HappySqurriel said:
Above and beyond all else Marriage is a social contract between two people and the legal implications involved in it are actually fairly small in comparison to the social implications; basically, most people choose to get married because they want people to recognize their relationship (in the modern understanding of Marriage), or because it is the first step in starting a family (in the more classic sense of marriage), not for the tax benefits. |
Hmmmm. Well, I'll make an analogy (but please feel free to tear it apart):
You could decide to "adopt" a person as your child. You would have many problems if you didn't "legally adopt" them. You could still say that the social contract, or responsibility, that you have taken on to feed, care for, provide for, nurture, etc. are larger than the fairly small legal implications... but would anyone say you are that child's parent? The analogy has imperfections but it does point out the problems that would ensue without a legal apoption, i.e., adding them on your insurance, being able to legally have any say in what happens to them in a medical setting, no intrinsic inheritance rights.
In summation I would argue that marriage is a social contract that is legally recognized. The denial of the legal recognition (except MA and CA) is the crux of the matter, not what some parts of society may think about the social acceptability.
