More and more people today or in futurewill choose not to get married, in part because of the onerous legal obligations that marriage entails.
I agree completely with the op-ed piece that marriage should be privatized. In my opinion this would have a number of advantages, some of which are listed in the artice:
1. It would stop the government from passing crazy marriage laws (e.g. 498 A).
2. It would end the divisive and pointless debate about gay marriage. If two gay people want to live together in a committed relationship, they are free to do so and to negotiate whatever rights they want between them. There would be no need for an official government sanction of the relationship.
3. There are substantive unfairnesses in the way the government treats non-married couples vis-a-vis married couples. Getting the government out of marriage would end this.
4. Couples would have the freedom to enter into agreements, and mariage wil be totally mutual consonant and respect to each other.
5. It prevents the government from changing the marriage contract after a couple is married. Over the last 35 years, divorce law has seen dramatic changes. Unlike most changes in law, these changes apply retroactively. So marriages are governed by laws that didn’t exist at the time of the marriage.
Let’s face it. What’s important about a marriage is the relationship between the couple. There is no need for a government sanction of the relationship, nor does a government sanction improve the relationship in any way.
