Oh, hell, let's just scrap the whole legal definition of marriage and or family.

Great Debates
1

I’m going to start by saying I’m opposed to same-sex marriage, but my objections are purely religious, so, um, let’s not sidetrack the thread on that issue.

I"ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I have a few ideas that, if we could persuade society as a whole to swallow the following, I think it could be a workable proposition.

  1. Eliminate the idea of marriage as a public legal entity that requires a license and filing of a certificate with the state. with the actual ceremony performed by a person authorized by the state to do so (usually a judge or a minister who must be a pastor of an actual congregation.) Instead, let it become a private contract between two individuals (or more, if someone chooses, of their own free will, to enter into a polygamous relationship.) If the couple then wishes to have the marriage solemnized in a public religious ceremony, that would be extremely cool, since in many, if not most religions, marriage is seen as a spiritual covenant between the partners involved. Or they could have a ceremony performed by a friend in a Romulan starship commander’s uniform, with no concerns about whether the marriage would be legally valid because the state would have no say over who could or could not legally join a couple in holy matrimony. Churches or other religious bodies would then have the option of refusing to recognize the marriage as sacramentally valid, if the relationship violated their teachings on what constituted a valid marriage. If the couple just wanted to sign the contract in the lawyer’s office or at the kitchen table, then take all their friends out for dim sum to celebrate, that would be fine, too. Laws regarding sexual relationships between close relatives would remain intact, but since marriage would be a private contract. outside of restrictions against sleeping with your parent or sibling, the state would have no say over who could or could not legally marry.

  2. Expand (or eliminate) the legal definition of family. Many, if not most, folks consider close friends to be part of their family. For purposes of things like inheritance rights, visitation in the ICU at the hospital, taxes, etc. any two or more people who had been sharing a residence for a given period of time, say five years or so, would be considered “immediate family”, regardless of whether they had a marriage contract or shared a certain amount of DNA. Additionally, people who had a long-term friendship, could, in a pinch, be considered an immediate family member, and could do things such as sign consent forms for emergency medical treatment if the patient was unable to do so themselves and a close relative could not be reached.

  3. Remember common-law marriage? I think it still exists in some states. If a couple has been ahem cohabitating for a given period of time, they should be legally considered to be married, and have all the legal benefits of a married couple, such as employer-covered health insurance, being able to file joint tax returns, etc.

Think it could work?

2

I agree with eliminating marriage.
I’m divorced and I’ve come to resent all the things that were cheaper (like taxes and healthcare) for a couple than for two singles living together.

I’m never marrying again, but why should things cost more?

3

I guess my question would be why we should do these things. This idea of eliminating marriage as a legal concept keeps coming up in the gay marriage debates; it reminds me of the way some jurisdictions tried to just eliminate public schools rather than de-segregate them.

If this idea is based on nothing more than Christian opposition to same-sex marriage then sorry, but Christians didn’t invent marriage, marriage doesn’t belong exclusively to Christians, and Christians aren’t the sole arbiters of marital correctness. Churches don’t have to perform interfaith weddings or weddings for divorced people, and I don’t think any church should be forced into performing a same-sex marriage, but Christians don’t have any right to “destroy the foundations of society” in order to enforce their sectarian taboo against homosexuality.

4

MEBuckner, I’m not advocating the idea of eliminating marriage as a legal entity. I’m advocating making it a matter of a private contract between consenting adults, rather than a state-approved relationship. Instead of having to pay a fee to the state for a license, then having to go to some guy who got a piece of paper saying he could pronounce you man and wife, or partner, or whatever, you either have a lawyer draw up a contract, or if the couple couldn’t afford that, pick up a ready-made one at their friendly neighborhood legal forms store, stating that the two of you agree to cohabit for the rest of your natural lives, comingle your economic resources, not have sex with people outside of the marital relationship, etc. If you are polygamously inclined, then you might want to have a clause that states that any additional partners could not be brought into the relationship unless both spouses freely consent to it. Additional spouses would not be considered the “second spouse” of one of the others. They would be a full participants in a three-partner relationship. The contract should have a place for the witness to sign, in order to assure there is no cheating in the form of forgery or coercion. Something to the effect that “I have read the contract, and witness the fact that both parties have read and understand the contract and terms contained therein.” The contract would be legally binding on both parties, with the same benefits, responsibilities, and obligations that the current, state-approved marital relationship carries with it.

5

This sounds good, my friend – but even if the Democrats win the next Presidency, it’s doubtful that same-sex marriage will become the norm. As much as it “makes sense”, the conservative element will prevail. As for having more than one spouse (eh, why is it that men have lots of wives? Can’t women have more than one spouse too?) - that’s only going to go over smooth in certain states.

