h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Question--Do governments have the right to decide who gets married, or to regulate it any way other than preventing forced marrige?


My Answer--No. Since marrige is a cultural-religious state that is different in different cultures and religions, it is not really a government issue. Religous groups may decide who they consider married and couples may decide to consider themselves married acording to their own requirements. Governments shouldn't have a say in it--and they shouldn't recognize any marrige as having any more legal meaning than any other marrige.

I fully agree. Unfortunately, there are still many people in British society who would like the state to regulate peoples' personal relationships in order to maintain the status quo.

Should people have the right to marry their cat? What about if they have a *reaaallly* nice sports car?

There are some limits to who and what can marry, and I think their should be, so government regulation is a probably a good thing. We still want marriage to mean something don't we? I mean, if people can marry their favourite tennis racket, then the significance of a couple (whatever orientation) marrying is reduced down to zero.

Ste

"There are some limits to who and what can marry, and I think their should be, so government regulation is a probably a good thing. We still want marriage to mean something don't we? I mean, if people can marry their favourite tennis racket, then the significance of a couple (whatever orientation) marrying is reduced down to zero."

What it means can vary from group to group. A religious group may have rules about who their members can marry (no inanimate objects, no animals, no infedels, no people of the same gender) if they wish--but it isn't the government's job. After all, we don't have laws that enforce the definitions of words because if people used them randomly they would lose meaning.

The police can't arrest you for calling your computer a house.

A couple marrying still has whatever significance their friends and family place on it-it just loses the legal significance that it has today.

When we're talking about the right to marry, we're referring to a persons legal entitlement. So it is a legal question at the centre of a societal issue.

What marriage means does vary from group to group, but its legal status does not (e.g., bigamy). Marriage is not just a word, it is a promise between two people, it's also a legally binding contract.

I think that any two people should have the right to marry. If you grant people rights and legal protection under those rights you automatically exclude everything else that isn't people. It's a side effect of this legal shelter.

Ste

Yes, there is a legal issue. A number of them, in fact.

At what seems its simplest, if someone dies, their spouse has a right to an inheritance. If there is some record of the contract (marriage) with an impartial institution (government, for example) then the inheritance issue is streamlined. If I die and my neighbor says, "hey, I was married to Trunt." Should my neighbour get all my property even though there's no record anywhere of such a marriage? And in a perhaps more imaginative situation, if a member of a church dies, could the church say "oh, a single member's property reverts to the church if he dies without a spouse" even though some other person is yelling that they were married to the dead guy? There needs to be a clearinghouse for records of marriage, some accepted repository that can hold evidence acceptable to society as a whole of those relationships which are involve a contract for inheritance outside of blood relationship. I can't help thinking that for pluralistic societies such as most western ones, the state is the obvious choice to fill the role of such a clearinghouse.

"I think that any two people should have the right to marry. If you grant people rights and legal protection under those rights you automatically exclude everything else that isn't people. It's a side effect of this legal shelter."

That makes sence. And it solves the problem of forced marriges--a contract that someone enters against their will, or below the age of majority, or when incapacitated/drunk/crazy can be annulled if they change their mind.

"If there is some record of the contract (marriage) with an impartial institution (government, for example) then the inheritance issue is streamlined."

"There needs to be a clearinghouse for records of marriage, some accepted repository that can hold evidence acceptable to society as a whole of those relationships which are involve a contract for inheritance outside of blood relationship. I can't help thinking that for pluralistic societies such as most western ones, the state is the obvious choice to fill the role of such a clearinghouse."

Why do you need a clearinghouse, really? Treat it as any other contract. If a person dies, their spouse or spouses have to supply a copy of a document that they and the person who died have signed to claim that they were married. In the document, the people who get married can set the rules for the marrige--ie what amount of the inheritance the surving spouse is entitled to, whether the marrige is intended to be monogamous or polygamous, ect.

I suppose the government would be involved in enforcing the contract-bbut it would be treted like any other contract. The government wouldn't have the right to say who could or couldn't enter one or to determine the terms.

okay.

