I Don't Believe in Legal Marriage

With all the cheer about gay marriage now being legal, it seems that now is a good time to discuss my personal opinions on marriage.  My opinion is not a popular one, and it's especially at odds with the fact that I believe the Supreme Court made the right decision in declaring bans on gay marriage un-Constitutional.  However, I don't believe in legal marriage for anybody, regardless of sexual orientation.

Some folks will believe that I'm saying this because I'm a divorced woman, but even before I was legally married I said I didn't believe in it. The government doesn't have the right to legislate my romantic interests or your religious interests.  Also, when I got married I felt terrible about taking advantage of heterosexist privilege.  Then I took advantage of it because I was moving cross country for the second time with "my" man.  Marriage is an antiquated system that should not be part of our legal process.

I believe that people have the right to create a romantic and/or religious union of their choice that is acknowledged by their family. However, the fact that they can then just sign a legal piece of paper as part of their religious ceremony and receive a whole host of legal rights is unacceptable.

By holding a religious or a romantic ceremony they can legally join themselves together in ways that a couple who skips the ceremony can't.  If one gets sick, the other can visit them.  If one is dying, the other has the right to make decisions for them.  If one dies, the other automatically keeps their belongings.  In many instances, if something happens to one of them, the children are automatically cared for by the other, etc.

As a single woman, I have to create a will and file various documents to ensure things are handled in a manner that I approve of.  If I get sick, my father is the default person responsible for me.  If I were brain dead, my father would be making the final decision.  If I had a living will tucked into my dresser, he'd have to know it was there in order to invoke it. How on earth would my dad even know what I've got tucked in my dresser?  I've got to be honest - I don't want my dad rifling through my dresser!

If I were to be very sick, my father wouldn't have any idea how to figure out my health insurance. He'd have no idea how to access the small life insurance plan I have set-up to cover death expenses.  To be honest, he knows what I do, but I'm not even sure that anyone in my family knows the actual name of the company I work for or how to find it because I live in an entirely different state from my family.

A good friend has been trying to convince me to marry her, and if we ever ended up living in the same state, I'll seriously consider it because with one signed piece of paper that only costs as much as a marriage license, the huge host of shared responsibilities are joined.  She knows my opinions on what should be done with me if I sicken and die.  She knows where I work and where my belongings should go.  She knows that my retirement fund should go to my niece and nephew if I die. We've even discussed which belongings she can take when I'm dead.  Neither of us have kids, but both of us are going to grow old and die eventually.  At least if we are legally married we can take care of each other without having to go pay a lawyer for all the benefits that married people automatically receive.  Benefits that are often bestowed upon them by attending a religious ceremony and capping it off by signing a piece of paper.

I have no problems with people choosing to spend their lives together, to be joined under the eyes of their deities, their families, their friends.  Heck, I think it's delightful when I'm not grumbling because I am still a bit sore about my divorce and don't really trust the concept of legal marriage (hey, my dad's on his third marriage, my mom was married three times, and a bunch of my friends are younger than me and on their second marriages already - it's hard to really believe in a "together forever" concept that really seems to just mean "together until we change our minds.").

But the fact remains that I believe that having your union recognized by those around you is incredibly important to people. It adds a touch of civility and acceptance to your relationship. It creates a further bond between the two of you. Some people find it fairly easy to ignore the bond and hop on to the next relationship, but some people put strong values in it.

So I think that it should be done.  And if people who have their romantic and/or religious marriages also want the benefits of the legal joining, they should go to the courthouse and have that paperwork covered at the courthouse - not in a church.  And those of us who are not married should have the right to get those same benefits without having to pay a lawyer tons of money to draw up a large list of separate documentation that a simple union at the courthouse holds.