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Comment by mhurron | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to take issue with just one statement here because I'm short on time -

> special kind of oppressor to tell you ... who you are allowed to love and allow into your family.

They don't. You can have a polygamous marriage all you want, you can have an open marriage, you can be as gay as you want.

However, husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter and what not also have legal ramifications, and that is where the law has domain. It has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships.

The gay marriage issues stem from a misunderstanding, willful or otherwise, of that. The marriage the state cares about is the contract between two adults, it doesn't give a damn about your morals or god.

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> You can have a polygamous marriage all you want

No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).

> you can be as gay as you want.

Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely [1].

> [The law] has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships.

Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law

> Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely [1].

Even if the law is on the books in some states, it cannot be enforced due to the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas). Also, sodomy is not limited to gay men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy).

> Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right.

Certainly there are laws based on morality, but it's absurd to claim that all laws are. Laws regarding the legal status of married people also help standardize common relationships. Can you imagine having to precisely define your non-married long-term relationship every time you fill out a form at the doctor's office or bank? The legal concept of marriage exists largely to codify the shared responsibility of each spouse when it comes to contracts, financial obligations, child care, etc.

> Laws are derived from the morality of their times.

Yes and no. Some laws are universal wrong - like murder. However, government laws like banning drugs are based on the feelings and opinions of the people at the time.

Both of these are evident from the history of civilizations. Murder has always been wrong - drugs not so.

> You can have a polygamous marriage all you want

>No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).

Yes you can, you can not however have more than one legal wife. You can marry wife #1 (marriage certificate) and this person will be the only wife the law cares about. You can then have any religious or whatever ceremony to marry any number of other women and you can all live together any way you wish. You can do this because the state doesn't care about the religious ceremony. You can not legally marry more than one woman, the women must know they are taking part in a polyamorous relationship and they can not be coerced into it. Again, the legal definition of marriage and what you call being married do not have to match.

As a side not, it is basically impossible to find what you are referring to with 'the "Big Love" family' since it appears to be a TV show as well. So I can't say anything about it.

> Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely.

This is the best example of how the law and individuals differ. Legally (in the US), sodomy is defined as any sexual contact other than vaginal intercourse. Ever had a blow job? Congratulations, you could be charged. It has noting to do with being male, lesbianism would be charged with sodomy as well.

In the US, you can be as gay as you want.

> > > You can have a polygamous marriage all you want

> > No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).

> Yes you can, you can not however have more than one legal wife. You can marry wife #1 (marriage certificate) and this person will be the only wife the law cares about.

Whether this is true or not depends on the details of the state law, but its certainly not true in, e.g., Utah, where the relevant statute [1] looks at cohabitation as well:

(1) A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.

(2) Bigamy is a felony of the third degree.

(3) It shall be a defense to bigamy that the accused reasonably believed he and the other person were legally eligible to remarry.

[1] Utah Code, tit. 76, chap. 7, sec. 101; http://le.utah.gov/code/TITLE76/htm/76_07_010100.htm

> see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah

Presumably -- and I am somewhat embarrassed to be able to catch this mistake -- you are referring to the actual family featured on the reality show "Sister Wives" [1], not the fictional family featured on the show "Big Love".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Wives

You are quite correct. Can't edit anymore, but that is the correct title of the show I was referring to.

Many of the "legal ramifications" are legal priveleges. Your spouse can visit you in the hospital and be listed on your insurance policy. If your spouse is not legally recognized as your spouse then those benefits will be prohibited to you. Many other favorable incentives such as tax benefits rest solely on what the state thinks of your relationships, and not what you think of them.

In some jurisdictions, the state can decide that you are formally and legally married even if you have never filed for a marriage license[1].

Like it or not, what the state thinks about your relationships can impact your life enormously.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage

These legal ramifications should be either abolished or applied to everyone who applies those titles equally. Anything else is state-sponsored discrimination and harassment, which is our current sad state of affairs.

Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say.

You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?

These are just two things off the top of my head that throw a monkey wrench in things making the 'just abolish it' not quite as simple.

