I, personally, could care less whether you’re married or not. The state, however, has an interest in determining if you’re married because the state so often plays a vital role in your “unmarriage.”
This is the principle difference between marriage and baptisms or bar mitzvahs or confirmations. You can’t become unconfirmed. You can’t annul your baptism. You don’t give back bar mitzvah presents if you convert to Christianity at 14. You can get divorced. Now how do you separate out who gets what?
If everyone could settle everything amicably, you probably wouldn’t need a marriage to be legally binding. But heck, if we’re gonna go there, you might as well say “If everyone could settle everything amicably, we wouldn’t need 90% of the government.” Technically it’s true, but realistically shit is going to hit the fan from time to time and people must be there to sift through the pieces of corn.
I don’t think marriage should be legally recognized either. (Parenthood, yes.)
People who, through choice or though legal ineligibility, are in relationships that are not marriages should not be barred from the same coverages and protections accorded to people who opt to marry. (In some cases, of course, they should retain the option of avoiding those coverages and protections insofar as they may not want them). End result: the set of applicable tangible results need to be separated from the institution, and the former made available to people who wish them but who do not wish marriage.
Marriage helps to stabilize our society (any society). It helps to create a predictable set of circumstances so that other things can be done (like creating empires and businesses, armies and such).
People need structure and routine. These things allow people to feel safe. When people feel safe, they can take risks, create, etc.
Beyond safety, people need purpose. Marriage also provides this. Of course other things can, but marriage is among the best. In fact, parenthood is the only other I can think of that provides a bigger sense of purpose; and that is best done in the most stable environment possible.
The more stable a society, the easier it is to govern.
Marrige is the NAME we have for what you descibe as a set of coverages and protections. You can choose or reject to be in a marriage (if you are two people of the opposite sex.)
What is the meaningful gain? You are suggesting that we reogranizing society so that people are allowed all the same benefits and responsiblitites but with a single differnce: we stop using the well-established term.
Others have established the many benefits to marriage. I’ll add on - when two people marry, my life is easier because I only have to deal with one human unit.
I’d say that, absent a compelling reason to abolish the legal status of marriage, it would cause more harm than good. There are good reasons why married folks have a different legal status then non-married folks… mainly that (in most cases) it changes their household income and their living arrangements. Without legal rules for this, it would quickly become an unmanageable mess. Since marriage is chiefly governed by the states in the U.S., it gives each state a chance to establish the rules and obligations for married people and single people.
So, abolish legal marriage at this point? I don’t think so… I don’t see a way that it could be done cleanly.
However, if you want to talk about expanding the legal definition of marriage to include more people more fairly, then I’m all for that. Always have been.
