Marriage and the State

I wish someone would offer a reason, not a colorful sentiminentality, of why any young male in the central Western World should marry.

Marry? Why? In this day in age, what reason would a man marry in, say, America or Canada?

For, sir, I do not have the honor of knowing you, but I wager five to one that for most of your life you have been making life-long goals; and if you have been making them, I wager ten to one that eventual marriage and happy household is a central element to your future life.

And you, madame, unlike the male, I am sure you have been dreaming of eventual marriage and see a man as realizement to that end. As demographics show the numbers of single women rise and rise, you wish not to become that statistic. But why are more and more of your friends ending up single? What is growing these cracks throughout society? I am sure you believe that everything will be solved if ONLY men would do as you wish.

Poor men! Like Atlas, the world is dumped on our shoulders. When he comes to age, the young man stands on the rostrum and the hundred thousand tongues wag out to him at once:

“Provide a steady ever-increasing paycheck.”
“Furrow the countryside with roads and highways.”
“Walk around in designer clothes and popular haircuts.”
“Service the trucks, airplanes, and trains that keep goods coming and going.”
“Feed the babies.”
“Instruct the young.”
“Relieve the aged.”
“Irrigate the plains.”
“Make experiments with invention to create new technology.”
“Maximize profits in all industries.”
“Liberate the Middle East.”
“Plant trees in the cities.”
“Capture criminals.”
“Put out fires.”
“Save lives.”
“Court the women.”
“Root out masculine arrogance.”
“Send the city folk into the country.”
“Create model governments.”
“Spend time for wealth creation.”
“Encourage art; train musician and dancers.”
“Improve the breed of saddle horses.”
“Establish harmonious offices.”
“Entertain the masses.”
“Pay taxes.”
“Maintain the houses and buildings.”
“Provide for all lawns.”

“Oh, tongues, a little patience,” replies the man. “I shall try to satisfy you, but for that I shall require some happiness. I have prepared proposals for five or six payments, the mildest in the world. For my happiness, I require:

“Control of my childrens’ education.”
“Obedience from my wife.”
“Good food put on the table.”
“Emphasize discovery not material goods.”
“For women to preserve their good forms.”
“And respect in general.”

In response, a great protest is unleashed: “Shame! Shame! These ‘payments’ are relics from a barbaric age! Do as we ask or you will not be worthy of being called a man. Far from allowing you to backward our society, we demand:

“Education be controlled by the women.”
“That the husband obeys the wife.”
“That you help make the food.”
“That you provide all material items deemed necessary by society.”
“Allowance for women to let herself go.”
“And give respect to women, always, forever, unto the end of your days.”

In the midst of this tumult, and after more and more obligations are placed, and more and more rewards taken away, I tried to point out that men were going to go on strike. Good Lord! What was I thinking of? Could I not keep this unfortunate prophecy to myself?

So here I am, discredited forever; and it is now by offering such conclusion that I will be accused of being a heartless, bitter man, a male who does not wish to grow up, afflicted with ‘Peter-Pan Syndrome’, a hedonist; in other words, someone who believes men have the right to be happy.

Oh, pardon me, sublime saps who worship women, who nothing stops, not even the contradictions. If I’m wrong, I’ll retract the error with all my heart. I demand nothing better, you may be sure, than that you really have discovered a benevolent and inexhaustible resource, calling itself “men”, which has checks for all restaurants, fuel for all cars, ornaments for all desires, work for all needs, thinking for all problems, health care for all wounds, shoulders for all suffering, advice for all perplexities, ideas for all minds, distractions for all boredom, corrects all our errors, amends all our faults, and exempts us all henceforth from the need of foresight, discovery, sagacity, experience, order, temperance, and industry.

The more I reflect on it, the more I find how easy the whole thing is; and I, too, long to have at hand an inexhaustible source of riches and enlightenment, that universal shelter, that limitless cash-machine, that infallible counselor, that you call “man”.

But do not Humans do things for rewards? Hence, that is why we must force the question. Why should a young man should get married in a Westernized Country? What is in it for him? This is why I demand a reason. Please give it.

“Very well,” the women reply. “The reasons for young men to get married are:

“Sex.”
“Fulfilled relationship.”
“Access to Society.”
“Civilized existence.”
“Removal of loneliness.”
“Societal recognition.”
“Children.”

