Do we really "need" marriage?

[pmurray]

I think marriage should be a much more forceful union that you have to pay dearly to get out of. So much so that only crazy people and parents would consider it.

Funny how american conservatives want a constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage, but not one mandating that marriage is for life - no exceptions. Is it because they are all rich white men who want to be able to serially divorce and marry trophy wives?

 

[wolfgirl]

Neither my husband nor I are religious and we certainly never want children so you would think that we wouldn't need marriage.

We didn't want a ceremony so we just went to the JP and spent about $80 total for the license, judge, and Taco Bell afterwards. It was just the two of us. I think there is far too much focus on the wedding and not enough on the actual marriage.

This sound just like us! My husband and I lived together for 5 1/2 years before we got married 19 years ago. We only got married so that we could use his VA benefits to buy a house. If we weren't married, they couldn't include my income to qualify us. So we just went downtown and got married; nothing changed at all (except my name). And now we've been together for 24 1/2 years, while many friends' marriages (who had lavish expensive ceremonies) have fallen by the wayside.

It's all about the marriage, not the wedding. The wedding is absolutely meaningless!

Not being religious, I don't see a point to marriage as a religious institution, but I've always been glad we did get married. There's just something about the feeling that you've made it official, made it legal, signed the documents. I like saying, "My husband..." I guess I'm just a little old-fashioned that way!

 

[Skeptical Greg]

.......................
They wanted to elope, and avoid a big ceremony, but neither family would permit it. Their parents insisted on tradition.

They wanted to elope, but neither family would permit it?


Did anyone try to explain to them what eloping is?

 

[Bearguin]

That's the part I don't get. If you have to believe in a certain thing to be considered a member of Church X, and you don't believe in that thing, then why would you consider yourself (or want to be considered by others) a member of Church X?

See. This is where I think the churches have screwed themselves.

Many Churches will marry hetero couples regardless of thier beliefs or membership in the Church. They feel it is part of a community service to hold ceremonies for non-members. Now they are going to have difficulty saying no to same-sex ceremonies when they have provided hetero ceremonies for people who don't attend their services and don't share thier beliefs.

If they want to take some perceived moral high ground, then they should limit perofmoring the ceremoines to members only.

I think this is how it is going to be challenged in Canada.

 

[Kitty Chan]

Bearguin

good point. Your right they dont necessarily require membership for community service. Being nice is going to get them in hot water, and it should not.

Thinking of it. Sometimes just the building is rented or given out as well to other faiths, clubs, groups in the name of community.

Also, Im thinking churches dont only marry people, what about funerals? Then there is all the community service, day cares, drop in centres, shelters, food kitchens, emergency/disaster centre, mom and tot drop in, summer camps, club meetings, etc.

But what a horrible thing this could lead to. That membership will be needed, no one will be able to share. Hows that going to help with the so called equality being asked for?? To crush anothers rights for yours is not correct. There are churches to marry gay couples not to mention justice of the peace that marry anyone, so it should end there.

 

[Polux]

So we just went downtown and got married; nothing changed at all (except my name). [/B]

Are you OK with the name change bit? I don't like this tradition of having the wife take the husband's name. I may be sounding merely politically correct, but it's what I think. Do we really take the man to be "the boss"? Is the woman little more than an appendix of his? Well, I wouldn't be surprised of a "yes" answer from those who claim woman comes from man's rib.
And what about men's interest in having at least one boy in order to perpetuate his name?
In my country I have heard it is legal for a wife to keep her name unchanged through marriage, but there is not much awareness about it or at least few people do it. I guess other people's disapproval is a concern. I really don't know about children's last name. I know they can take their mother's last name if she's single, has been raped or the biological father has simply disappeared. But can it be an agreed choice of the parents?
Your thoughts, please...

 

[Z]

My wife originally took my name when we got married. A few years later, however, I looked at restoring my original familial name (to hau sen), which my great-grandfather had anglicized to 'Hill'. About this time, we had a discussion about her own family, and she decided to restore her grandfather's name, since he was the last in his line to carry that name.

So now she goes by her mother's maiden name, and I go by my ancestral name. It works for us.

Frankly, though, I don't really care whose name the children have. One carries my name, two carry my wife's name, and the others have other names (including Hill and my wife's maiden name).

And in our modern system, a name is whatever you are willing to make it, right?

 

[Kitty Chan]

Im good with taking my husbands name it creates a unity. Unless a womans family has a heritage of some sort, or her name is famous for a reason, or like said shes the last of her line, why not join? The point of marriage is to become one, its not a demeaning thing to take his name if one thinks of it that way.

But its not necessary now and even before names are mixed up. My great grandfather was a orphan that kept his name and the name of the family that adopted him so my grandmother was hyphened.

