Brooklyn Red Leg
Anarcho-Capitalism FTW!
Taking Marriage Private
By STEPHANIE COONTZ
Published: November 26, 2007
Olympia, Wash.
WHY do people gay or straight need the states permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didnt, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.
For 16 centuries, Christianity also defined the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couples wishes. If two people claimed they had exchanged marital vows even out alone by the haystack the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married.
In 1215, the church decreed that a licit marriage must take place in church. But people who married illictly had the same rights and obligations as a couple married in church: their children were legitimate; the wife had the same inheritance rights; the couple was subject to the same prohibitions against divorce.
Not until the 16th century did European states begin to require that marriages be performed under legal auspices. In part, this was an attempt to prevent unions between young adults whose parents opposed their match.
The American colonies officially required marriages to be registered, but until the mid-19th century, state supreme courts routinely ruled that public cohabitation was sufficient evidence of a valid marriage. By the later part of that century, however, the United States began to nullify common-law marriages and exert more control over who was allowed to marry.
By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from marrying blacks, mulattos, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Mongolians, Malays or Filipinos. Twelve states would not issue a marriage license if one partner was a drunk, an addict or a mental defect. Eighteen states set barriers to remarriage after divorce.
In the mid-20th century, governments began to get out of the business of deciding which couples were fit to marry. Courts invalidated laws against interracial marriage, struck down other barriers and even extended marriage rights to prisoners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/opinion/26coontz.html?pagewanted=all
An older op-ed piece, but still relevant and one that people should consider.
