Are marriage licenses good or bad?

celticlord said:

While it may not be required, it most certainly is helpful--sufficiently so that it does become a reason for said contracts.

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How is it helpful?

Goshin said:

I don't know...maybe. I've been married, and there's good times and not-so-good times...and sometimes a little extra reason to hang in there during the not-so-good times could help.

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And what's the little "extra reason" you're talking about? Some signature on a contract that can be nullified within a matter of minutes?

A good many people still regard marriage as a religious matter, and those who take their religion seriously abide by whatever the teachings on marriage are. Does not apply to the non-observent, but that's one thing that can help keep a marriage together.

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And it's not necessary for the government to intrude on such religious matters. The non-existence of government marriage contracts doesn't mean that people can't get married by the religious teachings of their choice. In fact, removing the government from marriage would return it back to the religious.

If there is property, there has to be some method for dividing it in the event the couple part ways. Without a contract, whoever has things in their name walks away with them, in the absence of other laws.

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That can be taken care of without a marriage contract.

Deciding who gets primary custody of the children, whether/how much the other parent gets visitation or a say in the children's upbringing, these are all problems if there is no contract or law about couple-dom.

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Marriage is not even remotely necessary to solve this problem either.

I think its a little more complicated than just "love will keep us together". :mrgreen:

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It's a lot more complicated than 'a piece of paper will keep us together' too. That piece of paper isn't going to make or break the relationship.

I take that back. It's certainly possible for it to break the relationship, but I can't see how it could possibly help one.

celticlord said:

I'm not so sure about that. Seems to me that contract law would work to the favor of the contracting parties and against government regulation.

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Before the '06 and '08 elections I would have been inclined to agree with you, however the D.C. politicians have gone out of their way to disrespect the contracts of private companies and individuals, so I'm not so sure they would leave people's marriages alone.

rivrrat said:

How is it helpful?

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By increasing the degree of difficulty involved in ending a relationship. The less easy it is to walk out, the more reason one has to stay. Any long term relationship is going to have its share of bad times where, all things being equal, walking out is going to seem attractive. Most of the time, those bad times will pass, and, if the partners are willing, most differences can be resolved. Making leaving a reasonably difficult proposition gives added incentive to working things out.

rivrrat said:

And what's the little "extra reason" you're talking about? Some signature on a contract that can be nullified within a matter of minutes?

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There are not too many well written contracts that can be that capriciously voided. That "signature" is more binding than love ever will be.

rivrrat said:

And it's not necessary for the government to intrude on such religious matters. The non-existence of government marriage contracts doesn't mean that people can't get married by the religious teachings of their choice. In fact, removing the government from marriage would return it back to the religious.

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What is today called "marriage" has two dimensions, religious and legal/social. The religious aspects should be outside the purview of government. The legal and social aspects are arguably valid matters for government; at the very least a strong case can be made for government recognition of relationships as a means to protect various property rights in the event of a breakup. Absolutely the two should be separated, but that does not mean that the larger community does not benefit from people and especially parents having stable long-term relationships.

rivrrat said:

That can be taken care of without a marriage contract.

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Not really. Whether it's called "marriage" or "civil union", whether we explicitly acknowledge it or no, there are elements of a contract even in the current state of civil marriage today. Wherever you have bilateral obligations, you have some form of contract by definition. Not only can things not be taken care of without some form of contract, in any relationship the contractual elements are unavoidable.

rivrrat said:

Marriage is not even remotely necessary to solve this problem either.

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Perhaps not, but a strong relationship where the partners are incented to live and work together to build a healthy family and household is definitely a healthy environment overall for children. That much is beyond all debate.

rivrrat said:

It's a lot more complicated than 'a piece of paper will keep us together' too. That piece of paper isn't going to make or break the relationship.

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On its own? No. But the idea isn't to replace love and affection with contracts, but to augment love and affection with contracts.

I take that back. It's certainly possible for it to break the relationship, but I can't see how it could possibly help one.[/QUOTE]
On its own, it's no more sufficient than love. Love coupled with a good contract, however, has a significantly greater chance of enduring than love on its own. Anyone who believes otherwise....probably has never been in love.

LaMidRighter said:

Before the '06 and '08 elections I would have been inclined to agree with you, however the D.C. politicians have gone out of their way to disrespect the contracts of private companies and individuals, so I'm not so sure they would leave people's marriages alone.

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They had better. There are two things the self-respecting man will not part with: his woman and his weapon.

celticlord said:

They had better. There are two things the self-respecting man will not part with: his woman and his weapon.

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I've parted ways with many women, never my weapon though.

