Just to forestall the "Nuh-Uh!!!" argument, here's what I wrote last time regarding why we have the hodge-podge of marital benefits we see today:
I once wrote:
I've done so in the past. What I find amusing is that you've convinced yourself not only that your notions of marriage are the only valid ones but that no one else ever produces a counter-argument when, in fact, it happens on a regular basis. Why we provide benefits for it is more complicated than any one answer. For example, we traditionally provide sharing of pension (and other old age) benefits because it benefits society to not have indigent women wandering the streets with shopping carts after their husbands die. We provide Fifth Amendment based on English Common Law practices aimed at preventing torture of suspects or their spouses to extract confessions. Hell, I'd wager that much of our notion of shared benefits in marriage come from a tradition that "...they are no longer two but one flesh.". Children or no, government or no, people have an expectation that they have legal right to their partner's possessions (material and legal), the right to visit him/her in the hospital, in prison, etc. Much of our law is based around those expectations moreso than any deeply considered philosophy regarding the "purpose of marriage".
Gbaji's retort consisted of stating that:
(A) Some of those benefits made it easier to raise children, therefore we must assume that they exist for the primary purpose of being an incentive to get married prior to having children -- regardless of a lack of direct evidence supporting this. The evidence of conjecture suffices.
(B) The Fifth Amendment's original catalyst is insignificant. Curiously, since I don't think that Gbaji is saying that the Fifth Amendment itself is unimportant, Gbaji seems to be stating we don't need to hold to the historical purposes of a marital benefit if they are currently obsolete.
(C) Many of these benefits can be gained via other routes. This is irrelevent to determining why those reasons exist but it was his reply to the second half of the portion I quoted.
Gbaji has also admitted that he can not produce documentation supporting his claims that our marital benefits exist primarily as an incentive to marry prior to producing children. I think this is unsurprising since, obviously, there hasn't been a single event where the government sat and said "This is why we'll have a legal framework surrounding marriage." But, where I'll postulate that our current code derives from a potpourri of motivations including theology, tradition, social welfare, property rights, Enlightenment ideals regarding liberty and equality and, yes, even child welfare, Gbaji seems intent on demanding that we agree that every benefit evolved from the prime motive of getting people to wed before having children.
Edited, May 28th 2009 2:22pm by Jophiel
