We no longer need to pass property on legally, or determine paternity???
“We no longer need to pass property on legally, or determine paternity???”
Ugh. First of all, determining paternity today has very little to do with marriage. We have blood tests for that now. The original point was for the father to control paternity so that he could pass on his property to his son. You see, state marriage started when women couldn’t own or manage property except under very limited circumstances. The woman was in many ways the legal property of the man. Far cry from today, when both are equal (to a certain extent. They’re not so equal when it comes to custody, etc.), and both can enter into contracts on their own.