Reply #1: The state claims an interest in protecting [View All]

[Warpy]

the rights of children when squabbling breaks out. It also claims a right to oversee the fair dissolution of property when that happens.

Other than at the time of the breakup, the state interferes very little, except by favoring one wage earner families through the tax laws from the early 70s to the end of the marriage penalty.

I think the state has only two choices: either give up the marriage and divorce business and allow the churches to handle it all, or extend the benefits of what is a legal contract to all adults crazy enough to enter into it.

(I can see that having churches be the arbiters of divorce disputes would have both advantages and disadvantages, but I'd still prefer the dispassionate approach of the secular state, since some churches out there don't recognize divorce under any circumstances.)