Define Marriage

[Jenny A]

Now that the word marriage has been changed from the legal and sacred union of one man and one woman what DOES it mean? What are the boundaries that distinguish it from other contractual arrangements, social obligations, and familial relationships?

What it has meant since people started getting married, a legally recognized sexual relationship between two people which grants those two people certain rights and obligations.  Whether there is any sacred component has varied widely with time and place.  So has whether the relationship is lifelong or, has involved more than one spouse, etc.

Here in Oregon marriage: 1) annuls all previous wills and gives the spouses inheritance rights in each others property; 2) changes one's income taxes; 3) makes one jointly responsible financially for one's spouse; 4) allows for certain medical decisions to be made for each other in the case that one partner is incapacitated; 5)  causes an irrebuttable presumption that all children born during the marriage are the children of both spouses; 6) prevents spouses from alienating real property without the consent of the other spouse;  7) allows the spouses to hold property as joint tenants by the entirety; 8) may allow spouses to be insured through their spouses employers .  I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. 

Some but not all of those rights could be contracted separately without marriage.  But some, like the irrebuttable presumption regarding children born in wedlock, the right to own property as tenants by the entirety, change in tax status, or the inability to alienate real property cannot.  Unlike a business partnership there are laws regarding the break-up of the marriage that require division of property according to need as well as contract.   I can't see how same sex marriage would change any of those things. 

The law does not include a sacred component.  For that you need a religion.