Same sex (same old) marriage

The institution of marriage is at odds with the liberal principle of liberty. The regulation of marriage draws the state into the realm of family and sexuality, which, by the definition of the liberal state, are private matters that deserve protection from the state not regulation by it.

Marriage also offends the principle against equality. It will continue to do so, in only a slightly reduced way, if it is extended to same sex couples. Marriage confers privileged social status and material benefits onto people who have the will and the opportunity to organise their personal lives according to a professed, monogamous intimate relationship for life, and so discriminates against people who organise their private affairs in any other manner.

The social status of marriage was conferred at a time when its importance as the foundation for social stability was taken so seriously that its termination was almost impossible and adultery was a crime. Its privileged status was earned through compliance with those rigid conditions. However, the social status has become an anachronism where divorce is readily available and socially accepted, and adultery carries no legal penalty and limited social stigma.

Marriage needs to be abolished as a legal institution.

An intimate personal relationship could still be called marriage, and be formalised in any public manner chosen by those involved. If civil society and religious institutions continue to admire and encourage 'marriage', then those relationships would still attract social approval. The beginning, middle and end of such relationships could be regulated contractually as a matter of private law, and according to any terms and conditions agreed by the parties to the marriage. However, the intimate relationship per se would lack a formal legal status, and the state would not be one of the bodies that conferred a privileged social status or any other tangible or intangible benefits on one group of citizens based on a certain type, of often temporary, intimate relationship.

It is now the time to end, not extend, the privilege of the legal institution of marriage in order to recognise true equality by abolishing the privilege of certain citizens on the basis of relationship status.