Why Privatizing Marriage Can’t Work

The Catholic Thing ^ | February 14, 2014 | Francis J. Beckwith

[Yardstick]

distraction

[SampleMan]

Nothing is unchallengeable but when you have a marriage license a lot of the challenges go away...You’ll never manage to write a contract that’s as comprehensive as the jurisprudence surrounding marriage, and if you try you’ll make some lawyer quite wealthy, which I always thought was one of the big things married people are trying to avoid

Wills and prenups are written specifically to negate normal jurisprudence surrounding marriage, and they are quite common. There is nothing horribly expensive about them. If one only wished to duplicate the laws concerning marriage, the contract would be very pat. The type of thing one downloads off the Internet. Legal contracts are legal contracts, there are no "super duper legal contracts" that take precedence over standard legal contracts.

Please name one thing that is addressed by matrimonial law, that can't be better addressed in a written contract? All a marriage license offers, for now, is convenient one stop shopping.

[SampleMan]

The point is from the state perspective a marriage IS a legal contract. So if you go that route the best you accomplished was to spend a lot of time on paperwork to get something that works just like a marriage license.

Actually, the best I would get is a contract that is tighter than marriage and a huge savings on my taxes.

And then when you die your wife gets nothing because you didn’t write the contract right. Or if you DID write the contract right the state will say “hey you’re actually married give us our money”.

Or I adopt her, using the states bazaar logic against it, and leave everything to my child. But I find your apprehension to rely on clarifying legal contracts to be odd. A well written contract/will is going to be successfully challenged far less than state considerations on marriage.

[discostu]

And a good prenup is actually pretty expensive, those DL of the web ones aren’t worth the bytes they’re written on.

I’ve already named MANY things that work better in matrimonial law than you ever could hope to accomplish with a contract.

You’re grasping at straws man. Face reality state marriage IS a contract, and if you made a “new” contract so you could avoid state marriage you’re just reinventing the wheel for no good reason. Don’t knock convenient one stop shopping, it’s on of the few things government does that’s good. Only a bleeding moron would makeup their own marriage contract, and all the straws you’ve pulled to make it seem reasonable just show that it’s a fool’s errand. If you want the protections of legal marriage get the license, if you don’t get the license you’ll suffer the consequences.

So the choice is yours, suck it up or spit in the wind. We both know you’ll suck it up.

[SampleMan]

I’ve already named MANY things that work better in matrimonial law than you ever could hope to accomplish with a contract.

No, you haven't. You've made many incorrect assertions, and demonstrated a bewildering ignorance of contract law.

But look, your main point is that kowtowing to the state, in agreeing that a sacramental marriage is equal to the union of two goats and a leprechaun, is going to save you a few bucks, and that further, your main concern is saving a few bucks.

So, what was your point again? That state marriage is a great way of getting pro bono legal help? OK, whatever.

[CorporateStepsister]

“th more kids born out of wedlock than not the state regularly decideds custody and child support issues absent a state marriage license, why would it not continue to do so? The state also settles property disputes for a number of non-married people, room mates and business partners come immediately to mind. What prevents a church married couple from having a civil contract that defines what will happen to property in the event of a dissolution of a marriage?”

All this happens because adults refuse to take responsibility for their actions. They refuse to think things through, prefer to let someone else handle reality for them, and refuse to learn about the heartbreak they had in the past.

If people were realistic about people, life, and what marriage really is and who they are likelier to marry, I am certain that there would be less divorce and less government involved in our lives.

[Axenolith]

The reason government got into marriage in the first place was to regulate miscegenation.

[highball]

“Why do we wish to stop homosexuals from “marrying?” In my mind it is becuase I do not want them to use the legitimate institution of marriage to legitimize the rest of the homosexual agenda.”

Privatizing marriage won’t stop that; actually, it might make it more widespread.

There are already plenty of churches willing to marry gay couples, even in states where such a thing is still prohibited. The quickest way to bring gay marriage to Texas is to allow Texas churches to decide.