As for whether this is merely semantics…not entirely. For example, I don’t think pair-bonding arrangements should necessarily be given preference over other situations (e.g., why should spouses be exempt from testifying against one another, but not parents and children or siblings?) Furthermore, I think that if someone has problems with the history and implications of marriage, I don’t think it is right that the government should be able to make marriage the ONLY way to get certain rights and benefits, which it currently does.

We’re all really in agreement here. But I guess, for me, the idea of eliminating marriage is kind of appealing not because I want to control other people, but because I wish they wouldn’t try to control me.

But if that’s the problem — and I quite agree that it is — then simply removing the formal institution isn’t going to fix it either.

In any event, it seems to me that this is mostly a semantic dispute about whether you call egalitarian pair-bonding “reformed marriage” or “a replacement for marriage.”

I don’t know if Amanda is purposely trying to insult or bait married people. I think a lot of people obviously interpreted it that way. I took her comments to mean that she feels that no matter how much we work to change laws and attitudes to make marriage egalitarian, we’ll never really be able to do so, because it’s not just about the people in the relationship but how those people are viewed by society that counts.

If it is just about insulting married people, I don’t condone that, but perhaps she got tired of the constant “Marriage is right and proper and the only way” crap that we constantly get fed by religion, government, media, and (some) family and friends. I would think married people would get tired of that, too, actually.

But killing marriage as a social institution — because it “entraps women” — would almost certainly require oppressive legal enforcement. On the one hand, Amanda seems to recognize that it’s not realistic; on the other hand, she claims arguing for recrating marriage to fit our current society is “mealy-mouthed liberalism.” I don’t think she’s in policy-wonk mode, I think she’s just trying to insult married people.

Yes, yes, the post is about the Absolutely! Shocking! notion of eliminating marriage, but I really do think the idea of removing marital status from benefit distribution and the taxation model is worth considering.