6

Good question. The fact is that polygyny (one man, multiple wives) is by far the most common form of group marraige for our species. This is true for primitive societies, and is also true among today’s polyamory set. Polyandry (one wife for several husbands) is rare and the men are often brothers. It is human nature, but why?

7

I’d just like to know what the advatage to ending marriage as we understand it would be.

Marc

8

Not only could it work, it is so close to the direction we are going in that I don’t understand why you favor it. Legal recognition of gay marraige is only one of several factors making marraige less and less attractive to heterosexual men. (Another is decreasing stigma of not living with your natural children.) Once gay marriage is established, there will seem less and less reason to give financial benefits to married people not accorded to singles. Indeed, President Bush is unwittingly moving in this direction by opposing the marriage penalty, which is in fact a side effect of the considerable tax benefits when you work and your wife does not. So the secular meaning of marriage is already in decline without Thea’s proposal.

As for Thea having religious reasons for opposing gay marriage, this does not need to be left alone. Gays in the United States have been able to marry for about 30 years at various liberal gay-friendly churches. This is not going to change. We are just talking here about whether the law should grace these weddings with its piece of paper. This is a question for the secular realm, not religion.

In the secular realm, the big problem is to convince men that their role as husband and father is crucial for the welfare of their children. Everything that goes against or dilutes this message, I am against. Thea, I am for your plan if it can be shown why it will probably lead to better outcomes for children. Yet, despite your apparent conservative orientation, discussion of impact on children seems missing from your OP.

9

I’m more curious why the forces who suddenly want to us to abandon the legal concept of marriage altogether weren’t up in arms until the gay marriage issue came up.

10

Actually, as far as the religious issue is concerned, it would be a matter of whether a religious body would grace a legally binding piece of paper with a wedding. In my proposal, whether a “wedding” in the sense of two people stood before some duly authorized person, or just made their vows to each other in front of a bunch of their friends absent a third party celebrant. Whatever vows would be made before the priest, rabbi, Imam, shaman, or friend in a Romulan starship commander’s uniform would presumably be written into the marriage contract.

The impact of my proposal on the outcome for children would be nil, since the private marriage contract would carry the same responsibilities and obligations as the current marriage contract does, and that would include responsibilities and obligations regarding children.

I think the biggest threat to marriage as an institution, and the resulting negative effects on childran has been no-fault divorce. The government-approved marriage contract has been rendered effectively meaningless by the fact that if the two parties get tired of each other, they can simply file some paperwork with the court and have the marriage dissolved. And, of course, the advent of no-fault divorce was the result of the decline in secular culture’s belief in the importance of marriage as an institution. As the situation stands, many, if not most, couples get married with the idea in mind that if they decide down the road that that they don’t like each other so much after all, they can just get a divorce. If the state will dissolve the marriage contract as easily as it can create it, why involve the state in the process at all? Seems like a waste of taxpayer money to have the personnel at City Hall and in the court system.

Actually, I think my proposal would make divorce more difficult to obtain. If one of the partners got tired of the other and wanted out, they would have to deal with the legal intricacies of having signed a contract in which they agreed to spend the rest of their natural life with the other, and in order to get out of it, would have to prove that the other partner had violated the terms of the contract. Assuming there is no outright abuse going on, the presence of two adults in a stable, if not actively affectionate relationship would probably have a positive impact on the children. I think even more than they need to know that Mommy and Daddy love each other, they need to know that Daddy or Mommy is not going to just walk out on them because they don’t like the other parent any more.

Which brings us back to common-law marriage. If once couple has been living together for a given period of time in a relationship, legally this could be considered an implied contract to continue to do so. If someone had to go through the legal hassles of obtaining a divorce from someone they had been living with, it would give them an incentive to stay- and since many cohabiting relationships result in children, this would mean that the children would be more likely to have the benefits of an intact household.

11

Is it? You must know different polyfolks than I do.

12

Um, tack the words “took place would be irrelavant” to the end of that. In the legal, secular sense, the marriage would take place when the two parties signed on the dotted line, not when some guy in a robe said, “I now pronounce you man and wife”, or when the certificate was filed with the appropriate governmental office.

MGibson and DMC, did you even read the OP or my subsequent posts? I never said I wanted to end marriage as we understand it or to abandon the legal concept of marriage. Having marriage be a private, legally binding contract between two individuals would not “end marriage as we know it”, nor would it constitute an abandonment of the legal concept of marriage.