What! No cooking or pampering? But seriously, many that you listed are dubious. ‘Fulfilled relationship’, ‘civilized existence’, and ‘societal recognition’ are nothing but the woman’s standard. Of course a relationship is ‘fulfilled’ once she gets married, what else could it be? And a married man does not make a civilized man. And since only women exist in women’s world, societal recognition is little more than ‘female’ recognition.

Removal of loneliness? The most loneliest thing is to be married to someone who doesn’t care about you.

Children? You mean conception can only occur from a paper from the courthouse?

And sex? Sex is all over. There is nothing to hold the woman up to her end of the bargain. She can get married and not sex her husband, deliberately. What course does the husband have? None. At least when he is single, he has some sort of control over himself to remove his presence from parasitism.

Law and Marriage

Why is the law involved in marriage at all? What purpose does the law have with the eternal union between man and woman? Did George Washington have to go to the courthouse to get permission to marry? Of course not. For better or worse, a man is married to a woman. In actuality, he is married to the government.

“Marriage cannot exist outside the law.” Who says? Congress? The TV shows? Politically, there are many battles going on with marriage. These include gay marriage, divorce law, polygamy, and so on. Instead of debate what the marriage law should or shouldn’t be, why not just remove the law from marriage?

“We would face societal anarchy!” How? The other bands of society, such as friendship or comraderie, require no legal license from the courthouse. It is most revealing that those who are chasing political activisism with marriage (gay rights, feminists, etc.) demand more laws (which complicates things further) rather than less laws (which de-politicizes). Over history and time, which has caused more grief and strife? More laws or less? So why is every solution to ‘marriage’ always more laws and judicial rulings? Are we not free people? Can we not deal with our relationships without the involvement of the civil magistrate? If relationships are natural and form spontaneously in the clean air of liberty, why the laws? We do not have laws and judicial hearings on friendships. If I make a friend, I do not seek a license from the courthouse to do so. If I become a father, again, no license is required. But to turn one’s girlfriend into a wife, which doesn’t require legalized permission from either of our families, requires a license from the state. Why? Silence is the only answer.

How do you get a Marriage License? This is how it is done in New York:

Assuming you are both of correct age, the man and woman, must first apply for the license in person. You will need a money order in the amount of $35 and proof of your identity as well as proof of your age if you are, or appear to, be under eighteen years of age. You must fill out an Affidavit and Application for Marriage License by listing various personal details such as your name, address, birthplace, date of birth, social security number, your parents’ name, their birthplace, and your marital history and make a sworn statement that there are no legal impediments to the marriage. If you had been married previously you must list all prior marriages on the marriage license application. You are required to supply your prior spouse’s full name, the date the divorce was granted and the place the divorce was filed and may be asked to produce the final divorce decree. If you are a widow or widower, you must provide your deceased spouse’s full name and date of death. The marriage license is generated based on this information. Upon receipt of the license and completion of the waiting period (see below) the ceremony can be performed. You can marry in any of our offices or any venue of your choice. If you are marrying in New York City it is advisable to ensure your marriage officiant (person who performs the marriage ceremony) is registered with the Office of the City Clerk by calling 212-699-8090 since the Office of the City Clerk will not release Marriage Registration Certificates for marriages performed by unregistered officiants. It is the duty of the marriage officiant to complete the marriage license and mail it to the Office of the City Clerk within 5 days of the ceremony. You should ensure that all parties–the witnesses, you and your spouse and the marriage officiant–sign. Upon receipt of the completed certificate, the Office of the City Clerk should issue to the couple a Certificate of Marriage Registration within 15 days of receipt. The Certificate of Marriage Registration is your ultimate proof of marriage.

 

But who is allowed to marry you? Can Bob down the street marry my girl and I?

