Why do governments regulate marriage?
Why do governments give married couples so many benefits? What are they trying to encourage, if anything?
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The discourse of marriage usually entails what marriage is about - whether it is about love, about creating a family, about mutual happiness etc etc. But very rarely does the dialogue focus on the topic in question - why does the state bother to regulate marriage at all? The state doesn't regulate nor legislate friendships, comradery, acquaintances, promiscuity etc. But why? These relationships also entail terms such as love, affection, mutual trust, bonds, happiness, sexual affairs etc, so what makes these relationships different from marriage? The answer is simple - procreation. Married couples are more likely to start families, to procreate, to keep their children and to guarantee a consistent flow of new taxpayers and citizens. This is paramount to the interest of the state, because without new citizens and taxpayers, the state would simply crumble and eventually die out. Therefore, the state encourages the formation of long-lasting heterosexual unions (marriage) through many marital benefits (tax deductions, support money, child welfare, increased pensions etc etc). This is the reason why the government does not support unions that are inherently incapable of procreating or very unlikely to procreate (gays, bestial relationships, incestuous relationships etc). These unions can still enjoy the company of their loved ones, manage their wealth and property through civil contracts etc. However, what they can't enjoy are the marital benefits that extend only to such unions that play a vital role in ensuring the continuation of society through procreation - heterosexual marriages. While it seems logical that a government would want to regulate marriage to encourage procreation I could not find any evidence of that in a quick search. If anything the primary historical reason for the regulation is a housekeeping tool to know specifically which woman "belongs" to which man, how to handle inheritance etc. The government benefits for being married just seem to grow from the idea once married the two parties are treated like a single entity such that if one dies the other assumes the assets. Tax breaks, etc. If the purpose was to reward successful procreation and child rearing the government would simply pay you to have children and reward your bringing up those children. The government does do this to some degree but that part is not dependent on being married. The problem is that marriage, as an institution, is very widespread amongst all kinds of different cultures - some cultures so distinct from one another that they can barely even be compared. Marriage is something that trancends religious, cultural and social boundaries - as a phenomena it is virtually in every society that has ever existed. Your comment about female ownership could possibly only find application in fringe patriachal societies, yet the concept of marriage is far beyond patriarchy. Your comment on tax deductions - tax deductions is actually a very new trend in terms of marital bonuses. Before modern times, marriage was customary and the idea that one had to get married was pretty much a given. Now that traditional marriage bonds have softened - the state needs to find new ways to entice hetero sexual couples into long lasting fertile relationships. If the purpose was to reward successful procreation and child rearing the government would simply pay you to have children and reward your bringing up those children. Isn't the government essentially doing that with marriage? In ancient Rome during times of negative birth-death rates - the state actually imposed bachelor taxes and no-children taxes. In ancient Greece, which had very high tolerance for homosexuality - even they saw marriage as something of immense public value. Homosexuals, while tolerated, could not marry. These few examples show that the encouragement of procreation is the only reasonable answer as to why such institutions exist on a state level and why the state continues to support them. |
