For centuries, marriage has been in collective custom for countless individuals even before government regulation. So why and how did the government get tangled into the marriage in the first place? What authority do they have to sanction marriage? To define and redefine marriage? To endorse it? To regulate a private, intimate relationship? To discriminate married and unmarried couples? What role do states have in the bedrooms of the nation?
Before the government was involved, marriage was commonly acknowledged by religious organizations as a union among two partners in an intimate relationship. Nevertheless, with government intervention, marriage became strictly defined as a legal contract between a man and a woman in a personal relationship with their own race or religion in most countries. Preliminary in Europe, government showed interest in regulating marriage for governmental records as they needed to keep track of individuals who lived on their lands. Subsequently, they went a step ahead and took the rights from churches to control marriage and established specific laws and regulations on marriage. Some laws that were set by the government criminalized citizens who had different philosophies on marriage and wedded out of their ethnicity or religion. Hence, the government authorized regulations that prohibited citizens from espousing persons of their choice.
During the Civil Rights era, race relations were at an all time high of violence and chaos. Even though the Civil War abolished slavery, African-American were still viewed as second class citizens, discriminated, and were prevented from marrying outside their race. Nevertheless, the civil rights movement came along advocating for the equality and rights of African Americans. After a long struggle of prejudice and discrimination, African Americans were finally granted with equal rights, one of which was the legalization of interracial marriage. Through the Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967, interracial marriage was deemed constitutional by the United States, through this case, the government again reset the definition of marriage as a legal bond between a man and a woman in a private relationship. Marriage was no longer an institution for loving couples, it was an institution for what ever the government decided it would be. Government’s intervention in this private relationship limited an individual freedom.
Ultimately, the government progressed with their regulation and control over marriage. The government created a set of regulations on who an individual can and cannot wed. Additionally, they set restrictions on the age, the gender, sexuality, mental capacity, nationality, and polygamy. Until recently, same sex marriage was viewed as unconstitutional and illegal by most states in the United States. Gradually, some states started to recognize same-sex marriages and grant marriage licenses to these individuals. But same-sex marriage was ultimately legalized nation wide on June 26 of 2015. The United States’ Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges held same-sex marriages legal where married same-sex couples gained the same rights as straight married couples. Therefore, marriage now became characterized as a legal union between two consenting adults in a personal relationship. By permitting the government to control the definition of marriage, we are ultimately allowing them to limit our freedom of choice to their taste. By the government setting such laws, it creates social norms and morals that they expect the public to follow and when one thinks differently, their views and aspirations are viewed as arbitrary and ostracized by the society. Consequently, the government should stay out of marriage because it invades our personal liberty, creates chaos and allows prejudice against these minority groups.
As the Fourteenth Amendment states, “No state… shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Furthermore, the Constitution also states the government needs “To secure the blessings of liberty.” This shows that one of the basic functions and purpose of the government is to protect and secure the freedom of its citizens and sequentially not prevent people from their liberty to choose their partner of choice for their marriage. However, their claim is controversial when people need to go to their state to get consent of their chosen spouse like a child would ask for parental approval. The United States federal government banned interracial marriage (where whites were not allowed to marry people of color such as Africans, Asians, Hispanics) and same-sex marriages (between people of the same sex) for decades. The courts refused to recognize their relationship and limited their freedom. They limited an individual’s right of choice. By refusing the right for individuals to choose their own spouse, they controlled our lives by controlling our decisions. Only after a large uproar and a number of marches, protests, and emotional distress convinced the federal government to change these needless laws. The exact words from Loving v. Virginia as cited from the decision when legalizing interracial marriage was that marriage “is one of the basic civil rights of man.” If marriage is a basic civil right, then it is the duty of the state to protect this right, and not to limit or hinder it in any way. Instead of protecting our choices and our freedom, the state dictates our freedom. Like a parent would say to their child, “you can do this, but you cannot do that (with your freedom).” This shows that government intervention in marriage regulation is unconstitutional and to some degree, unnecessary.
Another reason why the government should step out of regulating marriages is because it creates conflict. Allowing the government to define marriage and pass prejudiced laws created discrimination and ultimately much commotion to undo those laws. Interracial and same sex couples were heavily judged by the public eye. Others viewed their relationship and sequentially, their decision and views as “wrong” because they did not follow the rules of the government. From the fear of judgment and discrimination from their family, friends, and society, people remained in the dark and started believing that they were unusual because the government constricted their freedom of expression. Even after the laws were lifted, interracial and same-sex couples faced discrimination from the society because the law had labeled them as “weird”. Government involvement in marriage created separate societies that acted against one another.
Another way in which marriage laws creates conflict is by granting rights to some, but not all their citizens. To endorse marriage, the government grants legal married couples several rights and benefits such as, “hospital and prison visiting rights, pension entitlements, special tax status, special immigration eligibility, married housing, in-state residency, entitlement to employee benefits such as health insurance, spousal relocation, and even burial with one’s spouse in a veteran cemetery.” This creates conflict as married and unmarried couples are treated differently under the law. These benefits are granted only to legally recognized spouses’ which conflicts, “equality under the law” that the government promises as spouses who are not legally recognized under the state or federal government do not receive such benefits. This shows that marriage laws are again unequal.
As mentioned earlier, marriage had been under religious authorization in one’s churches and temples for centuries. Marriage regulation was under the control of an individual’s religious practices. If the government had not been involved in marriage, interracial couples and same-sex couples would have been able to create their own institution to suit their beliefs without the government criminalizing their behaviors. They would have been able to express themselves without limiting themselves.
Some may disagree with the idea of privatizing marriage, claiming the government is necessary to provide safety for its citizens. They claim that marriage laws that prevent child marriage, polygamy, and cousin marriages protect citizens from any potential harm. Although this may be true – just as interracial and same-sex marriages were banned for similar reasons – what is the limit that the government can rule on these avenues of relationships and what are some harms of these laws. Though we can see a massive difference in child marriages, others such as same sex marriage and polygamy are on a different spectrum. One of the main reasons why the government banned same-sex marriage was because they believed that both the mother and the father are necessary for better child development. However, with the growing amount of citizens who are attracted to the same sex and the rise of adoption, it has shown that both a mother and a father are not necessary for the child’s upbringing, as long as there is a parental figure to guide them, then raising the child is not always an uphill battle.
Child marriage is the union of a couple where at least one of the partners is a child, is under eighteen. Harm arises when children who are married early “are twice as likely to live in poverty and three times more likely to be beaten by spouses than are married adults. They are at considerably higher risk of diabetes, cancer, stroke and other physical illnesses. And they are much more likely to suffer from mental-health problems” (Source). Polygamy, also another form of marriage practiced around several parts of the world in which a man or a woman chooses to have multiple spouses, has different moral and cultural issues surrounding it. People claim that polygamous marriages create negative emotions in an individual when “findings revealed that women in polygamous marriages experienced lower SE, less life satisfaction, less marital satisfaction and more mental health symptomatology than women in monogamous marriages. Many of the mental health symptoms were different; noteworthy were elevated somatization, depression, hostility and psychoticism” (Source). While there is evidence to show the terrible harm caused in the people under these relationships, it is still not under the government to decide the morality of their judgment. Since these relationships are predominantly observed in religious practices some of which are Islam, Jewish, and Muslim it is, therefore, not correct for the government to enforce laws against consanguineous marriages, child marriages, and multiple marriages when it would be restricting the freedom of one’s religion.
