Marriage (period): Why not live and let live?

[Pellman]

Do we really need the state to sanction marriage at all?

Why should we support the concept of establishing a favored class of people, e.g., married people? Do we need this legal category? Can’t society handle the institution without getting the state involved?

There seems to me to be only two situations in which the state needs to be involved with married people, both only apply when the couple are separating. Property disputes and child custody. But property disputes are already handled by contract law. And child custody law has to already deal with unmarried couples. Does the legal category “married” simplify such custody disputes?

Personally, I don’t think marriage would be further weakened by abolishing the state sanction. I think it is the state sanction which has done the weakening. Society has come to view marriage as a mere legal fiction, an arbitrarily created class which receives special treatment. So of course homosexuals want to get it on it. why shouldn’t they?

I think the problem is having a preferred class at all. We should all just be people under the law. (adults, that is)

Once state interference is removed, marriage–real marriage–will take its rightful place in free society again.

 

[JimG]

I think the problem is having a preferred class at all. We should all just be people under the law. (adults, that is)

Marriage has nearly alway been granted a preferred status in most civilizations. The reason is that marriage is essential to the procreation and raising of children. Healthy marriages benefit societies through the procreation and education of children.

When that doesn’t happen, children, and often women, end up becoming wards of the state, which has been much worse at doing the job than fathers and mothers and stable families.

It was no-fault divorce laws which began the disintegration of marriage in our current culture. As a result, children are much worse off.

Many have come to believe that marriage is all about personal fulfillment and emotional happiness. It isn’t, although that’s a byproduct. It’s about children and stable families. Most human cultures have understood that.

Kids today are often abandoned to their parents emotional needs, and that’s a shame.

 

[eichenb2]

Do we really need the state to sanction marriage at all?

Why should we support the concept of establishing a favored class of people, e.g., married people? Do we need this legal category? Can’t society handle the institution without getting the state involved?

There seems to me to be only two situations in which the state needs to be involved with married people, both only apply when the couple are separating. Property disputes and child custody. But property disputes are already handled by contract law. And child custody law has to already deal with unmarried couples. Does the legal category “married” simplify such custody disputes?

Personally, I don’t think marriage would be further weakened by abolishing the state sanction. I think it is the state sanction which has done the weakening. Society has come to view marriage as a mere legal fiction, an arbitrarily created class which receives special treatment. So of course homosexuals want to get it on it. why shouldn’t they?

I think the problem is having a preferred class at all. We should all just be people under the law. (adults, that is)

Once state interference is removed, marriage–real marriage–will take its rightful place in free society again.

Cool…I am planning on getting 7 wives…one for each day of the week… (he said sarcastically).

 

[eichenb2]

If western (former Christian) nations keep on with the same policies.
1)Fornicating
2)Adultery
3)Homosexuality
4)Abortion
5)Euthanasia

get ready to learn Arabic

 

[Ridgerunner]

If western (former Christian) nations keep on with the same policies.
1)Fornicating
2)Adultery
3)Homosexuality
4)Abortion
5)Euthanasia

get ready to learn Arabic

If you don’t think those things go on in the Islamic world, you are very much mistaken.

 

[eichenb2]

If you don’t think those things go on in the Islamic world, you are very much mistaken.

They may go on, however, there is no public or legal government sanction of them. By the way, that is due to the fact that these things are OBJECTIVE DISORDERED AND SINFUL. It is part and parcel of the Natural Law, which God allows everyone to realize. Let America keep up their embrace of post-modern, hedonistic, antinomianism (of which the aforementioned sins are symptoms) and it will end up just like Europe. It will be a majority Muslim by 2050, I predict.

 

[eichenb2]

Do we really need the state to sanction marriage at all?

Why should we support the concept of establishing a favored class of people, e.g., married people? Do we need this legal category? Can’t society handle the institution without getting the state involved?

There seems to me to be only two situations in which the state needs to be involved with married people, both only apply when the couple are separating. Property disputes and child custody. But property disputes are already handled by contract law. And child custody law has to already deal with unmarried couples. Does the legal category “married” simplify such custody disputes?

Personally, I don’t think marriage would be further weakened by abolishing the state sanction. I think it is the state sanction which has done the weakening. Society has come to view marriage as a mere legal fiction, an arbitrarily created class which receives special treatment. So of course homosexuals want to get it on it. why shouldn’t they?

I think the problem is having a preferred class at all. We should all just be people under the law. (adults, that is)

Once state interference is removed, marriage–real marriage–will take its rightful place in free society again.

I wonder why President will not live and let babies live???

 

[Pellman]

Marriage has nearly alway been granted a preferred status in most civilizations. The reason is that marriage is essential to the procreation and raising of children. Healthy marriages benefit societies through the procreation and education of children.

And I don’t see why it won’t continue to have a preferred status. Society will take care of that. I’m not talking about using the force of the law to *abolish *marriage. All sorts of human associations thrive under mere freedom (the Church for instance) which do not have the fundamental biological signficance that marriage does.

When that doesn’t happen, children, and often women, end up becoming wards of the state, which has been much worse at doing the job than fathers and mothers and stable families.

True. Whether the status quo does a good job of addressing this or not, how will what I am proposing be any different?

It was no-fault divorce laws which began the disintegration of marriage in our current culture. As a result, children are much worse off.

How did the prior laws help? The disintegration of marriage began long before no-fault.