It would simply be getting the state’s corporate nose out of people’s private lives.

13

Funnily enough, I was just contemplating the opposing idea: making marriage much harder to obtain. No more Vegas weddings or eloping to another state; no, I want to see a one-year official waiting period to get married. Same sex or opposite: if this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you sure as hell can wait the year to make sure.

The problem with making divorce harder to obtain is that the process itself tends to become a means to inflict emotional damage on one another. The easier the process, the quicker it can be over, which (if nothing else) is better for the children than a prolonged and nasty battle.

14

Gyrate, I think drawing up the contract, going through the process of agreeing on the terms of the marital relationship, actually having to think about what you expect from the marriage will have much the same effect as what you’re proposing.

And ideally, people wouldn’t get divorced at all. Marriage is not supposed to be a temporary arrangment.

[sub]unless the contract explicitly states that it is[/sub]

15

Yes, I read it completely.

If you’d prefer, I’ll rephrase my response:

I’m more curious why the forces who suddenly want to us to get the government out of marriage altogether weren’t up in arms until the gay marriage issue came up.

Better?

16

I just don’t see any advantage to your proposal.

Marc

17

I won’t put words in Thea Logica’s mouth, MGibson, but I was contemplating this the other day, coming at it from the exact opposite perspective. What makes a priest, prior, pastor, pope, or padre so special that he can enact legally binding contracts on people?

Nothing, that’s what. Our government has granted legal authority to a religious figure. Only to certain approved religious figures, in fact. Call that separation of church and state? 'Cos I don’t.

All of the legal benefits of marriage would seem to be earthly: taxes, medical confidentiality, special rules testifying against one another in court, inheritance, property rights, et cetera. I can’t think of a reason for a minister to have this legal power, except for the fact that some Believers (of whatever stripe) think that they continue to deserve to have their religious dogma nailed into secular law.

Getting the government out of marriage is the opposite aspect. I am not a religious man, so my view of the elaborate ritual is where two people get together to pray to the invisible man in the moon to ask if it’s okay to have sex, whereupon the invisible man says he blesses this union, now pronounce you man and wife, amen and hallelujah, so mote it be, etc.

The currently-favored religions don’t believe the other religious viewpoints should get their particular ideals approved—such as polygamy—because the other guys are praying to the wrong invisible man.

Okay, so my description of the spiritual aspect of wedded bliss is a little cheeky, but the fact remains that the government has no more business deciding what is “sin” and which marriages are legal in the eyes of any g(G)od than a priest has in binding a couple to a lifelong contract of tax benefits and shared property. Except that it’s the way we’ve always done it.

So why change? In my view, to get legal authority out of the hands of the Approved List Of Priests. Truly separate church and state. A marriage should be able to be legal without the approval of a guy with a funny hat. However, if a couple feels the funny hat is also necessary, they can find one (or make one) at their option.

18

Well, to tell you the truth, I never really gave it much thought until the gay marriage issue came up, and I’ll bet dollars to donuts that many of the others who are suddenly up in arms would tell you the same.

MGibson Maybe you don’t see the advantage, but I personally don’t see any advantage in a couple having to apply to the gummint to get a special license that says they have permission to get married, then having to have a ceremony performed by some schmuck who had meet certain criteria in order for the state to give him/her legal authority to do so. Also, in your previous post you said you didn’t see any advantage in ending marriage as we know it, which my proposal would in no way do. In most cases, marriage would still consist of two people of opposite sexes agreeing to spend the rest of their lives together in a sexually monogamous relationship that was open to the possibility of making small, cuddly people that would grow up to be annoying teenagers, then go off to college. A minority of couples would be same sex, and a minority of couples would choose not to make the smaller people, and a minority of couples would choose to keep the relationship open to the addition of other partners, but by and large, marriage as we know it would continue to be marriage as we know it. We’d just be eliminating the middlestate.

19

You’re attributing more power to religious persons over marriage then they actually have. In the United States it is not necessary to get the permission or approval of a rabbi, priest, or a dirt munching druid in order to gain the legal status of marriage. As far as the law goes you can’t get much more secular then what we’ve already got. Of course a huge majority of Americans seem to believe in the big man upstairs so it makes sense that clergy can officiate weddings. Remember, they just officiate weddings they don’t hand out marriage certificates. This doesn’t seem to violate the seperation of church and state to me.

Marc

20

That’s what bothers me. I’m getting the impression that many folks would rather give up marriage than allow gays to join the club.

I honestly believe you’re trying to keep your religious objections out of the picture, but if you look inside yourself, don’t you think that’s why you had this brainstorm in the first place?