How many people came over and recieved different names from their original after and during WW2. Names got mixed then too. My friend changed her name to her grandfathers name (war reason it was changed) several years before she was married so she kept it. But her child is the husbands name.

My husbands side has had a John ---- since way back in the day so we have respected the tradition and kept it with our son, and he will with his if he has one. Or name a daughter Joanne and she can keep it up if she has a son.

 

[Meadmaker]

Are you OK with the name change bit? I don't like this tradition of having the wife take the husband's name. I may be sounding merely politically correct, but it's what I think. Do we really take the man to be "the boss"? Is the woman little more than an appendix of his? ...In my country I have heard it is legal for a wife to keep her name unchanged through marriage,

Your thoughts, please...

My wife took my name, but we changed it slightly. It had been anglicized, and we took it back to it's original French form. In fact, only the pronunciation changed, and we now write it with an accent when writing it by hand.

In the United States, you can call yourself anything you bloody well want to call yourself, as long as you aren't doing it for fraudulent purposes. Occaisionally, I have heard of judges refusing to grant a name change when the requested name was obscene, and I remember one case when a man wanted to change his name to a number, and the clerk refused, and a judge backed him up, but in general, you can use whatever name suits your fancy, so these days an awful lot of women keep their name.

My wife and I decided that if we had children, we all wanted to have the same name, for convenience and tradition. I think we made a good choice, although I find that even after seven years of marriage, I occaisionally slip back to the old pronunciation.

 

[Beleth]

So, to restate my opinions, society has historically played a heavy role in deciding when people can legally have sex, what they need to do with, for, and to each other in order to have sex, and what they have to do if they want to stop having sex. And they've extended these things to sharing a domicile between a man and a woman, because they figured any two such individuals sharing a domicile were probably having sex. Society has enforced its ability to play that role through societal institutions of church and government.

Okay. But that's history.

Today, most members of society reject the idea that the government ought to be involved with regulating how we have sex, and most members of our society reject the idea that government and religion should be intertwined. And with respect to those ideas, I am part of most members of society. Government should, in my opinion, stay out of sex and religion.

Whether the "most"s in your sentences above are accurate is debatable. I will agree that there are many on both sides of this argument - that government should have a say, or that government should not have a say.

But there is one problem. Babies. Sex still causes babies. And babies are still helpless. Someone has to look out for the babies, and not just the babies, but the children.

But the babies and children need to be taken care of no matter the legal status of the union of the two parents. A child left on the stoop of a hospital needs just as much care as a child taken into foster care because the parents get a divorce. So the issue of child care is irrelevant to the issue of government-"sanctified" (for lack of a better word) civil unions.

To protect those rights [of the children], I believe we, as a society, need an institution which has, for some time now, gone by the name of "marriage".

No, the institution we need to protect those rights goes by the name of "child welfare". Nothing in a marriage assumes or demands that the child is treated well or even not abused. If a married couple abuses their child, the right thing to do vis-a-vis the child is to remove the child from the care of the parents, not to dissolve the marriage.

When you (and in this case I mean you) say that peoples' tax rates change when they pay their five bucks, you are saying that government should intervene in their union. Their legal obligations toward each other and toward society change as a result of their entering into any legal union recognized by the state, be it "civil union" or "marriage". That, by definition, is government intervention.

It's government intervention, but not in the union. Government intervention in the union would be something like limiting the number of children allowed to the couple, or making the couple pay a certain percentage of their income for child support. And I don't think anyone wants to see that.

Why? Do you believe that it is never in the best interests of the child? Or do you believe the interests of the parents outweigh the interests of the child?

Neither. As I stated above, I believe that the interests of the child are irrelevant and beyond the scope of the government granting a civil union.

I don't believe either one. I think there are sometimes when it is in the best interest of the child for two people to remain together, even if that isn't what they would choose for themselves, and I think government can, and should, use influence to try to bring about that end. I don't think they should force someone to stay in a marriage they hate. However, I don't see anything wrong with imposing a severe economic penalty on the partner who wishes to be released from marriage obligations, or against a partner who, by his or her actions, has not fulfilled his obligations.

Those two beliefs conflict with each other. Either the government should use its power to make splitting up unpalatable, or it should not.

Why do you think government should have any role at all in defining a marriage (civil union), and how should that role be enforced?

Government should have a role in defining a civil union because the citizens demand it of the government. It should be enforced according to the will of the people, all the while keeping the separation of church and state firmly in mind.

 

[Beleth]

Im good with taking my husbands name it creates a unity. Unless a womans family has a heritage of some sort, or her name is famous for a reason, or like said shes the last of her line, why not join? The point of marriage is to become one, its not a demeaning thing to take his name if one thinks of it that way.

