Makes the World Blind

So I was talking (well, mostly observing a conversation with and occasionally putting in a comment around the edges) with one of those crazed ideological ... people ... who wants to abolish marriage.

This was, I thought, one of the saner crazed ideologues, one who responded to the fact that people will have social rituals that lead to the recognition of their partnerships whether or not they're allowed to call them "marriage" -- that being, y'know, the word for that sort of thing -- with, "Well, yes, that's acceptable to my crazed ideology."

Someone pointed out that most of the benefits of marriage can be accomplished with contract law. This is, in fact, the case; the good folks at The Alternatives to Marriage Project have done much of the research for the United States at least, and have gone in more detail than I care to do at the moment.

I, and at least one other person, pointed out that access to the resources to do this is a matter of privilege: one needs to know that it is possible, one needs to know at least somewhat what is necessary, and one needs to be able to afford a lawyer to put together the contracts -- a sufficiently skilled lawyer to make those contracts sound enough that they might survive the challenges from hostile family members, at that, if hostile family members are likely to be a factor.

I used to work as the secretary of a lawyer who did a lot of estate planning work. Just the very basic stuff to assemble a skeletal facsimile of marriage rights -- will, health care authorisations, power of attorney -- probably ran for most clients a couple hundred dollars. And that's without going into complex things, just the boilerplate, not including the people who did trusts or similar foofaraw.

I can't recall off the top of my head what it cost me to get married, but I think it was $80 and a doctor's appointment which would have been covered under the local free care if I hadn't had the resources to do it myself. $30 to file the paperwork, $50 for the JP who did house calls (which we probably could have done without, too). And for that not only do I get the effects of a basic will, health care authorisation, power of attorney, but also the tax breaks as a household, the assurance of security of custody of as-yet-hypothetical children, the knowledge that we can't be excluded from each other's hospital rooms or, Anpu forbid, funerals ...

So I'm thinking of this a bit while watching this conversation, and get a private response to my comment about the expense of assembling such thing, which went, basically:

"Well, that's why we have a social system here in Europe."

Oh, a social system.

A social system will keep hostile family members from throwing people who have no legal relationship to their partner out of hospitals or funerals. Will make sure they have the ability to make legal decisions for the people they live with, love, and care for, even over the wishes of blood relatives. Will make sure they don't get thrown out of the apartment in which the title and property were in the name of the higher-income partner because, hey, we're young, we'll be together for twenty years at least, we have time to make a will to make up for the fact that we can't get legally married.

A social system will make sure everyone knows what legal contract work they need to put together to assemble the skeleton of a marriage.

A social system will make sure everyone can afford a lawyer.

A social system does this.

If we here in the United States had a social system, not only would the poor be fed, housed, and have health care, but everyone would be able to generate legal documents with no more hassle than a three-day waiting period, a syphilis test, and an official to sign off on your will, your power of attorney, your health care proxy, your documentation of shared property, your funeral intents, your ....

Inside every Hthr is a little Skhmt.



I didn't write back.