BDBoop
Platinum Member
- Banned
- #81
I have a friend who is an attorney, and he posted the above image on Facebook, after which a lively debate ensued (involving other attorneys as well). This is my favorite bit.
"But this is a peculiar sort of redefinition that ignores the only reason marriage exists or ever existed."
This is a patently indefensible position. If the contract of legal marriage existed solely, or even primarily, to further the interests of childbearing, then childbearing would be part of the contract. It isn't. Marriage is a contract of domestic partnership, not a contract of agreement to bear children. The roots of marriage as a means of encouraging legitimate childbirth developed under a system of women as property, a system I am more than happy to see abandoned. There are countless tangible benefits to a legally-recognized, socially-normalized domestic partnership that have absolutely nothing to do with two individuals bearing children. Those benefits, and their arbitrary exclusivity, are at the heart of this issue.