Exactly. You beome a team. Like the San Francisco Giants. You're the East Jibippie Havertys or somesuch.

 

[richardm]

It's all about the marriage, not the wedding. The wedding is absolutely meaningless!

Funny, that. We'd always thought of it as being the other way round. For us, getting married was me and my girlfriend standing up in front of all our family and friends, and formally telling them that we loved each other and were going to be together forever, to the exclusion of all others. Then we had a big party where everyone drank and ate and danced all day and all night.

Sure, we had the registrar there to say the official words and give us the Highland Council stamp, because that's the convention around here, and since it does confer some legal benefits it's not a bad idea.

But the actual process of "having a wedding" was, for us, a reason in itself.

Of course, we'd been together nearly 10 years, so perhaps that makes a difference. We arranged everything ourselves, so it was stressless and free from parental interference, and we didn't get robbed blind by the wedding industry ($70 for cutting a cake? What's all that about?!)

And of course, there was none of that dragging gods into it part - why people who don't otherwise go to church do this I cannot imagine. You're making vows to your best friend, and you're indulging in hypocrisy while you're doing it. Doesn't seem like the strongest start to me.

Of course, that didn't stop my wife's mother from pointing out that "That's a nice church, what a shame you weren't married in it". At least she didn't say it on the day

 

[Meadmaker]

No, the institution we need to protect those rights goes by the name of "child welfare".

EEEEEEK!

Try posting that line over in the politics and current events forum. Make sure to put it in the proper context, though. "We don't need marriage! We just need social workers to help raise our children."





It's government intervention, but not in the union. Government intervention in the union would be something like .... or making the couple pay a certain percentage of their income for child support. And I don't think anyone wants to see that.

I do. And it's here. If I don't pay enough of my income to support my child, I will be charged with child neglect, and rightfully so.

 

[Beleth]

EEEEEEK!

Try posting that line over in the politics and current events forum. Make sure to put it in the proper context, though. "We don't need marriage! We just need social workers to help raise our children."

But that's not the proper context. The government should keep its fat nose out of my domestic life as much as possible. Only if something happens to harm the welfare of my child - both my spouse and I die, and we didn't leave a will, for instance, or there are signs of neglect or abuse - should child welfare workers step in.

I think what you're missing is that I want less government interference in my fellow citizen's personal lives, not more. And that includes their interfering in our choice of life partners.

There is a modicum of interference that needs to happen before the CU is allowed, of course. Each partner needs to go into the union with their eyes open, and that means knowing the other person's state of health, citizenship status, and so forth; and it's the government's duty to assure that these data are known. But beyond that, unless there's a problem, they need to butt out... and selecting a partner of the same sex should not be construed as a "problem".

It's government intervention, but not in the union. Government intervention in the union would be something like .... or making the couple pay a certain percentage of their income for child support. And I don't think anyone wants to see that.

I do. And it's here. If I don't pay enough of my income to support my child, I will be charged with child neglect, and rightfully so.

But that's not what I said. There's a difference between "a certain percentage" and "enough". What I said is definitely not "here".

 

[Meadmaker]

But that's not the proper context. The government should keep its fat nose out of my domestic life as much as possible. ...there are signs of neglect or abuse - should child welfare workers step in.

So they should butt out, except when they shouldn't.

I don't think the government should interfere in the choice of life partners, which is why I agreed with Zaaydragon's version of civil unions. What do you think of his version?

ZaaydragonWhat I am for is a non-specific adult cohabitation contract which can be applied to two or more adults sharing resources and responsibilities, with no regard to gender or other relationship issues.

But I believe that people who do things that create babies have a special obligation toward those babies, and that obligation continues until those babies turn into adults. At that point, it's between them and their therapists.

At this point, someone usually steps in and says, "Marriage has nothing to do with babies." If we accept that position for the sake of argument, very well. There needs to be something that does have something to do with babies. What is it? If it isn't marriage, then what else could it be? You have suggested the child welfare agencies are a good alternative, to which I replied, "EEEEEEK".

I don't think child welfare agencies are a good alternative to traditional marriage.

And then there is the following scenario. Jim and Cindy are twenty years old, and are madly in love. They stay madly in love for another fifteen years or so, when Jim meets Lucy, who is 20, and Jim decides that maybe Lucy might be more fun than the 35 year old Cindy.

That's not an uncommon scenario, really.

Some people think that at that point, the only government involvement should be deciding what belongs to Cindy and what belongs to Jim, and making sure that it's all divided "fairly".

I don't think so. I think the government's involvement should be, "You want to start fooling around with the college chick, fine. Just leave the car keys on the counter and don't let the door hit you on the way out."

However, that should only be the case, if that was their agreement prior to Jim meeting Lucy. Like, say, if Jim and Cindy had been married.