What does the Libertarian model for marriage look like?

This is the most mind-boggling thing of all of this to me.
Let's not forget the lesson from so many other threads on this site: once you get custody, all you need to do to lose your kids is let them walk home from the park unattended.

The state's custody record is fucking ​stellar.

I remember a time when, if people couldn't let their kids walk home from the park unattended, the local chief of police would be out on his ear.

We get the government we deserve. Or, rather, we get the government the majority of us deserve.
 
I remember a time when, if people couldn't let their kids walk home from the park unattended, the local chief of police would be out on his ear.

We get the government we deserve. Or, rather, we get the government the majority of us deserve.

Most of the people get the government that most of the people deserve. :( :p
 
Um...

Do you?
Yes.
Great. Do you?
Yes.
Fantastic. Your married. Kiss.

Does that work?
 
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I was asked if the state were removed from licensing marriage, how would the benefits currently designated to spouses be received? I got caught without an answer and am hoping for some ideas. One that stood out to me as particularly tricky is extension of SS benefits to the spouse of a deceased person. That seems reasonable to me, but I don't know how that extension would be made without a spouse listed on a contract.

Under the libertarian model, most of those benefits would be extended to people who aren't actually married or even in a sexual relationship.

Some of the benefits, particularly the ones involving taxpayer money, wouldn't be available to anyone at all.
 
Under the libertarian model, most of those benefits would be extended to people who aren't actually married or even in a sexual relationship.

Some of the benefits, particularly the ones involving taxpayer money, wouldn't be available to anyone at all.

Well said.
 
If you're forced to stand in a line, and people with guns are making no secret of the fact that they will beat you to death or shoot you if you get out of that line, and you can see that they've got a donkey at the head of the line lined up to kick the next in line in the crotch, but then you get to the head of the line and they just have some guy give you a stiff right cross to the jaw... did you get a benefit?

The verbiage you used in your OP makes me think that in that situation, yes, you'd think that getting your teeth loosened is somehow a benefit to you.

The best thing that you can do in this situation is stop trying to convince other people of an idea until you understand the idea fully. The idea - no, it's not an idea, it's a cold, hard fact - is that the state is at best useless to you. In most circumstances it simply takes your resources and shoves you around and then offers you NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER. In those rare cases where you can point to something that actually is a benefit, we can pretty quickly show that the amount of money, time, and headache you spend to get that benefit is way in excess of what it's actually worth.

But let's go through this list in detail and hopefully you can see that there isn't a single "benefit" on this list that isn't easily solveable through libertarian ideals.

1) Immigration benefits: simple, stop telling people where they can and can't go. Enforce private property rights, but otherwise recognize that there is no rational reason to keep brown people out of the country.

2) File income taxes jointly: Why the fuck is everyone so in love with income taxes? Get rid of them. Problem solved.

3) Joint parenting rights, such as access to children's school records: Eliminate public schools. This is the most urgent of all libertarian positions. It would be nice if we all recognized it.

4) Next-of-kin status for emergency medical decisions: let's call this what it is. Authorization to euthanize. What other medical decisions are we talking about? What other medical decisions can't be made by the person in question? Does anyone else think it's a little strange that gay people are really just looking for the right to kill each other?

5) Family visitation rights: Prison? Easy, get rid of prisons. Yes, I'm serious. Hospital? Ok they have a point on that one, but let's privatize hospitals first and then talk scenarios.

6) Custodial rights to children: I don't understand this. Gay people don't breed. If they do then they had sex with someone of the opposite sex, and that person has custodial right because that person is a parent. Are they saying that a lesbian should be able to get pregnant and have a kid and then her gay lover should get custody but the father should not? Nuts to that!
Maybe they're getting artificially inseminated? In that case, why don't they use existing paperwork to establish legal guardianship of the partner? How was that not already possible?
If that was substantially more difficult than a marriage license, then sure, I see the point - but the thing to focus on is that the government was making life difficult, not that it was making it less difficult for other people.

Custodial rights of shared property: I'm not sure what the problem is here... I can share property with my mother or neighbor and we both have custodial right, so what was the problem here?

Child support and alimony: Get rid of those programs. Problem solved. Yes, I'm serious.

7) Qualify for domestic violence intervention: Ok, wait.... so you can't wait to get married to the guy who's beating you up, and afterward you want the cops to do something about it?
Of course this is totally solved by treating "domestic violence" as just regular plain old violence. There's no more reason to treat "domestic violence" as something special than there is reason to treat hate crimes specially.
So the answer again is "Stop having the state do that".

8) Receive spousal funeral and bereavement leave: this is between workers and employers. What's really being said here is "we can now force businesses to do something". That something costs money, and that money doesn't go to the employees.