LaMidRighter said:

I've parted ways with many women, never my weapon though.

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LOL....good point. Perhaps I should have said "will not have taken from him" instead.

rivrrat said:

Goshin said:

If there is property, there has to be some method for dividing it in the event the couple part ways. Without a contract, whoever has things in their name walks away with them, in the absence of other laws.

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That can be taken care of without a marriage contract.

Goshin said:

Deciding who gets primary custody of the children, whether/how much the other parent gets visitation or a say in the children's upbringing, these are all problems if there is no contract or law about couple-dom.

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Marriage is not even remotely necessary to solve this problem either.
.

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I admit to being a little confused. In the absence of a contract or a legal structure for dealing with broken marriages or marriage-like relationships, how would these issues be solved? I wonder if I have misunderstood you somewhere, would you clarify please?

G.

celticlord said:

LOL....good point. Perhaps I should have said "will not have taken from him" instead.

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I can agree to that.

celticlord said:

By increasing the degree of difficulty involved in ending a relationship. The less easy it is to walk out, the more reason one has to stay. Any long term relationship is going to have its share of bad times where, all things being equal, walking out is going to seem attractive. Most of the time, those bad times will pass, and, if the partners are willing, most differences can be resolved. Making leaving a reasonably difficult proposition gives added incentive to working things out.

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There is no difficulty in walking out. You just walk out. Simple.

When my parents got divorced, it took all of five minutes.
When a couple good friends of mine got divorced, it took all of five minutes.
When my boyfriend got divorced, it only took a bit to draw up the paperwork.

So really, no... I don't see a marriage contract being any incentive to hang around somewhere you don't want to be.

There are not too many well written contracts that can be that capriciously voided. That "signature" is more binding than love ever will be.

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Seems pretty damn easy. The only way it would be hard is if the people involved want to MAKE it hard. Otherwise, it's just a matter of signing another piece of paper.

What is today called "marriage" has two dimensions, religious and legal/social. The religious aspects should be outside the purview of government. The legal and social aspects are arguably valid matters for government; at the very least a strong case can be made for government recognition of relationships as a means to protect various property rights in the event of a breakup. Absolutely the two should be separated, but that does not mean that the larger community does not benefit from people and especially parents having stable long-term relationships.

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Which can be had without marriage contracts.

Not really. Whether it's called "marriage" or "civil union", whether we explicitly acknowledge it or no, there are elements of a contract even in the current state of civil marriage today. Wherever you have bilateral obligations, you have some form of contract by definition. Not only can things not be taken care of without some form of contract, in any relationship the contractual elements are unavoidable.

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Quite frankly, if it was yours going into the relationship, it should be yours going out of it. And if you jointly go into something else (such as credit cards, buying a house, etc) resolving those issues don't require a marriage contract since some other contract is already involved.

Perhaps not, but a strong relationship where the partners are incented to live and work together to build a healthy family and household is definitely a healthy environment overall for children. That much is beyond all debate.

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A piece of paper isn't an incentive. They either want to be in the relationship, or they don't. They either want to make it work, or they don't. No piece of paper changes that. For the truly foolish, all the piece of paper does is give an incentive to hang around in an unhappy and thus unhealthy environment. No child is better off with both parents if both parents are miserable. And, if both parents are only hanging around because they signed some piece of paper, then they're idiots.

On its own? No. But the idea isn't to replace love and affection with contracts, but to augment love and affection with contracts.

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LOL Love isn't "augmented" by contracts.

On its own, it's no more sufficient than love. Love coupled with a good contract, however, has a significantly greater chance of enduring than love on its own. Anyone who believes otherwise....probably has never been in love.

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No contract on this planet or even any that haven't been conceived of yet could help a relationship. IMO, if someone thinks some piece of paper can help their relationship, then they haven't been in love. The piece of paper is just that... a piece of paper. Emotions are entirely independent of and not reliant upon signatures on some paper.

Goshin said:

I admit to being a little confused. In the absence of a contract or a legal structure for dealing with broken marriages or marriage-like relationships, how would these issues be solved? I wonder if I have misunderstood you somewhere, would you clarify please?

G.

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A parent isn't a parent because they're married. If two people are together and have children, being married doesn't make the custody issue any easier when they separate. Custody is entirely independent of marriage since it relies upon father or motherhood (or adoption), and not a marriage license. Women can get child support from the father regardless of if they married him or not. Men can get custody and visitation of a child regardless of if they married the mother.

They are good. They maintain one last vestige of intermediate association between the individual and the state, one last refugee against atomistic individualism and the inevitable statism that accompanies it.

