{"id":942,"date":"2013-07-18T20:48:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T20:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/07\/what-exactly-does-marriage-mean-in-2013-anyway.html"},"modified":"2013-07-18T20:48:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T20:48:00","slug":"what-exactly-does-marriage-mean-in-2013-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/07\/what-exactly-does-marriage-mean-in-2013-anyway.html","title":{"rendered":"What exactly does marriage mean in 2013 anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
I\u2019m still just playing around with ideas, in an abstract sort of way. \u00a0<\/span>I think I\u2019ll ultimately work my way toward unmarried motherhood and whether there\u2019s anything we can do about it, and kids need a mom and a dad, etc. But I\u2019m not there yet.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Let\u2019s consider that there are two types of family relationships:\u00a0 <\/span>A and B.\u00a0 <\/span>We won\u2019t even name them yet.\u00a0 <\/span>Relationship type B involves a man and a woman who have committed to jointly raise a family in fidelity to each other.\u00a0 <\/span>Type A involves, well, any two people who want to be joined together in a relationship in which they legally become each other\u2019s next-of-kin.<\/span><\/div>\n
What sorts of laws are appropriate for a Type A relationship?\u00a0 <\/span>Clearly, it\u2019s appropriate to provide people a means of declaring someone else besides the closest blood relative as \u201cnext of kin\u201d in multiple situations \u2013 largely, to make medical or financial decisions for you or your children, should you become incapacitated and to designate an heir and guardian for your children should you die.\u00a0 <\/span>There are probably other such issues.\u00a0 <\/span>Gay couples often reproduce this next-of-kin-ness with power of attorney, wills, etc., but it is a fair complaint that it\u2019s a lot of work and leads to a lot of worry about whether the paperwork will be recognized if, for instance, they\u2019re travelling out of town.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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The other type of legal structure that would be desirable for such a relationship is the ability to combine finances, in the way that, for instance, a house can be owned as \u201ctenants in the entirety\u201d in such a manner that, if one partner dies, the house then automatically becomes wholly owned by the other, as opposed to each partner owning a share.\u00a0 <\/span>Actually, outside of being ineligible for the \u201ctenants in the entirety\u201d concept, I don\u2019t know with what ease or difficultly an unmarried pair can combine their finances, so I don\u2019t know how much benefit marriage affords.\u00a0 <\/span>In any case, judging from Ask Amy letters, it\u2019s not necessarily a given that a married couple combines finances any longer.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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But this combined finances concept really comes into play upon dissolution of this relationship.\u00a0 <\/span>Whether the finances were all in joint accounts or not, the legal system prevents one party from walking away with all the cash.\u00a0 <\/span>Of course, again, a couple could make a similar agreement in \u201cpre-nuptial\u201d fashion, but I imagine a divorce agreement is more enforceable.<\/span><\/div>\n
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In addition to these two legal structures comes a responsibility to be jointly responsible for each other\u2019s financial needs \u2013 meaning in practical application mostly that both incomes are combined in determining whether either party is eligible for welfare benefits.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So that\u2019s my list of legal implications of a marriage-as-next-of-kin relationship.\u00a0 <\/span>Of course, in our world there are certainly other benefits, most of which come from an earlier expectation that a wife would be outside the paid workforce in order to raise a family and maintain the household, so would be dependent on her husband\u2019s income.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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In fact, it\u2019s frequently repeated that there are 1000+ benefits that the government provides to married couples (apparently this is actually 1000 places \u201cmarriage\u201d is cited in federal law).\u00a0 <\/span>So the next question I have for myself is: which of these benefits actually make sense outside of the context of a family unit raising children?\u00a0 <\/span>(Followed by:\u00a0 <\/span>what laws\/benefits\/legal structures make sense based on a \u201ctraditional\u201d marriage, if we want to encourage people who are planning on procreating \u2014 let alone, those who by their behavior mean there\u2019s a moderate or even fair probability of procreating \u2013 to do so within a marriage.\u00a0 <\/span>And followed by:\u00a0 <\/span>should this legal-next-of-kin relationship be called \u201cmarriage\u201d?\u00a0 <\/span>\u2014 and just out of curiosity, in those countries where \u201cregistered partnership\u201d was created for gay couples but heterosexuals thought it was a pretty good deal and are electing this instead of marriage, what are the legal differences?)<\/span><\/div>\n

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I\u2019m still just playing around with ideas, in an abstract sort of way. \u00a0I think I\u2019ll ultimately work my way toward unmarried motherhood and whether there\u2019s anything we can do about it, and kids need a mom and a dad, etc. But I\u2019m not there yet. Let\u2019s consider that there are two types of family […]<\/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-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat exactly does marriage mean in 2013 anyway?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019m still just playing around with ideas, in an abstract sort of way.  I think I\u2019ll ultimately work my way toward unmarried motherhood and whether\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/07\/what-exactly-does-marriage-mean-in-2013-anyway.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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