The Glade 4.0

Generally, in both Canada and the USA, the tax situation is worse for married couples than for single people, unless one of the two has no income and is a dependant.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

So why get married at all?

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Maybe people marry for reasons other than taxation? You think?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well, speaking for myself. I got married when I did so that my wife could get on my insurance plan. That will be 20 years ago come this Dec.

See, this is horrifying to me.

What, being married for 20 years? It can't be THAT bad.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Why? People in a committed relationship don't *need* marriage, except for the legal crap behind it. Insurance, spousal rights etc.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Speak for yourself.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Would you love your wife any less if you didn't have the piece of paper that said you were "married"?

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Holy shitsnacks!

That's irrelevant. It's not a matter of "love" and "legal ****".

How about a similar situation? I adopted my oldest daughter. We went through a lot of "legal ****" to make it happen, but now she's my daughter, not my stepdaughter, or my wife's or girlfriend's daughter, or anything like that. The courts altered her birth certificate to reflect my information at the time she was born. If you read it and didn't know already, you could not tell that I'm not her biological donor; you'd think my wife and I were **** in high school and had a little "oopsie!"

If they didn't have legal adoption and just based it on.. well, whatever, people liking their SO's kid enough to pay for shoes and stuff it wouldn't change how much I love her, but that's not the issue. The issue is that she's my kid, and I'm responsible for her (although she's an adult now) and she's part of my next of kin if something happens to me. No one else can legitimately question that; we went through the approved societal process to become family members of each other and everyone else must recognize it. No one gets the choice to say "you're not her real dad"; it is not a matter of opinion because I stood in front of a judge in a public hearing and said "yes, I am willing to take full parental responsibility for this child's welfare, growth, education, etc." and the judge acknowledged that as a duly appointed representative of the legal system.

Without that process, it would be open to dispute any time I wanted to represent myself as her father because there would be no objective "yes" or "no". Similarly, I could say "well, I'm tired of her, so **** this" and ditch her. Every time I signed a paper for school or something, it would be open to doubt.

Same thing with marriage. There needs to be a legal standard of "you are" or "you aren't" so that the responsibilities of the parties to each other are not in question, and more importantly, so third parties can't have a say. Love isn't relevant to this; love isn't a qualifier for legal marriage. People can get married for whatever reason they want. The reason we have marriage is because most people want to get together and raise a family with someone, and it's easier if they can represent themselves to the world as a single family entity for.. well, almost anything. But, we don't make people adhere to that reason in order to get married. Still, people need to either be married or not married, regardless of how we might revise what we permit as marriage.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Exactly. "Except for the legal crap".

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Holy shitsnacks!

The legal crap isn't crap, it's what makes us married, or what makes my daughter my daughter. If her biological donor shows up one day and says, no it's me, he's **** well out of luck. An important part of these relationships is that everyone else recognize them, partly for practical reasons and partly for the way that we fit into society.

It serves no purpose whatever to get rid of "legal crap" because it's inextricably part of everything else.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Marriage in its current form is just a legality.

Even by Judaeo-Christian tradition, a Jew in Israel 2000 years ago would get married by taking his girlfriend home with him for the night. "Common-Law" marriage is not a new thing. It's called the "common-law" because throughout most of the last 2000 years, traditional marriage was reserved for the wealthy elite. The peasants just took up residence together and were considered "Married." Today, we've attached a legal registration to the concept of marriage that it's never previously had. If you do these other things, or even get your church to marry you without a marriage license, you are not considered "married." So at this point, Marriage is just a legality.


Conversely, we had a small private ceremony inducting Lorelei into our relationship. It's a symbolic bonding. It's not legal. And, in fact, it's explicitly illegal in this country. So why do it?

I may not believe in a God, but there are still certain things I hold sacred.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

All of those examples had the force of law as it existed in society at that time. They all had their legalities attached to them. The ability to create written records was not nearly as well developed, so things were not as formalized in terms of documents, ceremonies and the like, but if you **** someone else's wife back then, the community would do something about it.

Common-law marriage still has legal force in some states, too.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Right. Which is why allowing same-sex "marriages" should really have no resistance. We're arguing the same point crossways.

The reason for marriage is the legal crap. Not the religious crap. Everyone should have a "Civil Union" (as far as the law is concerned) and if you so choose you can be "married" in your church or whatever.

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Holy shitsnacks!

What we should do is keep the term the same, and just make sure everyone understands that no, you cannot get married in someone's church if they don't want to marry you. Adding new terms like "civil union" serves no purpose.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."