My guess is that there will be a return to marriage, or there best be a return to marriage before society disintegrates completely. In a feminist or Marxist state, there is no marriage, no love and no family (and of course no commitment).

However, no feminist or Marxist state has ever been known to exist for very long.

I'm straight and I'm not married for much the same reasons.

vanna,

I have love and commitment and children, I'm just missing that piece of paper. Somehow I really don't think you read or grasped the article at all.

Question: What is more of a commitment between two people together; Raring a child that shares their genes and that they share responsibility for, or signing a bit of paper that can be nullified by divorce?

Marriage is also a contractual relationship. A legal spouse has rights to property and inheritance along with such other rights as to access to a partner in the hospital who is only allowed to see family members. I am a man married to a woman and have those rights. I see no reason why same sex partners should not also have those rights.

I completely agree with you that people's private consensual sexual relationships are none of the government's business, and all regulation of them should be abolished, including the Marriage Act, the Family Law Act, the Property Relationships Act, the Family Provision Act, and the law against bigamy. We need only one law on all of this: that people's relationships must be based on consent, that's all.

However marriage is not a piece of paper. That is a marriage *certificate*. Nor is it getting dressed up in a fluffy white dress. That is a marriage "ceremony".

It is a mistake to think that marriage is either a state or a church invention. The state did not begin to register marriages until the 19th century, nor the church until about the 16th. Before that, marriage took place outside the church.

Neither the state nor the church ever claimed their registration constitutes the marriage - and they still don't - but only to recognise the marriage constituted by the act of the parties.

If you read your legal history, you will find that the essence of marriage is not love either. It is commitment. The act of marriage is, in common law, the act of a man and woman taking each other to be husband and wife "in words of the present tense". That is why the parties say "I do", rather than "I might" or "I am waiting to see how it turns out" or "when my boat comes in".

Before the common law defined marriage in about the 12th century, the marriage law varied according to the tribal customs of England, some Anglo-Saxon, some Dane, some Manx, and so on; including polygamous customs.

But, you might say, why should my sexual relationships be dictated by any of this? Why indeed?

Gays have the same right as anyone else to declare their commitment to whom they want for what they want; and a *greater* freedom of property settlements. They do not need the state's imprimatur which is indeed a curse, not a blessing.

Houellebecq,

Over 30% of children are now born outside of marriage, while de-facto relationships only last for a short period of time.

In the UK, it is estimated that 50% of children born outside of marriage will only have 1 parent by the time they reach the age of 5, while children born to a properly married husband and wife will fair better.

By rights, de-facto relationships should be declared a health hazard.

A lawyer saying "An idea cannot be owned"?
Shane obviously doesn't work in Intellectual Property.