It is a rather pathetic residue but at least it creates some kind of legal association where the couple are treated as such and not as abstract, mass individuals, they have some kind of pooled power and autonomy from the constant intrusion of the state.

rivrrat said:

A contract isn't required for 'mommy and daddy' to stay together. So that's really not a reason for said contracts.

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This is a quite shallow intepretation of the situation.

The contract and recognition, aside from legal benefits and the cohesion and autonomy they provide, are part of forming and maintaining an ideational place for the said relationship in society, one where walking away from it is discouraged and where it is considered a long-term committment based around a sincere love.

If we say we desire these relationships to be long term for social purposes then it the rleationship shall require both the supply of material functions and necessary roles in the lives of individuals and to be accompanied by a sufficient ideational background to maintain many of them for long term survival. Remove either of these and they become perilous and less likely to survive.

rivrrat said:

There is no difficulty in walking out. You just walk out. Simple.

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Walking out is never simple. This I know from both sides of that experience.

rivrrat said:

When my parents got divorced, it took all of five minutes.
When a couple good friends of mine got divorced, it took all of five minutes.
When my boyfriend got divorced, it only took a bit to draw up the paperwork.

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Unlikely. In the state of Texas, for example, it takes a statutory minimum of 60 days for a divorce to complete. While some divorce petitions are easy to draw up, others are not so simple. If a lawyer was involved, you can bet the petition was neither quick nor simple to draft.

rivrrat said:

No contract on this planet or even any that haven't been conceived of yet could help a relationship. IMO, if someone thinks some piece of paper can help their relationship, then they haven't been in love. The piece of paper is just that... a piece of paper. Emotions are entirely independent of and not reliant upon signatures on some paper.

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Similarly, relationships are independent of and not reliant upon emotions. Frankly, anyone who feels otherwise has not had a mature relationship in their life.

Korimyr the Rat said:

I don't know. Do you think universal mastery of Tai Chi and consumption of V8 would provide as much social benefit as having the majority of children grow up in homes with both of their parents?

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Whether Universal Mastery of Tai Chi provides more or less social benefit than having families held together soley by legal and financial necessity does not seem particularly relevent to the discussion.

Your claim was that it was the government's job to provide incentives for marriage because it benefitted society, not because it benefitted society more than Tai Chi did. Assuming both benefit society to some degree, there is no reason the government can't provide incentives for both.

And do you think it's possible to provide meaningful incentives to do these things without spending an inordinate amount of money or unduly imposing in peoples' lives?

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Sure. Give people who have recieved certification from a Government certified Dojo a tax break, and just tax everyone else more to pick up the slack. That is no more of an imposition on peoples lives than the already considerable imposion that income taxes pose on people's personal lives already, and it doesn't really cost anything, since the loss of revenue from the Tai Chi tax breaks can be made up for by increased taxes on those who don't toe the Tai Chi line.

rivrrat said:

There is no difficulty in walking out. You just walk out. Simple.

When my parents got divorced, it took all of five minutes.
When a couple good friends of mine got divorced, it took all of five minutes.
When my boyfriend got divorced, it only took a bit to draw up the paperwork.

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Putting my (ex)wife out of the house took a few hours, mostly due to the packing after the yelling and screaming. Completing the divorce took another seven months, even though I had cause and the theoretical right to a 90-day divorce in my state, and even though we were able to come to an agreement on property and custody without arbitration. Non-cause divorces take a year minimum, here.

The walking out part might take five minutes, but if there's kids or property to be dealt with its going to take a lot longer to resolve that. Especially if one or both decide to be unreasonable.

A piece of paper isn't an incentive. They either want to be in the relationship, or they don't. They either want to make it work, or they don't. No piece of paper changes that. For the truly foolish, all the piece of paper does is give an incentive to hang around in an unhappy and thus unhealthy environment. No child is better off with both parents if both parents are miserable. And, if both parents are only hanging around because they signed some piece of paper, then they're idiots.

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Hm...I agree with you in part. "Hanging in there" through a time of difficulty is one thing, being perpetually miserable is another thing. Nor do kids benefit from a household where the parents can't stand the sight of each other...one of the main reasons I finally decided on divorce. However....well, see below:

LOL Love isn't "augmented" by contracts.

No contract on this planet or even any that haven't been conceived of yet could help a relationship. IMO, if someone thinks some piece of paper can help their relationship, then they haven't been in love. The piece of paper is just that... a piece of paper. Emotions are entirely independent of and not reliant upon signatures on some paper.

