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Comment by fsk | Hacker News Reader

People should be allowed to make any sort of private contract they want (as long as they don't hurt anyone else). Why are marriage contracts any of the government's business?

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At very least to determine what happens to your property when you die (and, perhaps more importantly to the state, how it is taxed). And also what happens to children if you die before they are of age.

Hospital visitation is a tricky one. I suppose you could have people register who gets to visit, but it would be unfair unless you required everyone to do this. I would be pissed if I a family member got in an accident and died alone while I pleaded with the hospital staff while people in traditional relationships are allowed in without the same registration.

Couldn't we, in theory, set it up so that those issues (excluding taxation) are dealt with in a standard polygamy contract.

Of course there is still the issue of determining what the correct resolution of those issues is, so we will likely have a situation of multiple 'standard' contracts, and people picking one without actually researching the differences.

I'm sure most things probably could (though still unfair if some have to explicitly acquire these rights by contract while others get it by default). The government's obligation at death is the sticking point.

This case was about getting a spouse's name on a death certificate. The DOMA case was about taxation at death (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Windsor ).

All contracts are the government's business -- an agreement that doesn't rest in some way on the power of government (and thus, is not government's business) is not a contract.

OTOH, civil marriage in the US (the religious institutions sharing the name are separate concerns, even when they happen to coincide with a civil marriage) is in many respects not like a contract in the usual sense, since many of the legal effects are not to create legally enforceable obligations of one party against the other, but for the partners to agree to jointly share some treatment from, and as offered to couples by, the government. (There are some features of marriage that are either contract like, or which could be mimicked by normal contracts, as well.)

Forming a marriage under the laws of a state is more like forming a corporation under the laws of a state than it is like entering into a bilateral private contract.

Because marriage in the states of the United States have been defined as a contract where the government is one of the parties who also has interests.

I think we should recognize that power imbalances exist and that some private contracts are very exploitative, and are thus not entirely voluntary.

Many of those power imbalances were created (directly or indirectly) by the government.

There should always be an option to declare bankruptcy and start over (unless you were guilty of a crime, which is a debt you shouldn't be able to dodge).

For example, if someone decided to enter a slavery contract, they could always later declare bankruptcy and default and start over. However, an employment contract of 1-10 years probably would be treated differently.

> Many of those power imbalances were created (directly or indirectly) by the government.

Therefore using government to correct them is somehow immoral? Not sure how that follows (or if not that, what you are attempting to say here).

When government creates a power imbalance, and then government tries to correct that power imbalance, it usually winds up making things even worse.

Government didn't create it; people did, using government as a tool. As a tool, it seems rather neutral, depending entirely on which constituency is pulling the strings on a particular policy.

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