I'm concerned that quite a lot of arguments hinging on the fact that the speaker has transformed their own marriage don't really account for the legal underpinnings of marriage, nor do arguments about extending the right to marry really address my abhorrence for the obligation and compulsion to marry.
I appreciate that you mentioned Canada's health care system as one factor which undermines the coercion underlying the marriage contract, because personally I'm not interested in actively dissuading people from getting married - I am very interested in removing the importance of marriage as a legal category. The people who've commented above about marriage making community are spot on - and that's just the problem for me, because it implies that unmarried people are not a legitimate and valued part of the community, and that they deserve a marginalized relationship to the state and to other people.
I would be much more willing to consider the possibility of transforming the patriarchal baggage of marriage as a social institution if first we severed all the legal privileges (and obligations) which go along with it. There are a lot of really practical ways to do that, starting with the health benefits question you raised, to flexible rules for establishing a legal "household," to ensuring equitable child care and family leave for everyone.
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I'm concerned that quite a lot of arguments hinging on the fact that the speaker has transformed their own marriage don't really account for the legal underpinnings of marriage, nor do arguments about extending the right to marry really address my abhorrence for the obligation and compulsion to marry.
I appreciate that you mentioned Canada's health care system as one factor which undermines the coercion underlying the marriage contract, because personally I'm not interested in actively dissuading people from getting married - I am very interested in removing the importance of marriage as a legal category. The people who've commented above about marriage making community are spot on - and that's just the problem for me, because it implies that unmarried people are not a legitimate and valued part of the community, and that they deserve a marginalized relationship to the state and to other people.
I would be much more willing to consider the possibility of transforming the patriarchal baggage of marriage as a social institution if first we severed all the legal privileges (and obligations) which go along with it. There are a lot of really practical ways to do that, starting with the health benefits question you raised, to flexible rules for establishing a legal "household," to ensuring equitable child care and family leave for everyone.