“Marriage is an implied contract. And with implied contract there has to be a set of rules to adjudicate the inevitable differences that come up between two people.”
So make it an explicit contract. Do you think that the so-called family courts are a better venue to litigate marital problems than say an ecclesiastical court?
“Like, who is responsible for the care and support of the children who re the result of this union? If one or both parents abandon the duties, at what point does the greater community step in?”
How’s it working now when roughly half of kids are born out of wedlock anyway?
That special branch of the judiciary, the family court, is as corrupted and ultimately ineffective as the ecclesiastical court is dispensing any degree of justice in the matter.
“He said, she said” is no basis for determining a logical and predictable outcome for the parties involved. And often the party or parties most negatively affected, the children, have no voice whatsoever.
The business of the state should be confined to things like prenuptial contracts and child care/support arrangements, and if one person wants to tie himself or herself to subordination to another person, a specific set of rules would be written to cover the necessary contingencies in carrying out the terms of the voluntary subjugation.
Civil unions or civil marriages are contractual agreements that rightly are the venue of civil government, and should be addressed and enforced accordingly.
Weddings under the sanction of a religious order entail a wholly different set of obligations and values than civil marriages or civil unions.