SO AGREED!
We shouldn’t use the word ‘marriage’ at all for the State/legal version, that should just be a sort of contract of mutual accountability, right?
I think this also cuts the other way, with the broad ‘State’ definition often being more flexible than many religious and other cultural groups want. A nice firm separation is a win-win IMHO.
Yup, the coercion-free logic should universally apply to all legally binding contracts of any sort! I’m aware of one specific coercion-rich polygamous relationship but that coercion only applies to one person (it’s a family friend) and coercion is hardly restricted to a specific dynamic.
I’d also add that our parent/child safety net is a horrible mess and single parents have far too much of a struggle (I was one myself, but I was lucky to be one during the dot com boom…as a token member of the local ‘Single Mom’s club’ I saw how much many of them struggled). That’s a huge issue and we should treat children like a resource rather than a burden. This is part of why the legal marriage issue comes up (if your’e married with a kid, then getting legally divorced can be traumatic for all involved, often trapping the poor kid in a dysfunctional co-parenting relationship in which they have some very bad examples to follow)
