The politics of meaningless marriage
--and some legal rules that make things worse
"No-fault" divorce is one of main reasons why marriage in the
U.S. now is virtually
meaningless. As someone else has pointed out, marriage now is like a
christening or a bar mitzvah -- a nice ceremony for the family, but of no
legal significance whatsoever.
Other things that have helped to make U.S. marriage meaningless:
(1) Treating the children of casual relationships just the same as the
children of marriage, for child support purposes.
(2) Retroactively applying to existing marriages new rules for divorce
(such as no-fault). People don't know the conditions of their marriages
until they get divorced. Then all kinds of rules that were never dreamed
of when they got married suddenly become applicable.
(3) Applying the divorce rules of one state to a marriage that took place
in another state, or even in a different country.
(4) Extending the privileges of marriage to other more casual
relationships, via "domestic partnership" laws.
If the definition of "black" is progressively extended to take
in the
various shades of gray, and ultimately to include white as well, then
"black" ceases to have any meaning. That is what has happened
to marriage.
--Posted to newsgroup by Michael Powell
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