9) Inherit property: the word "inherit" by definition includes a predecessor and a successor. We're not talking about gay couples when we use the word "inherit", we're talking about sons and daughters. There's already a facility for that, and joint property ownership covers up other issues gay couples could have complained about.
Is there an issue with being joint owners of property? Or are you just not putting your gay lover's name on the deed, and expecting other people to figure it out for you?

10) Receive spousal benefits when officer is.... stop right there, eliminate the constabulary. That's probably the second most urgent libertarian issue.

11) Receive spousal SS benef... eliminate Social Security.

12) Immunity from testifying against spouse: I'd need to type up several pages on this for our statist friends here, but if you're really anti-state, the idea of threatening someone with prison if they don't help you put someone else in prison doesn't have to be explained a whole lot.

13) Apply for housing assistance if in a low-income family: Can you guess what the answer is?

14) Apply for copyright renewal: eliminate intellectual property laws.

15) Receive spousal recognition for policies at Arlington National Cemetery: Eliminate the standing army and for the love of God, stop the dead ancestor worship, stop the state religion involving soldiers, and above all stop killing off young men and claiming it's a good thing.

Will this all be passed in the same bill? Lets be honest, getting government out of marriage will be a lot easier than getting it out of most of the things you highlighted. It is like fighting to get rid of Bush tax cuts because we shouldn't have taxes in the first place. And what for, under your master plan for government, are those supposed to do who wish to have a government with SS, intellectual property laws, prisons, an so forth? I'd bet you could get a lot of people from RPF to sign up for your government, but should it be obligatory?
 
4) Next-of-kin status for emergency medical decisions: let's call this what it is. Authorization to euthanize. What other medical decisions are we talking about? What other medical decisions can't be made by the person in question?

Any medical decision for a patient who's in a coma.

6) Custodial rights to children: I don't understand this. Gay people don't breed.

They can adopt.

Custodial rights of shared property: I'm not sure what the problem is here... I can share property with my mother or neighbor and we both have custodial right, so what was the problem here?

Probably access to community property in those states that adopt that system.

Child support and alimony: Get rid of those programs. Problem solved. Yes, I'm serious.

You're also insane regarding child support.

9) Inherit property: the word "inherit" by definition includes a predecessor and a successor.

No. Technically, "inherit" refers to receiving the property of someone who dies without a will. Most state laws provide that in such a case the property goes to the surviving spouse.

12) Immunity from testifying against spouse: I'd need to type up several pages on this for our statist friends here, but if you're really anti-state, the idea of threatening someone with prison if they don't help you put someone else in prison doesn't have to be explained

You miss the point. The privilege against spousal testimony is for the benefit of the accused, who is the only one who can object to having his or her spouse testify against him or her.
 
In its pure form, marriage is simply a contract that establishes joint ownership of property: with rules defining whether/how the partnership may be dissolved (divorce) and how the property may be inherited. And the libertarian view is that such contracts, if voluntarily accepted by all parties concerned, are as valid and binding as any other type of contract, regardless of the identity of the contracting parties (as long as they're all legally competent to enter into contracts). Legally, marriage is not substantially different from any ordinary business partnership, such as your local doctors and lawyers probably have. Note that you can't "get the state out of marriage," since the state has a role in enforcing contracts, and marriage is a type of contract - but that would be the state's only role in marriage.

*The legal relationship between parents (biological or otherwise) and children is separate from marriage (not all married people have children and not only married people have children). That said, the state has a legitimate role to play in setting the rules for adoption (adoption is not a contract, the child is by definition incompetent to make contracts [otherwise he wouldn't be in need of legal guardians]), and marital status might play a role here. I'm not convinced that only married people should be able to adopt (though they should certainly be preferred), but I am (tangentially) convinced that gay people (married or not) should not be able to adopt.

*Note that, on the libertarian view of marriage, the terms of the partnership are purely at the discretion of the partners. Thus, for instance, there would be no general right to divorce, nor prohibition of divorce. If devout Catholics want to marry on the condition that there is no divorce, then there is indeed no divorce for them (the state as enforcer of contracts must honor whatever terms were voluntary accepted by both parties). Others may include a divorce clause in the contract. This would naturally correspond with the view of different churches/religions. Likewise, there would be no requirement for marriages to be equal partnerships; traditional marriages in which the husband has superior rights in one form or another (or the opposite) would be perfectly legitimate if those were the terms of the voluntarily accepted contract. There would not be one concept of marriage but many.

That's the pure libertarian theory, which focuses exclusively on marriage as a legal construct. Libertarianism as such is silent on the cultural dimension of marriage. Churches, businesses, and individuals may view and treat marriage however they like, discriminating in favor of one concept of marriage or against another, provided no one's property rights are violated. Personally, I'm very much in favor of the traditional concept of marriage. If I were baker, I would not be baking any cakes for a gay wedding and - in a libertarian society - I would not be forced to do so. Nor, however, would a rival baker be prevented from taking the opposite view.
 
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