Posted by Kromey at 7:59pm May 17 '13You're not really getting government out of marriage if you keep the various laws that give it special status (tax breaks etc) and let anyone sign a contract; you're just letting anyone sign themselves a tax break and hopefully it's obvious why that's a bad idea.
That's a fair point. On the other hand (and this is going to be in relation to US tax law, I have no idea how applicable it is to UK tax law), it wouldn't be hard to eliminate "married filing jointly/separately" statuses from tax law altogether, replaced with an extended definition of the "head of household" option to include the primary breadwinner of a household (currently HoH status is reserved for the primary breadwinner iff they're supporting dependants, or something like that). HoH is an identical "tax break" as "married filing separately", except that it only applies to one person.
No reason why you couldn't have that status regardless of the number of partners in a union, is there? You'd still be getting one tax break no matter how many there are.
Of course, that ends up penalizing polygamous groups compared to couples, and of course it doesn't address the fact that today an e.g. 4-person polyamorous group could have two marriages and therefore reap the benefits of "married filing jointly" for all 4 people.
Still, it's not outside the realm of reasonability (yes, that's a word -- I say so!!) to re-write the tax code to better accommodate polygamous unions.
Of course, your point's entirely invalid on the basis that the current system does not, in fact, prevent any two people signing a contract to grant themselves tax breaks, as your argument implies. It's common enough in fact to have a name: "Contract marriages." People advertise for them on Craigslist even (most commonly soldiers seeking the extra pay, or non-soldiers seeking a soldier for the various perks they get as a military spouse, at least from what I've seen), and nowhere is it illegal. It's even used for immigration purposes, so much so that e.g. Canada has made it a helluva lot harder for someone to immigrate "just" because they're married to a citizen!
Which all makes sense when you think about it. After all, traditionally, marriage has been about economic benefit.
I think that's a bad idea because the two parent family is a good thing to incentivise.
And what's wrong with the three-parent family? Or 4-parent family?
I know at least one polyamorous group (1 woman, 2 men) raising kids (well, kid, but #2 is on the way any day now -- she's already past her delivery date and still going!). Their eldest is still young, but the three of them raise her rather well from what I've seen. (I also know another -- 1 man, 2 women -- that wants kids.)
The key concept isn't the number of parents. It's the family unit as a whole. A good, strong family is a good, strong family, whether it's 2 parents raising 3 kids or 3 parents raising 2 kids, or any other size and makeup. Hell, I know lots of 1-parent families that do a damn fine job, too, and are a helluva lot stronger than a lot of 2-parent families out there!
Re: So on the wider point - Kromey