(October 29, 2012 at 10:54 am)Ben Davis Wrote: The concept of 'marriage as a contract' is one of the 'co-opted' points to which I referred in my previous post: marriage is only a contract because the governmental/religious institutions insisted that it be so (for various purposes of social control/engineering). There is no need for legal responsibilities to be defined as a consequence of a group's relationship status and it's a fallacy to suggest otherwise. In the UK, these responsibilities are catered for by other legislation (e.g. 'Common Law' relationships, maternity/paternity law, housing law). There's no need for 'marital contracts'.
But there do exist legal responsibilities that are a consequence of the group's relationship status. For example, the legal responsibilities of the parties to a contract are governed by contract law. Partners in a firm are governed by company law. I guess the relations between parents and children would be governed by maternity/paternity laws. So too the responsibilities in a marriage can be governed by marital law. You can change the name to call it "Common Law" relationships, but that wouldn't change their nature.