As for 'state-sponsored discrimination and harassment' just no. That is people and their attitudes, legality has nothing to do with it. Blacks weren't seen as equals and without harassment just because slavery became illegal and they could vote. Homosexuality is legal, but again, individuals don't harass based on legal status.

You are conflating legal issues with personal views of morality, they are not the same thing and have very little to do with each other.

> "Blacks weren't seen as equals and without harassment just because slavery became illegal and they could vote. Homosexuality is legal, but again, individuals don't harass based on legal status."

When blacks became legal equals it went a long way towards their being considered cultural equals throughout society. The underlying motives for harassment may not be due to someone's legal status, but the legally endowing someone with less rights because of their race/sex/orientation/etc gives a lot of ammo to people who want to harass them.

> "Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say."

Unless otherwise specified, the first wife could have final say. Or the last. Any consistent system would work here. Important decisions about your health and property should really be decided and specified in advance by the individual.

> "You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?"

<value of assets subject to forfeiture due to divorce>/<number of wives pre-divorce> seems reasonable. These are not hard problems. Courts exist to settle exactly these issues.

The parent comment expressed a moral principle that it is wrong for any government to usurp your authority to form relationships according to your own desires or to legally recognize or withhold legal recognition (where necessary) from relationships in which it has no business. You are looking at implementation details and saying that because a change of this magnitude causes some practical problems (which would not be surprising) the moral premise is flawed.

Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say.

I do. In the contract.

You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?

Whatever the contract says.

Any other questions?

What contract? Are we going to have a standard contract specifying what you want to happen in every conceivable situation? Just imagine a some medical issues that could come up: kidney failure, liver failure, vegetative state, amputation, DNR, transplants, organ donation, etc.

Any number of unimaginable situations could come up, which wouldn't be covered by a contract, and which a human being has to make a decision that directly affects your life.

How do you handle loans? If I have 30k in debt, and I marry into a polygamous marriage, do the other spouses carry my debt? What if I die, then who owes the money? Not all tricky legal issues can be covered with a "well let's just make a contract."

Grep the US Code for "spouse", write a contract that covers those things?

> How do you handle loans? If I have 30k in debt, and I marry into a polygamous marriage, do the other spouses carry my debt?

I don't even know how this works with two people. I was under the impression that finances are separate unless you deliberately merge them, and that doing so is orthogonal to marriage.

What contract?

Exactly. That's the problem I have with marriage. So much for the rule against perpetuities, among other things.

Not all tricky legal issues can be covered with a "well let's just make a contract."

Sure they can. If one Fortune 500 company merges with another, the resulting contracts are thick enough to fill multiple heavy leather-bound volumes the size of major metropolitan telephone books. The lawyers are paid to think of everything that could go wrong.

So it's not debatable that an adequate legal framework for simple domestic partnerships can exist, it's just that for some reason, people don't bother.

> That's the problem I have with marriage. So much for the rule against perpetuities, among other things.

Since a marriage is always complete within the lifetime of a person living at the time it is formed, it has no problem with the rule against perpetuities.

Really? So I can sign a contract to work for you for the rest of my life, and no judge will blink at it?

To the best of my knowledge, only the institution of marriage and the Church of Scientology offer a deal like that.

> Really? So I can sign a contract to work for you for the rest of my life, and no judge will blink at it?

A judge might blink at it, but not because of the Rule Against Perpetuities, which, generally, requires that a valid interest must vest within 21 years after the death of some person alive at the time the interest was formed.

A contract in which all obligations are complete at the end of any life in existence at the time the contract is formed may be invalid for any of a variety of reasons, but the Rule Against Perpetuities isn't one of them.

> To the best of my knowledge, only the institution of marriage and the Church of Scientology offer a deal like that.

Contracts granting life interests in real estate, which are also valid under the rule against perpetuities and were quite common when the rule first came into existence also involve commitments of similar duration. Commitments that last the length of a particular life (of a long fixed period of time, like 99 years) are not at all uncommon in contracts.

> Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say.

Establishing a rule for priority in this situation is fairly straightforward. The most obvious rule is to support a pre-need declaration of priority if one exists, and otherwise default to an oldest-marriage priority.

> You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?

This is essentially an identical issue to dissolution of a partnership with more than two partners, and as such is pretty well already solved by the legal system.

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