Many have come to believe that marriage is all about personal fulfillment and emotional happiness. It isn’t, although that’s a byproduct. It’s about children and stable families. Most human cultures have understood that.

Kids today are often abandoned to their parents emotional needs, and that’s a shame.

I quite agree. But I don’t see how the state can help.

I know that the state may have good intentions, that certain laws are designed to help. The problem is that grounding marriage in legistlation fosters the very attitudes which undermine marriage. Not only did the state not create marriage, the state could not, could never, create marriage.

Marriage begins in ideas, it is a cultural artifact, a product of society.

 

[Pellman]

Cool…I am planning on getting 7 wives…one for each day of the week… (he said sarcastically).

What’s stopping you from doing so now? How would my proposal make any difference?

 

[eichenb2]

And I don’t see why it won’t continue to have a preferred status. Society will take care of that. I’m not talking about using the force of the law to *abolish *marriage. All sorts of human associations thrive under mere freedom (the Church for instance) which do not have the fundamental biological signficance that marriage does.

True. Whether the status quo does a good job of addressing this or not, how will what I am proposing be any different?

How did the prior laws help? The disintegration of marriage began long before no-fault.

I quite agree. But I don’t see how the state can help.

I know that the state may have good intentions, that certain laws are designed to help. The problem is that grounding marriage in legistlation fosters the very attitudes which undermine marriage. Not only did the state not create marriage, the state could not, could never, create marriage.

Marriage begins in ideas, it is a cultural artifact, a product of society.

Christianity built western civilization. Along with that civilization came the moral structure which enabled it. Western people, including some Catholics, are actively seeking to dismantle that culture stitch by stitch. When it completely unravels, Islam will be the dominant faith and you will see real oppression. God will use a people, foreign to Him, to reign in the excesses of His people (people before and after Christ who looked to God’s salvation, through the Christ). Read the Old Testament, it happens again and again. Keep it up and you have the chance to learn Arabic. :tsktsk:

 

[Pellman]

Christianity built western civilization. Along with that civilization came the moral structure which enabled it. Western people, including some Catholics, are actively seeking to dismantle that culture stitch by stitch. When it completely unravels, Islam will be the dominant faith and you will see real oppression. God will use a people, foreign to Him, to reign in the excesses of His people (people before and after Christ who looked to God’s salvation, through the Christ). Read the Old Testament, it happens again and again. Keep it up and you have the chance to learn Arabic. :tsktsk:

Can you tie this to something I wrote? Because I’m not seeing the connection at all.

It’s like a paragraph that you keep handy and just randomly post in any discussion.

 

[chris_molter]

I think it preferable that the State recognize and support marriage, but I’d rather see the State completely disentangle itself from it rather than permit the term to be mauled out of recognition by special interest groups, thereby forcing us to treat a lie as truth.

 

[jpm1977]

Do we really need the state to sanction marriage at all?

Why should we support the concept of establishing a favored class of people, e.g., married people? Do we need this legal category? Can’t society handle the institution without getting the state involved?

There seems to me to be only two situations in which the state needs to be involved with married people, both only apply when the couple are separating. Property disputes and child custody. But property disputes are already handled by contract law. And child custody law has to already deal with unmarried couples. Does the legal category “married” simplify such custody disputes?

Personally, I don’t think marriage would be further weakened by abolishing the state sanction. I think it is the state sanction which has done the weakening. Society has come to view marriage as a mere legal fiction, an arbitrarily created class which receives special treatment. So of course homosexuals want to get it on it. why shouldn’t they?

I think the problem is having a preferred class at all. We should all just be people under the law. (adults, that is)

Once state interference is removed, marriage–real marriage–will take its rightful place in free society again.

I’m sure if I agree (yet), but you make a good case. Marriage was viewed as a civil matter outside the realm of the church until about the 1100s, once Europe had been fully Christianized, as in there was a total unity of societal views on the matter. Since western society is nearly fully de-Christianized, why should the Church not focus on the sacrament among its own members and leave society to do as it wishes?

The primary reason for marriage laws as we know them today is the protection of women and children, financially. When women could not work, and especially when kids are involved, the legal institution of marriage works to make the father (customarily the breadwinner) legally responsible for their care. If the marriage ends, the woman is protected with alimony (in some states) and half the property, and the kids are supposed to get child support. Interesting that feminists don’t want to dismantle this system, even though there’s nothing stopping women from working today, but I think its still a good idea to keep the legal regime of marriage in place because I think fathers should bear legal responsibility for their children, and even for their wife. A family is better off if one spouse stays home to raise the kids. If that spouse does so, he or she will be at a huge disadvantage career wise if they are forced, after a divorce, to go back into the working world. To make up for that disadvantage, marriage provides a guarantee they will get something for having foregone all that time that could have been spent in the workforce. (Of course if neither of them have money its for naught).

For that reason, I think the legal institution of marriage should remain in place, but I do have second thoughts about all the tax breaks. As someone who’s single, I could save thousands off my taxes if I were married. If I were gay, I could never get those federal tax breaks. This gives a lot of ammunition to the argument that anyone should be able to get married to anyone any time, because they can rightly ask why should all those financial benefits be reserved to straight people?

For the same reason that the church wants to be free of state interference, it seems like we should want the government out of the business of actively subsidizing marriage with these tax breaks. If there were no financial benefit, maybe there wouldn’t be such a demand to change the whole institution?