Tangentiating a little: if we were going to do something like separating the legal rights currently associated with legal marriage from the social construct we call marriage, I'd want to consider detaching them entirely from the two-person relationship and attaching them instead to "family." (Or maybe, "nuclear family" or "family household" or something synonymous with that.) Where it doesn't matter how many people of what sex are members of it or which ones are married to each other, only which ones are adults and which children... or maybe the right words are "independent" and "dependent," allowing (for example) a person with severe Alzheimer's to be taken into a family as a dependent.
Taxes are assessed per family, based on family income, regardless of who earned it. Health insurance policies could cover your family.
If you're in the hospital, your family can visit you. Adult family members can make medical decisions for you if you're unable to.
Children born into a family are members of it. Other children can be adopted into it. Adult children often separate from the family when they move out. Older parents sometimes join the family of one of their adult children
If a family breaks up, the assets and child-rearing responsibilities are divided in some way among the adult members.
It's quite possible there are problems with this idea, or places where it fails, that I haven't thought of. But the same is probably true of civil-unions-for-all. This idea at least feels like it deserves to be considered, even if it is ultimately rejected.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-09-04 12:42 am (UTC)Taxes are assessed per family, based on family income, regardless of who earned it. Health insurance policies could cover your family.
If you're in the hospital, your family can visit you. Adult family members can make medical decisions for you if you're unable to.
Children born into a family are members of it. Other children can be adopted into it. Adult children often separate from the family when they move out. Older parents sometimes join the family of one of their adult children
If a family breaks up, the assets and child-rearing responsibilities are divided in some way among the adult members.
It's quite possible there are problems with this idea, or places where it fails, that I haven't thought of. But the same is probably true of civil-unions-for-all. This idea at least feels like it deserves to be considered, even if it is ultimately rejected.
You ask good questions.