinks it's a much bigger step than they used to think, so they wait for it-- but divorce is easy. That's a new place for us all.

IMHO, the answer to marriage-- or, more accurately, establishing enduring and stable two-parent families-- is NOT to define away the institution for heterosexual couples. The legal benefits of marriage, the "contractual" stuff-- perhaps there's a good reason to apply that to other parties. I don't see how extending, say, hospital visitation rights and insurance benefits to homosexual couples hurts anyone.

That said, anyone looking to expand marriage must first find a way to *salvage* marriage. It's not about love-- any two people can fall in love. It's literally about the children, folks, and giving them an environment far more stable than "Let's get divorced tomorrow" or "We're breaking up, who takes Timmy & Sally?"

I don't know how we turn the clock back here. It's probably too late-- we've all grown more secular (nobody quite fears God like they used to), and we all live in a selfish culture that says our own individual happiness, however defined, is the most important thing in the whole wide world.

Maybe the answer is as simple as this: if gay people want to get married so much, fine, let them have it. . . the rest of us ruined it anyway, you're only getting useless garbage now.

[wsbenge]

Bottom line: marriage has NEVER been about love. It sanctified an economic arrangement to ensure the most stable child-rearing environment-- and simultaneously, get males off the competitive marketplace for women (i.e., there's still a huge benefit to heterosexual marriage *even when* no children are produced-- those are now men who are not off fathering illegitimate children with multiple women, and a stronger economic unit is formed in a marriage).


Most people don't realize this, love is generally considered infatuation. "I am disenchanted for some reason, so I divorce you. We fell out of love."

People get married for the wrong reasons, and get divorced even easier.

Marraige has outlived its integrity, for many reasons.

[begbert2]

Women do better when married. Single motherhood is a blight on society. It may be a tragedy, it may be a choice, but economically and culturally, it is a feedback-loop disaster for children raised in these environments.This should be single parents do better when married. Single childless women are fine, and single men with children are tragic.

Your implication that women exist only to be mothers is disturbing.

That said, anyone looking to expand marriage must first find a way to *salvage* marriage. It's not about love-- any two people can fall in love. It's literally about the children, folks, and giving them an environment far more stable than "Let's get divorced tomorrow" or "We're breaking up, who takes Timmy & Sally?"It's also about "We're breaking up, who gets the house?" And "We're married, so your family can't take all our stuff away from me when you die." And numerous other things.

Claiming it's "literally about the children" ignores the fact that it's about whole piles of things, of which children are only one part - and pisses on marriages, even hetero marriages, that don't have children or whose children have grown up and left. Marriage is a partnership, and all that implies; even if there's nary a child in sight.

I don't know how we turn the clock back here. It's probably too late-- we've all grown more secular (nobody quite fears God like they used to), and we all live in a selfish culture that says our own individual happiness, however defined, is the most important thing in the whole wide world.If fear of God is all that kept marriages together, then they were nothing but a sham to start with. And yes, christians are as selfish as everybody else.

Maybe the answer is as simple as this: if gay people want to get married so much, fine, let them have it. . . the rest of us ruined it anyway, you're only getting useless garbage now.Couples ruin their own marriages; this doesn't make the institution useless garbage for those that still value it.

[Beware of Doug]

Society can't incentivize marriage - at least not for both sexes at once. Men have to have gainful employment before they can be marriageable, and American society at least is never going to make it much easier for anybody who has problems finding or keeping work. So unless polygamy is to become widespread - many wives for fewer husbands - society can't incentivize marriage.

What society can do is penalize the single. It already does so in many ways, but not systematically. The message would be, "You really ought to be married, but we can't help you. And if you can't or don't want to, expect to pay a price." It would be an understatement to say this would not be well received. And you really don't want to mobilize singletons into a cohesive bloc.

I still believe that marriage, American marriage anyway, is a function of the market economy. It involves concepts like supply and demand, buyers' and sellers' markets, marginal utility, and commodities. Sex, for instance, is a commodity. We ought to quit pretending it's anything else.

[Voyager]

Most people don't realize this, love is generally considered infatuation. "I am disenchanted for some reason, so I divorce you. We fell out of love."

People get married for the wrong reasons, and get divorced even easier.

Marraige has outlived its integrity, for many reasons.

No one who has been happily married any length of time makes that mistake. Infatuation and love are too different things. If people got divorced after the infatuation wore off, the average length of a marriage would be a year. Though it returns from time to time.

[wsbenge]

No one who has been happily married any length of time makes that mistake. Infatuation and love are too different things. If people got divorced after the infatuation wore off, the average length of a marriage would be a year. Though it returns from time to time.

Two years, is more like it. It takes a while to even know someone that well, and people coast for quite a while.

I have met a few happily married people. They would probably be happy married, or unmarried, which may say a lot.