[marktwain]

I have a far better solution - the the government OUT of the marriage business entirely.

Bingo. It is when the churches gave up their responsibility to determine marraige that started this process. Let the Church define who is married and who is not. Get the state out of it.

For things like child support and property issues, honor the right to contract, and have an enforecable, written contract that both parties understand, instead of the unwritten, uncertain "marraige contract" where people learn that they have undertaken obligations and given up rights that they had no knowledge of. The obligations and rights even vary from state to state when you move, so you are not even held to the contractual facts of when and where you married!

[Wolfie]

You realize, of course, that if the actual legal obligations of a marriage were written down (that is to say, "Here's what's going to happen to you if the whole thing goes bad"), no man in his right mind would sign the contract.

[mvpel]

For thousands of years the Jewish tradition has had a "ketubah" that outlines the groom's obligations to the bride, and specifies what happens in the event of dissolution of the marriage either by divorce or death.