For most of western civilization, the institution of marriage didn’t involve a government-issued marriage certificate. I have long maintained that marriage, as an institution of the church, is one in which the government does not belong. However, government IS involved in the marriage business and most likely always will be. For government to simply “get out of the marriage business” would involve re-writing several pages of state and federal law, which is not going to happen.
“For government to simply “get out of the marriage business” would involve re-writing several pages of state and federal law...”
It would also, effectively, end our country as having kids is expensive enough, even with the help from the government. No incentives, no kids - that simple.
Yes, there will be a few kids...of course. Every few couples will have their one token kid, but the others will simply say “why bother”.
For most of Western (and Eastern) civilization, there was no dichotomy between "government" as an entity and "society" as the living arrangements of the population. That's way (for example) King Henry VIII needed to change England's religion in order to divorce his wife.
In some of the American colonies, at a slightly later period, the only marriages recognized were those performed by the established church - the Anglican church in Virginia, for example. Weddings in dissenting churches (a Baptist fellowship, for example) were irrelevant: legally, the couple was simply cohabiting.