ADDED: \u00a0Bonus hypothetical question below!<\/p>\n
This is that sort of post in which I think about things a little, and invite you to think with me.<\/p>\n
What is marriage, in our legal system, now, in the year 2015? \u00a0Discarding issues of children:<\/p>\n
1) It provides a means of becoming mutual next-of-kin to someone not biologically related to you. \u00a0This has all manner of implications, most notably medical decision-making and visitation rights, as well as\u00a0an inheritance presumption. \u00a0(Could this be adapted to non-marital and\/or polygamous relationships? \u00a0Probably not in the newfangled polyamorous \u201ceveryone loves everyone else\u201d form, but you could have a \u201cnext of kin declaration\u201d that\u2019s not mutual \u2014 e.g., wife A and wife B both declare that their next-of-kin is husband C; but husband C would have to select a single spouse as his<\/em> next-of-kin.)<\/p>\n 2) It provides a commitment by each person in the pair to provide support for the other \u2014 and a trade-off by the government: \u00a0certain benefits such as joint filing status (that is, where it is a benefit), government involvement at dissolution to ensure a fair split of assets, etc., while at the same time, the household income is assessed as a whole to determine whether the family is eligible for welfare-type benefits.<\/p>\n But the \u201cthen\u201d? \u00a0Once upon a time, it was taken as a given that the wife was a stay-at-home mother, with little or no earnings. \u00a0That\u2019s the reason for Social Security spousal and death benefits \u2013the assumption that they\u2019re going to a needy wife. \u00a0In other parts of the world, stay-at-home parents earn benefits in their own right, for those years that they\u2019re out of the labor force, rather than getting a percentage of their spouse\u2019s benefit, and there\u2019s no reason Social Security in the U.S. couldn\u2019t be updated to reflect this, and eliminate any unfairness about married couples receiving greater benefits than singles. \u00a0For that matter, it used to be a given that household finances and assets were always jointly held, and I have the impression that the presumption of mutual support implicit in #2 isn\u2019t always the case any longer, at least based on periodic Ask Amy articles in which the letter-writer complains that they don\u2019t have joint finances and higher-earning hubby spends his cash on golf outings and new clothes while she\u2019s scrimping to pay her half of the mortgage.<\/p>\n And the other \u201cthen\u201d? \u00a0The presumption that any child born in the marriage was the offspring of the two spouses. \u00a0Does this continue to make sense, as opposed to simply listing as father\u00a0whoever claims fatherhood and\/or is proven as father?<\/p>\n So your turn:<\/p>\n what \u201cbenefits of marriage\u201d are there that don\u2019t fit into categories #1 or #2, and does it make sense to continue these in the year 2015? \u00a0And, with respect to #2, expectations of mutual support, how should that look in 2015?<\/p>\n And here\u2019s the hypothetical question:<\/p>\n Imagine that the government, wanting to get out of the whole business entirely, sets up a\u00a0replacement\u00a0system:<\/p>\n Any couple that wishes can file a Mutual Next of Kin Declaration. \u00a0Poly folk can file generic Next of Kin Declarations, no mutuality required. \u00a0Call it a NOK in keeping with the American love of acronyms.<\/p>\n Any couple (or other group) can file a Declaration of Mutual Support, which binds them financially \u2014 with all debts, all earnings, all assets shared, and dissolution requiring a court order dividing it all. \u00a0And even without such a declaration, a NOK pair living in the same household would be treated as a couple for any government benefit requiring an income test.<\/p>\n To make these commitments even further committed, either declaration can be dissolved, but then neither party can enter into a new declaration for a specified length of time \u2014 2 or 3 or 5 years or the like.<\/p>\n How do you think people would respond? \u00a0A traditional set of wedding vows paired with a trip to the county clerk to file these declarations? \u00a0A NOK first, and a DMS (yeah, you\u2019d need a more acronymable phrase) only if you work out the math and it makes sense? \u00a0Or just a NOK, because mutual support is too demanding and risky?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ADDED: \u00a0Bonus hypothetical question below! This is that sort of post in which I think about things a little, and invite you to think with me. What is marriage, in our legal system, now, in the year 2015? \u00a0Discarding issues of children: 1) It provides a means of becoming mutual next-of-kin to someone not biologically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n