The government DOES own marriage because the government licenses marriage.
Conservatives need to admit that.
And conservatives need to get the government completely out of marriage: no government licenses, just private marriage contracts binding only upon the man and the woman who sign that contract.
Agreed.
Any criminal can issue a licence for anything, but that doesn't really mean they control it, or that it actually matters to them.
Marriage is a sacrament. And governments, around here, don't offer those.
They give you pieces of paper, and bills, instead. But no sacrements.
/johnny
Who decides, or enforces, that it is a man and a woman?
Great...use a source from Great Britian for your opine. Perhaps you should try a Country where a Church was created to allow King Henry to divorce his wife so he could break one of Gods laws.
Great...use a source from Great Britian for your opine. Perhaps you should try a Country where a Church was created to allow King Henry to divorce his wife so he could break one of Gods laws. Gee does Government own my car because it requires me to buy a license?
As soon as you mentioned CONTRACT you illustrated why the libertarian model of "private" marriage has never existed, and never will exist--and hence is nonsense. "Private" marriage is not just a legal fiction, it is fiction period.
Marriage, by it's definition is a publicly & legally acknowledged relationship, involving a covenant or contract, between a man and a woman....and actually the community.
WHAT, THE COMMUNITY? ARE YOU CRAZY? you say?
Yes, the community--in in that contract shared property and (usually) children are involved, hence you have issues of law:
1)If and when one spouse dies (inheritance & adoption issues)
2)If or when one spouse leaves/divorces or disappears
3)Regarding benefits or privileges allowed by the government (there are many (many).
Because of those 3 realities the State has ALWAYS recognized marriage--as a legal state of life--even back before marriage licenses--where the Church blessing was all it took to make it legally recognized. The abolition of marriage licenses may of been possible before the complex of government benefits/priveleges of the modern welfare state--but until (or unless) the welfare state is gone--(#3) there can be no doing away with marriage licenses.
Even without a welfare state (news flash: it ain't going away any time soon!)a Church form or some other legally binding format would have to exist....becoming the de facto "marriage license."
Even such things as mortgages and insurance rates are varied--depending on marital status--and only law....can determine who is really married, and who is not. Once law in involved, the State is involved.
Since marriage and the family is THE primary building-block of civilization and government...it does no good to naively call for a "privitization" of marriage--as by definition, marriage never has been, and never will be private.
I'll give you an example: Two lesbians "marry" and adopt a child (wait, do we allow lesbians to adopt? Do we allow singles to adopt? What's single, what's married, with "government out of the marriage business?" They separate, and both want the child. But were they "married" in the first place (I would say under God, not...) A friend of their's with a mail order "ordination" in the Church of What's Goin Down had a little ceremony for them--and s/he has disappeared in San Francisco's transgendered community. They have a piece of paper signed with an illegible signature by the guy/girl they say has disappeared...from a "church" that never really existed either. Who gets the kid? Were they legally married or not? Who get's the Miata? The hot tub? How would any such set of conundrums be resolved in the mythical libertarian world?
I couldn't possibly agree more.
The marriage license as we know it didn't come into existence until after the Civil War, and didn't become standard practice in all the states until after 1900, becoming firmly established by 1920.
In effect, the states or governments appropriated or usurped control of marriages in secular form and in the process declared Common Law applicable to marriages "abrogated."
As the States view it, a marriage license is an ongoing contractual relationship with the State. Technically, the marriage license is a business license allowing the husband and wife, in the name of the marriage, to enter into contracts with third parties and contract mortgages and debts. They can get car loans, home mortgages, and installment debts in the name of the marriage because it is not only a secular enterprise, but it is looked upon by the State as a privileged business enterprise as well as a for-profit business enterprise.
The marriage contract acquires property throughout its existence and over time, it is hoped, increases in value. Also, the marriage contract "bears fruit" by adding children. If sometime later, the marriage fails, and a "divorce" results the contract continues in existence.
The "divorce" is merely a contractual dissolution or amendment of the terms and conditions of the contract. Jurisdiction of the State over the marriage, over the husband and wife, now separated, continues and continues over all aspects of the marriage, over marital property and over children brought into the marriage.
That is why family law and the Domestic Relations court calls "divorce" a dissolution of the marriage because the contract continues in operation but in amended or modified form. A marriage license contract is one of the strongest, most binding contractual relationships the States has on people.
Source: How Did Gov't Get Involved in "Marriage", a Matter of Religious Tradition?