There is an assumption that every relationship is between two equal partners. This is not always the case, and these weaker partners frequently need legal protection.

I think government should do more to encourage marriage, and should impose tax penalties on people who choose to have children out of wedlock.

"I think government should do more to encourage marriage, and should impose tax penalties on people who choose to have children out of wedlock."

Why?

Because marriage provides a stable environment for raising children, and people who choose to have children out of wedlock, either as single parents, or as a non-married couple will - statistically - have children that the rest of society will spend more money on.

And I know there are bad married parents, and there are people who become single parents involuntarily, and people who end their marriage to protect thier children.

Overall - removing all the exceptions - children from single parent families are more likely to turn to crime, perform badly at school, suffer abuse, and (for some reason) be victims of murder.

"Overall - removing all the exceptions - children from single parent families are more likely to turn to crime, perform badly at school, suffer abuse, and (for some reason) be victims of murder."

A good number of those problems have economic causes, or else devlope from problems with their parents that would exist even if they were married.

Punishing people for having children out of wedlock won't solve the second problem and tax penalties just make the first one worse.

In reality, it is just a technique used by tyrranical Christians trying to force their faith on everyone.

May Seldon protect our rights from our stupidity and from the tyrrany of others. We certainly aren't capable of it.

Really ? I'm afraid it may be very unfashionable to say this, but the family unit is a cornerstone of a stable society.

Whilst there has been a recent change to guidelines for artificial insemination in England, which has removed even the need for a pretence of a father figure, it remains that a male figurehead is essential to the development of a child.

Now I know there are a lot of good people who grew up fatherless, and a lot of bad people who grew up in families, but statistics show that single parent children have more problems than 2 parent children, regardless of financial position - comparing like for like.

I am not saying that imposing penalties on parents of children born out of wedlock would solve the problem - indeed it would probably make it worse. I'm saying that we need to discourage the problem from arising, and this could be a method of doing so. Of course - a change to a sensible moral climate would help as well, but that is less likely to happen than a Government Enquiry finding fault with the government.

As someone who is not at all religous I consider marrige to be a contract as any other, and as devorce shows one that has sufficient get out clauses. While I don't know law well enough to know if there is anything specific to marrige contracts or if the details are written into the marrige contract that both parties sign, I do know there is law regarding contracts, and as such marrige is subject to those government regulations already.

While I agree that a happy stable 2 parent family is the best enviroment for raising children I don't see that marrige is required for that.

A clearinghouse for marriges doesn't to me make sense as the funtions that have been suggested for it are already covered by leaving a will. There is enough confusion and difficulty over those who die intestate.

Math

funtions, functions, something like that, sorry...

Math

Precisely - why should it be "a technique used by tyrranical Christians trying to force their faith on everyone" ?

Marriage should be seen as a legal obligation, and the protection it would provide in terms of care for the offspring.

Too often marriage is sold as an ideal - the bride in white, the church, the organ, etc. The truth is that marriage is hard work, and sometimes it isn't easy. A marriage contract provides an obligation to each other that SHOULD mean just walking away is a harder option.

RDO, what about the rights of children to *not* marry, but to continue to have their childhood? There does need to be *some* basic restrictions on the right to marry, some basic governmental rules, so that for instance polygamy, the marriage of girls (or boys) under a certain age, 16 or so, incest etc are not allowed.

<>
Where on do you get that idea from? I think you are just being prejudiced.
I am a single parent, but i didn't choose to be - and I've heard about what McKay says... I think he's wrong about imposing penalties, but he may be right in some other respects, though not 100%...

"Marriage should be seen as a legal obligation, and the protection it would provide in terms of care for the offspring."

Why?



"Precisely - why should it be "a technique used by tyrranical Christians trying to force their faith on everyone" ?"

Because so much of what they do is. Maybe in perfect utopian Europe where so many of you live that doesn't happen, but I live in a country with a poresident who probably believes the Earth is 6000 years old and feels a duty to force his faith on everyone else. Worse, much of the country supports him on the second and would agree with him on the first if I am right about his opinion on it.

Things must be seen differently when your rights are always under assult by fundamentalist monsters.