Chambers wrote:
> I'm not saying "we shouldn't have marriage," I'm saying that Civil 
> government should not get involved with it.  As a consequence, legal 
> matters such as inheritances should not be based on marriage, either.

There's a whole raft of stuff that goes on. You have a bank account shared 
between two married people. One of them dies. What happens to the bank 
account?  You have a married couple. They have a kid. Kid's mother dies. Dad 
remarries. Kid's dad dies. Who has custody of the kid? Husband spends whole 
life providing for wife. Wife has no career outside the house. Husband dies. 
Who gets husband's social security payments? Who inherits the husband's 
money if the husband made no will?  Say you get religiously married, but 
before you tell the insurance company, you get in a car accident. Is your 
wife covered?

All of these things *could* be contractually determined. However, you still 
need defaults for when they haven't been and the event occurs, just like you 
have laws saying whether or not the store is required to refund your money 
for stuff you bought broken when the store hasn't expressed a warranty policy.

What's the reason you are thinking for not having the government collect a 
set of rights and privileges together and saying "this goes to people who 
say they're married"?

>> When someone gets hurt in an accident, who should the doctor allow to 
>> visit?
> 
> I'm sorry, is that a legal matter or an administrative matter?  I don't 
> think we need laws saying who can and can't visit people in the hospital.

OK. When you're hurt in an accident and unable to make decisions for 
yourself. Who says who is allowed to make the medical decisions about 
whether you get a blood transfusion, an operation, etc? Who gets to decide 
if you donate organs? Who is allowed to give consent for medical treatment?

Say you wrote up a contract with your boyfriend. Does the doctor have to 
honor that contract? He's not a party to it, remember.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

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