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Weeeeeeeell....I dunno. Emotions are funny things. The first year or two of marriage/relationship, its easy to be passionately, wildly in love. That's mostly infatuation though, and it fades eventually. Hopefully by then you've discovered that you actually have enough in common to love (and like) each other anyway, and that your relationship wasn't merely infatuation and nothing more. (I think this goes with what I said about "unreasonable expectations" these days, too.)

I've known a number of people who were married for life (50+ yrs). I've heard some of them say that passion comes and goes, and that sometimes through a rough patch you may not even feel "in love" for a time, but that staying together and working through these things was worth it. I regret to say this is outside my own experience, but sometimes I wish it had been otherwise.

Ideally, marriage is something like this: you tell each other that your love and committment are such that you wish to formalize that committment, binding yourselves together legally and financially, religiously and socially, as a sign of that committment. In a sense, it's saying that "even if I don't feel in-love with you on Tuesday, I won't walk out the door without trying hard and long to fix things."

I know people who get divorced these days for no other reason than one saying to the other: "I love you, but I'm not IN love with you anymore." I think that's really sad, and indicative of unreasonable expectations, lack of committment, or possibly getting married too quickly for shallow reasons in the first place. Very sad indeed when children are involved.

A parent isn't a parent because they're married. If two people are together and have children, being married doesn't make the custody issue any easier when they separate. Custody is entirely independent of marriage since it relies upon father or motherhood (or adoption), and not a marriage license. Women can get child support from the father regardless of if they married him or not. Men can get custody and visitation of a child regardless of if they married the mother.

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I agree with your first sentence: being a real parent is a lifelong committment of love and care, not merely a matter of biology. Your last sentence, I have my doubts. Men often get the short end of the stick in custody even if they were married, and I expect not being married would not help that any.

Respects,

G.

Cephus said:

Which is really all a marriage license is, it's a contract between two people, nothing more, nothing less.

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Actually more, lets not forget about their children...

earthworm said:

Actually more, lets not forget about their children...

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Assuming they have any, which is in no way a certainty, and ignoring the fact that you don't have to be married to have children and many people who have children are not.

Since it is a contract, it deals with rights and responsibilities and property transferal, etc. That includes any children that might come into the mix.

I don't believe that the government has any place. The "perks" which come with marriage, mostly contract and legal sorts of things can be done separate and people then can name specific people to do specific things. There's no reason why your immediate family should have say over things you don't think they should. Hospital visitation and all that can be done on separate contract. Marriage can return from whence it came, to the Churches. Let them deal with the problem.

Ikari said:

I don't believe that the government has any place. The "perks" which come with marriage, mostly contract and legal sorts of things can be done separate and people then can name specific people to do specific things. There's no reason why your immediate family should have say over things you don't think they should. Hospital visitation and all that can be done on separate contract. Marriage can return from whence it came, to the Churches. Let them deal with the problem.

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Oh man I bet greedy lawyers would just love that.

I had a long ass post written out last night and submitted it just about the time the forum went down for maintenance. So, I lost the whole post. I really don't feel like typing it all up again, so in the timeless words of Inigo Montoya:

"Let me 'splain.... No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

Signing a piece of paper doesn't make people stay in a relationship they don't want to be in. Regardless of the reasons. The very fact that well over half of marriages end in divorce is a testament to that. If marriage was the be all, end all for a relationship, if it magically made people stay together, then signing that piece of paper would magically transform people's relationships in such a manner that no one would ever divorce. Obviously, this is not the case. It offers nothing but tax breaks, that's it. Everything else that is supposedly "good" about marriage can be taken care of outside of marriage. (property issues, raising children, financial issues, etc)

Marriage should be returned back to the religious. Let each group set their own arbitrary "rules" for it and leave the government out of it. It has nothing to offer to anyone who doesn't do it for religious reasons.

celticlord said:

Should the government be issuing marriage licenses to anyone?
What purpose is served by government regulating the institution of marriage?

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Marriage is a creature of the state.
As such, state involvement is inherently necessary.

"Let me 'splain.... No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

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:lamo


Gotta love someone who quotes Inigo Montoya.

G.

Ikari said:

I don't believe that the government has any place. The "perks" which come with marriage, mostly contract and legal sorts of things can be done separate and people then can name specific people to do specific things. There's no reason why your immediate family should have say over things you don't think they should. Hospital visitation and all that can be done on separate contract. Marriage can return from whence it came, to the Churches. Let them deal with the problem.

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The whole point is that marriage is a one-stop-shop for all of these contracts, you get married, you automatically get all of that without having to fill out lots of paperwork. It's a matter of convenience and it works just fine.

Screw the churches, they can take their ideas of marriage and stick 'em where the sun don't shine.