To be valid, a marriage ceremony must be performed by any of the individuals specified in Section 11 of the New York State Domestic Relations Law. These include: – the mayor of a city or village; – the former mayor or the city clerk or one of the deputy city clerks of New York City;

– a marriage officer appointed by the town or village board or the city common council;

– a justice or judge of the following courts: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern or Western Districts of New York, the NYS Court of Appeals, the Appellate Division of the NYS Supreme Court, the NYS Supreme Court, the Court of Claims, the Family Court, a Surrogates Court, the Civil and Criminal Courts of New York City (including Housing judges of the Civil Court) and other courts of record;

– a village, town or county justice;

– a member of the clergy or minister who has been officially ordained and granted authority to perform marriage ceremonies from a governing church body in accordance with the rules and regulations of the church body;

– a member of the clergy or minister who is not authorized by a governing church body but who has been chosen by a spiritual group to preside over their spiritual affairs; – other officiants as specified by Section 11 of the Domestic Relations Law. The person performing the ceremony must be registered with the City Clerk in order to perform a ceremony within the New York City limits. The officiant does not have to be a resident of New York State.

One gets the suspicious feeling that the government believes it creates marriage. It probably believes it creates families and children as well. So much law!! So little sense!! Shouldn’t be a surprise that the Marriage license we have now is a descendant from a former age. It’s obsolete in our age not because humanity has changed, but because governments are constituted that societies make the laws, rather than the laws making the societies.

And to make it worse, to some religions, marriage is a sacrament. You do not go get a license to get baptized, do you? You do not go to the magistrate to get a license for First Communion.

There are only three reasons I see why marriage is controlled by law.

1) Prevents fraud of people marrying multiple people and not telling the original spouses.

2) Controls how people change, or don’t change, their name.

3) Legal benifets

Number one is a joke. A spouse could have a mistress or pool boy at the side, and the law cannot stop that. With a global society now, someone can be married multiple times in different countries. But also, information is so easy to access these days to make the government the ultimate arbiter of matrionomy ridiculous.

Number two makes more sense. But why marriage? If people change their name when they get married, have them go to the courthouse to change their name, not to request a license to marry.

Number three is the worst of them all. Gay activists constantly complain about lack of ‘legal benifets’, which is odd because I have never heard two people in love say, “We are going to get married for the legal benifets!” Go get a lawyer and you can create all those legal benifets. You can decide inheritance, health care, and practically everything else that is in the ‘marriage license’. “But we want the status of a married couple!” What! Since when did status get determined by the law? Is aristocracy dead or not?

To Present and Future Politicians

Man is averse to pain and suffering. When the Law interferes with harmonious society and creates a legal arrangement which enforces all husband responsibilities on to the man but with no legal hold over the marital pleasures, and, in utter contrast, legally enforce the wifely pleasures from a marriage but with no legal enforcement over the wifely responsibilities, do not be surprised to see the young men of your nation swear off marriage! This comes not from a hatred of women or an inability to please one. This act emerges from a young man’s sense of life, his liberty, and his quest for joyfulness.

Legislators of nations, ask yourself: “If men are declining marriage, perhaps being single has become more pleasurable than being married. Could the law itself be a factor in making marriage more painful than being single?”

However, I suspect this question will not be asked. Instead of addressing the heart of the matter, the question will be, “How do we MANIPULATE men into getting married?” Already, governments are paying columinists and other propogandists to do the sing-song about marriage, to hold it up, like a moon beam from heaven, which will grant men wealth, health, sex, and everything else. Yet, the governmental data shows just the opposite: that men lose control of their wealth, their health declines, and sex becomes non-existant. The only way to prove that marriage is magic and the government is Merlin is to interpret correlation as causation: the men who get married are usually wealthier and healthier (because that is why the woman chose them for such legal arrangement).

Our petitions have fallen on deaf ears. No one takes our complaints seriously. But this error, of law corrupting marriage, creates not only the effect of less marriages, but a series of shockwaves afflicting throughout all civilization and, even, your tax coffers. Yes, your marriage laws are ruining your treasuries. The decline of marriages ties in to the decline of children. Who will pay for your elderly care programs? Who are your new consituents coming from? Do you want to fight for votes from Islamic immigrants who may not have the interest of the nation at heart?

In the end, one complaint falls against the marriage strikers: “You need to be in love.” Oh, but we are! We are! We are in love with life! Even the most traditional love for a mate comes with the expectation of interest to one’s life. After all, we love entertainers and farmers before we love the tax collectors for they enrich our lives.

“Love is marriage,” one might hear. Need it be said that we may have been, in this respect, duped by one of the most bizarre illusions that has ever taken possession of the human mind? Men enter marriage thinking of all the wonders of life that will emerge not thinking they are stepping into a politicial kingdom, a Plato’s Republic. He cannot get out; he is ensnared by the law.

