The End of ‘Marriage’
4th November 2012
Women and Minorities Hardest Hit
The New York Times isn’t happy with any social trend, not even those of its own side, until it can find — and exploit — a group of Victims.
Unfortunately, this proposal has some serious problems. First, “privatizing” marriage will not cause it to disappear — it will just leave it to be regulated by private institutions, especially religious and ethnic ones. For many centuries, marriage has been the primary mechanism by which people who are not related “by blood” become relatives, and it is unclear that civil unions will acquire this social power. Many families will then be structured and governed primarily by private marriage customs and practices now freed of state regulation. Because of the deep and rich cultural significance of marriage, in many cases marriage arrangements will take precedence over the terms of civil unions. When these arrangements exist in tension with widely shared public values — like those that subordinate wives and daughters and limit their opportunities — privatizing and deregulating marriage will curtail the government’s ability to promote gender equality within families structured by marriage. In other words, privatizing marriage will give private organizations, including inegalitarian ones, more influence over the institution of marriage without giving individuals negatively affected much protection by having access to civil union status.
In other words, if we get rid of government control of marriage, the Crust will no longer be able to use the power of government to fiddle with social relationships. God forbid that our ruling class give up any of their coercive power to regulate individual lives, even if it clashes with their public propaganda narrative.
November 5th, 2012 at 00:04
This is news? Any thinking person already knows that marriage–at least in the United States–already is a civil union. Otherwise, how can a Justice of the Peace or a judge perform a ‘marriage’ between two people who have never set foot inside a church or appeared before a clergyman and have no interest in ever doing so? And why do all religious ceremonies also contain some variation on the words, “By the power vested in me by the State of X…”?
‘Marriage’ serves two functions so far as the State is concerned: A) It recognizes certain rights and obligations between two persons concerning property, and B) it establishes who is responsible for raising and supporting children. These are both important interests for the State, because they have an economic and societal impact on the stability of the community.
All of the so-called ‘pitfalls’ in the article can be easily side-stepped by legally recognizing only those ‘civil unions’–and the legal rights and obligations thereof–entered into under the authority of the State, a situation already true.
A non-story. The only advantage to changing the language from ‘marriage’ to ‘civil union’ would be to placate the religious…and considering what a pain in the ass they can be, it would be worth it.