# Let's Abolish the Institution of Marriage. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2013, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788 "2013-02-19T11:39:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/41 "2013-02-20T01:37:06Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > I’m pretty sure marriage, religion, and government all developed more or less simultaneously. Cite? (That they developed simultaneously, not that you’re pretty sure of it.) ---
**Author:** ![austerity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@austerity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/austerity)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/42 "2013-02-20T01:58:08Z")
Married people should not get any tax benefits or tax penalties. Getting married is a lifestyle choice which the government should not encourage or discourage through taxes. Why should I have to pay more (or less) taxes because I choose (or fail) to get married? ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/43 "2013-02-20T02:25:14Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Cite? (That they developed simultaneously, not that you’re pretty sure of it.) To be honest, I got nothing. All I can offer is that all three predate recorded history. If you want cites for that, give me some time to find something reliable. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/44 "2013-02-20T02:44:03Z")
> [@austerity](#): > > Married people should not get any tax benefits or tax penalties. Getting married is a lifestyle choice which the government should not encourage or discourage through taxes. > > Why should I have to pay more (or less) taxes because I choose (or fail) to get married? Seems fair to me. Now when called on to adjudicate property or child custody disputes, should the marital status of the parties be relevant to the proceedings? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/45 "2013-02-20T03:51:50Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Seems fair to me. Now when called on to adjudicate property or child custody disputes, should the marital status of the parties be relevant to the proceedings? Not to mention life/death medical decisions, beneficiaries, etc. ---
**Author:** ![austerity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@austerity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/austerity)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/46 "2013-02-20T03:57:53Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Seems fair to me. Now when called on to adjudicate property or child custody disputes, should the marital status of the parties be relevant to the proceedings? no, buying property or having children have nothing to do with marriage. ---
**Author:** ![austerity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@austerity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/austerity)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/47 "2013-02-20T03:58:53Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Not to mention life/death medical decisions, beneficiaries, etc. no, life/death medical decisions, beneficiaries, etc have nothing to do with marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/48 "2013-02-20T04:15:50Z")
> [@austerity](#): > > no, buying property or having children have nothing to do with marriage. […] > > no, life/death medical decisions, beneficiaries, etc have nothing to do with marriage. It may be your **personal** view of marriage that it’s got “nothing to do” with other major choices such as parenthood, property ownership, testamentary dispositions, etc. But it’s kind of ridiculous to try to argue that marriage as a **societal construct** has nothing to do with such things. For the vast majority of human societies from at least the dawn of history, marriage has been fundamentally connected with things like parenthood and property rights and so forth. People still speak of “getting married and starting a family”, for instance, because the official legal bond of marriage is considered to symbolize and reinforce the mutual commitment of shared parenthood. If you personally think that marriage and parenthood, for example, should be entirely unrelated lifestyle choices, that’s up to you. But claiming that the connection between them doesn’t even exist and society should just officially consider it meaningless, as other posters have noted, doesn’t even pass the laugh test. If you really want to argue that there’s no value for society or individuals in establishing a legal form of pair-bonding that makes sharing property and responsibilities easier for participants in a committed partnership, you’re going to have to do a lot better than just asserting that the two have nothing to do with each other. On the contrary, they’ve clearly got a LOT to do with each other. Just look around you to see how closely marriage is enmeshed with shared property and responsibilities between couples. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/49 "2013-02-20T05:03:06Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > And “five year renewable contracts” and so on were staples of science fiction written in the 50s and 60s. But the actual implementation of this idea in our existing society was to implement no fault divorce. What’s the point of a five year renewable marriage contract when you can divorce whenever you’re tired of seeing the other person’s ugly face? It used to be that you couldn’t get divorced, even if both parties wanted to divorce, without proving adultery or cruelty. And even in the case of adultery, the adulterous spouse couldn’t initiate a divorce, only the cheated-upon spouse could do that, and only by naming a particular third party as the cause of the divorce, and only by proving in court that the spouse and the third party actually committed adultery. From reading a few biographies of people from just before the no-fault-divorce era, I gather it was not always important to actually prove adultery, but just offer an uncontested possibility of adultery, i.e. wife checks into a hotel. Man who is not her husband visits her room. Later on in court, the husband’s attorney can ask her if she did indeed check into a hotel and if a man who was not her husband did indeed visit her room. The wife admits truthfully to both of these. She fails to mention and the husband’s attorney (as well as her own attorney) fails to ask any questions that might reveal that the visitor was there for ten seconds, that she and he never undressed nor had physical contact, and that the encounter was arranged in advance with the husband’s full knowledge. It’s a ruse, of course, to satisfy the bare-minimal legal requirements for a divorce, and the courts and lawyers played along. In states where “mental cruelty” was grounds for divorce, spouses would decide on what the most trivial, minimal “cruelty” one could have inflicted on the other, wink-wink… When it just became a matter of minimal hoop-jumping, it was time to recognize the whole exercise was pointless. No-fault is far more civilized. Heck, if people are adult enough to decide to get married, they’re adult enough to decide when the marriage is no longer wanted. To the OP’s premise specifically I have no comment. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/50 "2013-02-20T14:23:44Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > Marriage is like pitching. Just because most people are bad at it doesn’t mean it’s not a useful and beautiful thing when done well. Yes, and if there are any doubts in this thread. I’ve been happily married for 25 years. We have no children and my wife dotes on me like I’m here baby boy. I won’t kid you we also argue a lot. But there isn’t anybody I would rather argue with than her, she doesn’t back down an inch. