What exactly does marriage mean in 2013 anyway?

Last updated on: July 18, 2013 at 8:48 pm by Jane the Actuary

What exactly does marriage mean in 2013 anyway? 2013-07-18T20:48:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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I’m still just playing around with ideas, in an abstract sort of way. I think I’ll ultimately work my way toward unmarried motherhood and whether there’s anything we can do about it, and kids need a mom and a dad, etc. But I’m not there yet.

Let’s consider that there are two types of family relationships: A and B. We won’t even name them yet. Relationship type B involves a man and a woman who have committed to jointly raise a family in fidelity to each other. Type A involves, well, any two people who want to be joined together in a relationship in which they legally become each other’s next-of-kin.

What sorts of laws are appropriate for a Type A relationship? Clearly, it’s appropriate to provide people a means of declaring someone else besides the closest blood relative as “next of kin” in multiple situations – largely, to make medical or financial decisions for you or your children, should you become incapacitated and to designate an heir and guardian for your children should you die. There are probably other such issues. Gay couples often reproduce this next-of-kin-ness with power of attorney, wills, etc., but it is a fair complaint that it’s a lot of work and leads to a lot of worry about whether the paperwork will be recognized if, for instance, they’re travelling out of town.

The other type of legal structure that would be desirable for such a relationship is the ability to combine finances, in the way that, for instance, a house can be owned as “tenants in the entirety” in such a manner that, if one partner dies, the house then automatically becomes wholly owned by the other, as opposed to each partner owning a share. Actually, outside of being ineligible for the “tenants in the entirety” concept, I don’t know with what ease or difficultly an unmarried pair can combine their finances, so I don’t know how much benefit marriage affords. In any case, judging from Ask Amy letters, it’s not necessarily a given that a married couple combines finances any longer.

But this combined finances concept really comes into play upon dissolution of this relationship. Whether the finances were all in joint accounts or not, the legal system prevents one party from walking away with all the cash. Of course, again, a couple could make a similar agreement in “pre-nuptial” fashion, but I imagine a divorce agreement is more enforceable.

In addition to these two legal structures comes a responsibility to be jointly responsible for each other’s financial needs – meaning in practical application mostly that both incomes are combined in determining whether either party is eligible for welfare benefits.

So that’s my list of legal implications of a marriage-as-next-of-kin relationship. Of course, in our world there are certainly other benefits, most of which come from an earlier expectation that a wife would be outside the paid workforce in order to raise a family and maintain the household, so would be dependent on her husband’s income.

In fact, it’s frequently repeated that there are 1000+ benefits that the government provides to married couples (apparently this is actually 1000 places “marriage” is cited in federal law). So the next question I have for myself is: which of these benefits actually make sense outside of the context of a family unit raising children? (Followed by: what laws/benefits/legal structures make sense based on a “traditional” marriage, if we want to encourage people who are planning on procreating — let alone, those who by their behavior mean there’s a moderate or even fair probability of procreating – to do so within a marriage. And followed by: should this legal-next-of-kin relationship be called “marriage”? — and just out of curiosity, in those countries where “registered partnership” was created for gay couples but heterosexuals thought it was a pretty good deal and are electing this instead of marriage, what are the legal differences?)

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