Ever since God spit at Adam and said, “Thou shall work for bread,” we have been condemned by nature to work for a living. We accept this as our birthright, as to be a man is to toil in some fashion. But Nature and Nature’s God has also condemned women to similiar practices based entirely on her gender. What greater arrogance is there for a frenzied box of senators to legislate Nature out of existence? Yet, this is entirely what the law is attempting to do with marriage and creating disharmony among, what would normally be orderly, society.

Free marriage from law! Let us marry who we wish and how we wish without permission from our government. Give marriage full and complete independence from the law. Let love be free from your licenses, your judges, and your courts.

You respond, “This is very good, Pook, yes, an interesting proposal. But if we allowed such a release, we would, henceforth, be allowing full-scale plunder on the women:

“Women would be sexually used as objects.”
“Women would be forced to serve men.”
“And women would generally be unhappy and poorer in life.”

Oh noble statemen! Majestic politicans! Waddle to your windows and take a look out of your estates. Women are being plundered as we speak. By the law corrupting marriage, it has corrupted women as well. Your perverted little laws have breeded and infested what was once natural, pleasing, and the bedrock of society itself. You have expanded the political realm to the bedroom where, instead of the pains and satisfactions, instead of falling to each according to their natural proportion, are divided between the exploited and their exploiters, with all the pain going to the former, and all the satisfactions to the latter. This is the principle on which indentured servitude is based, as well as plunder of any and every form: wars, acts of violence, restraints on trade, frauds, misrepresentations, etc. -monstrous abuses, but consistent with the idea that gave rise to them. One hates not the women and the politicians, one hates the exploiters and those who intervenes on their behalf from their destiny’s reckoning day.

“You are a social misfit!”

And you are a senator! Which insult is the greater?

While the laws may have been made with the finest intentions, that no-fault divorce would free mates from horrible marrages, that child-custody laws would divide children when Solomon couldn’t, that child support payments would help struggling divorced women, that sexual harassment laws would stop predatory behaviours at the workplace, and that secret family courts would rule with the utmost in fairness. But a law has, even with the best of intentions, backfired and created effects that were never imagined. Let me give example to this phenomenon.

After the American Civil War, which the nation suffered greatly, Congress eventually signed an act that gave legal benefits to Civil War veterans and their wives. The intention was good enough; after all, shouldn’t veterans who served their nation so well be rewarded from their government? But there were unforeseen consequences such as eighteen year old girls marrying
seventy year old veterans so these women would have government supported income for life. Back then, they called this a “boondoggle”. Today, we call it ‘marriage’.

We implore you to look beyond the intentions of the law and see the actual effects. It is not that women are evil, it is that power corrupts and by giving them such legal power (such as crying ‘sexual harassment’ or ‘rape’ where none exists to remove a man), this power corrupts our women. The modern relationship has routinely become women searching for power over the males.

If the law was structured in such a way that would give men such legal absolutism, then men might be just as corrupted. This is why I call for the abolition of all marriage laws.

But what is most noteworthy is the astonishing blindness of the public to all this. This is only temporary however. I have seen the demagraphic charts as have you. When the voting public, the elderly, pass from this earth within a decade or two, you have only us to deal with (and the unnationalistic immigrants). It would be prudent to nip this problem in the bud before it blossoms into its poisonous flowery trap.

Do not fear the political wrath of women. Their self-interest, in the end, is tied to ours. They want men to marry as much as you do and will prefer flesh-and-blood men to the boondoggles of their previous feminist spinsters. By freeing marriage from all and any law, we let liberty be our master instead of a play-word. By removing the collected boondoggles of marriage with one sweeping act, you will create a wealthier, happier, and More Perfect nation.

What!? One last complaint? Let us hear it:

“But Pook, what are the safeguards? There is no check if we do this; everything might fall to pieces!”

Poor human race! Without your law, you think all society will slide into the abyss? How arrogant we are to find ourselves better craftsmen of Nature than God Himself! Goodness sir, with haste, grant marriage independence. This merry act will be consistant with the spirit of freedom and the reason why we have republics in the first place. For I have faith in Humanity that liberty creates the best society than any legislative possibility…

Don’t you agree, politicians?