Marriage in Government

In the past few years, marriage has become a significant topic of debate, however, so much of what is discussed seems to be nonsense.

Historically, marriage was solely the domain of religion. It was overseen by religion, and not governed by laws and regulations of the government in the modern sense. It was not the place of government to control that part of society. However, it has been government controlled for a long time. It has been controlled for hundreds, or even thousands of years. The reason for that has nothing to do with the questions being debated today.

Today, people debate it as a right given to particular groups of society, while not to others. When it was first implemented, though, was it a right for anyone? Certainly not. There are rights attached to married couple and families, but marriage was not a right at all. It was merely recognition by the government of a status set up by religions. Effectively, these rights were given as incentives to marry within the laws of culturally accepted religions. This is not without modern parallels. Today, we give certain rights and privileges to non-profit and charitable organizations. They are not rights available to anyone, but only to those that choose a particular lifestyle.

Marriage today has become attached to the rights that it provides, in that it is now provided directly by the government in most cases. However, rather than making it a right for everybody, marriage itself becomes an incentive provided by the government. Marriage is not, then, a right that must be fought about. It is not a right equally to people of any sexual orientation, but an incentive, just as the status of charitable or non-profit organization is granted only to certain organizations.

So why would marriage have been organized in this way? Traditionally, the optimal situation for raising children was considered to be by a mother and father. Most people likely continue to believe this to be the case, but support gender neutral marriage because they mistakenly believe it is a right, rather than understanding the true nature of marriage in government. In any case, it was not set up as a right. It was a societal norm that was adopted by government as an incentive.

So what is the real question that should be discussed? Well, if marriage is an incentive, then is it right that it be so? There have been studies done on the topic, with results showing all sorts of strange, contradictory things. Clearly, those who have studies backing them up will never challenge the validity of their studies, nor will they accept the invalidity of the studies that support them. However, it is just as clear that there are problems with those studies that contradict each other. There are many things that can invalidate a study, such as small sample size, inappropriately selected study, inability to properly analyze results, observer bias, outside elements, and so on.

So what do you think? Do all forms of marriage deserve the same types of incentives? Should the government even be determining what makes it a marriage, or simply leave that to others, and then provide the incentives to those who are able to come within an organization that provides a definition?

As a side note, if government did leave it to other organizations, it seems probable that this would effectively provide the incentives to all forms of marriage, as any form of marriage is likely to have sufficient adherents to form an organization to institute it. Government would need to continue to provide regulations prohibiting marriage before the age of consent, although in most cases this would be controlled simply by laws that protect minors such as contract law and laws regarding rape, which tend to limit these sorts of involvements based on age.

As a final note, I do not provide any links to studies that show benefits or negative impacts as a result of the presence or absence of either a father or a mother, or the comparative effects of having two mothers or two fathers or a mother and a father because not all of them are accessible online, and those that are can be found reasonably easily. If you are trying to find comprehensive studies, I would recommend going to your local library to research the studies. Many public libraries have access to more useful resources such as academic journals and scholarly reports.