Marriage

What is marriage? For every person, it is something completely different. For some, it’s an event that is to be taken very seriously. Others call it love being taken to a whole new level. In history, marriage joined kingdoms and provided families with new wealth. Most traditionally, marriage has been designated as between a man and a woman. Over the past decade or so, it has come to the average person’s eye that perhaps gender has nothing to do with marriage.

We all know gay marriage will be legal one day. But what are we fighting against exactly? We have DOMA, for example, an act signed by Clinton in ’96 saying marriage is strictly between a man and a woman. I’d like to think of that as a starting point to what’s going down in D.C. and across the country. Was that act even constitutional? To my knowledge, there is no mention of anything about marriage in the constitution. So why are there even laws considering marriage?

There’s the whole “don’t get married until you’re 18” law, WHICH OF COURSE makes complete sense. That is the age you are considered an adult under the law. Logic. There is common law marriage, where there was no witness, but both parties have taken each other as husband and wife. Some states still recognize common law marriages. Then there is civil marriage, which is recognized by the state, et cetera, et cetera. Names that go on a marriage certificate really aren’t, or shouldn’t, be of too much concern to the state. This means that those names on a marriage certificate are only really needed for identification.

To be honest, why does the government even care who we marry? I’m not out there fighting for gay marriage rights, but I have nothing against it. Go on, live your life. It is your life right? We’re talking about a marriage, not some sort of felony. Who you marry and what gender, race, religious affiliation two people happen to be, why is the government going to worry about that? There are more pressing matters to deal with. How about this: the only intervention the state needs to make with marriage is having the documents filled out. Other than that, people should be free to live their married lives as they wish.