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/51 "2013-02-20T14:32:23Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Yes, and if there are any doubts in this thread. I’ve been happily married for 25 years. We have no children and my wife dotes on me like I’m here baby boy. I won’t kid you we also argue a lot. But there isn’t anybody I would rather argue with than her, she doesn’t back down an inch. The woman is a living saint among us. I can only sympathize with her. And your argument for abolishing marriage is what then? ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/52 "2013-02-20T14:52:46Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > And your argument for abolishing marriage is what then? It really is down in SJ CA and I suspect in other urban areas of the country also. The SJ Superior Court Civil Docket is approximately 25% divorce cases. Now that’s ridiculous. In a state that is having trouble balancing their budget, why would they spend that much money and judicial resources when there are much more important problems out there that need a judge’s attention? So if you got rid of marriage, you wouldn’t have divorces. It’s a practical solution to a difficult problem. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/53 "2013-02-20T15:10:32Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > It really is down in SJ CA and I suspect in other urban areas of the country also. The SJ Superior Court Civil Docket is approximately 25% divorce cases. Now that’s ridiculous. In a state that is having trouble balancing their budget, why would they spend that much money and judicial resources when there are much more important problems out there that need a judge’s attention? > > So if you got rid of marriage, you wouldn’t have divorces. It’s a practical solution to a difficult problem. My local district court docket is at least 25% traffic violations, and Kentucky is also having trouble balancing its budget. To free up money and judicial resources, I propose that we abolish ownership of cars. It’s a practical solution to a difficult problem. Seriously, though, this seems like a massive change to make to our society just to save a few dollars in court costs. If this is your only opposition to encoding marriage in law, I am stunned that you feel it justifies abolishing marriage. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/54 "2013-02-20T15:14:53Z")
No it’s ridiculous, on the face of it. How is doing away with marriage, already codified under the law, including the rules for resolution, going to produce fewer disputes, when relationships end? That makes no sense whatsoever. Now there will be three different sets of rules for lawyers to exploit, and change up? And that somehow will consume less court time? You cannot be serious. If you don’t like abortion- don’t have one. If you don’t want to get married- don’t, nothing’s forcing you to, after all. The only change required to marriage is it needs to include same sex couples. If you believe in democracy then sometimes your opinion will not be in the majority. You’ll have to suck it up, that’s how it works. Like women did back when they couldn’t vote, access birth control, access abortion, or required a husband signature for things like surgery, etc. If women can suck it up for hundreds of years, you can do it to. The divorce rate won’t decrease because it’s no longer called a marriage. That’s flat out nonsensical, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/55 "2013-02-20T15:18:21Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > So if you got rid of marriage, you wouldn’t have divorces. It’s a practical solution to a difficult problem. Again, no it isn’t. You can file for a divorce without requiring judicial intervention in the court system. Judges get involved when people, being what they are, can’t agree on how to split up the family dog, etc. Whatever else you call a union of two people who share their assets and then come to the point of needing to split them up because the relationships ends, you would still need lawers and courts to make those decisions when grown ups don’t act like grown ups. So I am dubious about your reasoning. Be honest now… This is about the gays, isnt’ it? ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/56 "2013-02-20T15:24:45Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Be honest now… This is about the gays, isnt’ it? In a way and manner…the gays in CA are a major issue. On the one hand they are right, they should receive equal protection under the law. On the other hand the more conservative religious types are afraid that their kids will see two men holding hands. Sometimes, I don’t get these far-right religious types. They don’t worry about their kids seeing violent movies or playing with violent video games. But two men holding hands…the parents freak out. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/57 "2013-02-20T15:28:45Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > In a way and manner…the gays in CA are a major issue. On the one hand they are right, they should receive equal protection under the law. On the other hand the more conservative religious types are afraid that their kids will see two men holding hands. Sometimes, I don’t get these far-right religious types. They don’t worry about their kids seeing violent movies or playing with violent video games. But two men holding hands…the parents freak out. So - abolish religion or atleast ignore it fully when it comes to enacting/updating law type definitions - it should never be put to the ‘people’ an opportunity to restrict the rights of others based on ‘religous’ or ‘icky’ grounds. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/58 "2013-02-20T15:33:40Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > On the one hand they are right, they should receive equal protection under the law. On the other hand the more conservative religious types are afraid that their kids will see two men holding hands. Those two arguments are not of equal value, and should not be treated as such. Sometimes, one side of a dispute is just flatly wrong. This is one of those times. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/59 "2013-02-20T15:41:32Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Those two arguments are not of equal value, and should not be treated as such. Sometimes, one side of a dispute is just flatly wrong. This is one of those times. You’re right the gays are right on this issue. Perhaps a more productive solution would be just educating kids at the high school level. When I was in HS we had sex education classes, but that was really just about how to protect yourself from sexual diseases kind of thing. What would be more useful is to educate kids on what makes a relationship work. High schools are still too much into that Romeo Juliet type of thing. That isn’t realistic and parents don’t have the time to tell them differently. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788/60 "2013-02-20T15:47:29Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > You’re right the gays are right on this issue. > > Perhaps a more productive solution would be just educating kids at the high school level. When I was in HS we had sex education classes, but that was really just about how to protect yourself from sexual diseases kind of thing. What would be more useful is to educate kids on what makes a relationship work. > > High schools are still too much into that Romeo Juliet type of thing. That isn’t realistic and parents don’t have the time to tell them differently. Problem is, do we know what makes a relationship work? Just based on my personal experience, there’s so much individual variation in relationships that I’d be hard-pressed to name universal principles that could be taught. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-abolish-the-institution-of-marriage/650788.md?page=4)