This is not only anti-family, but anti-dating. Even to have any relationship at all with the opposite sex is being made costly.

Ah, PJ the state will have it's cut. Weren't you reading? It's not the opposite sex, it's anybody. Marriage and dating has dropped to an all time low, and the family courts need new customers.

Ah, PJ the state will have it's cut. Weren't you reading? It's not the opposite sex, it's anybody. Marriage and dating has dropped to an all time low, and the family courts need new customers.

Sorry about the double post. Your machine mocks me.

Robert - Yes, the law may isolate gays as well as straights. But its main effect is to damage relationships and bring them all under the purview of the legal system.

I was really looking forward to some good outrage, but I must be missing something. The article doesn't quite say, but certainly implies that the new laws are aimed at couples who are cohabiting. That might be PJ's experience of dating, but others of us might not be as fortunate.

In other words, this seems like a watered-down common law marriage. The only problem with that is the watering-down.

PJ, I think you have cause and effect mixed up. Relationships have been damaged. No fault divorce killed Marriage. Abortion and Birth control killed dating. Palimony picked off any with bad habits.
This new law is just business. Any bureaucracy will expand their duties, and that's all we're seeing now.

David: "Common law marriage" is an abomination. If you want the rights that legal marriage grants, you should have to make that explicit. You should not be able to simply get those rights (and accept the related responsibilities) through inertia.

B, you don't accept the related responsibilities. If you are a man, you have no choice in the matter.
If you are a woman, those rights are your birthright. Remember, men are pigs and women have the right to choose. Your're fighting againest the tide if you think you can make women more responsible in a legal sense.

Robert: I think we've been through this before. The traditional Christian marriage arrangement (no sex until marriage, only one wife at a time, no divorce) was a huge boon for women, and the discarding of it has been devastating for women & children, NOT for men.

B, the traditional Christian marriage arrangement worked because both sides benifited. I don't know how you can claim discarding it was not devastating for men.

So men who get their girlfriend(s) pregnant have to support the child financially, rather than being forced by society to get married and actually help raise the child. Boo-frickin-hoo. My heart bleeds. (Of course, they can also just run away and bet with good odds that the mother will be unable and/or unwilling to take the time & expense to find them).

Meanwhile, women get to kill their unborn children! I'm so jealous. If only I were a woman, instead of a poor, oppressed man.

If all you can see is "Men are Pigs" then you are correct. It does make it easier to deal with them in bad faith if you don't think of them as human.

Don't live together unless you want to be tied together, one way or another, for life.

Don't have children unless you want to support them until they can support themselves.

The assumption here seems to be that marriage is a privilege from which certain people should be excluded. The truth is that all the benefits the state throws at marriage are barely enough to keep it treading water. It's about time we started throwing weights around the necks of the other competitors.

Replace the first sentence of the last paragraph with: The assumption here seems to be that marriage is a promised land from which certain people are unfairly excluded.

Robert: What "bad faith" are you talking about? I never said or implied anything like "Men are Pigs." Most men are quite responsible in their dealings with women. The fact is that the societal norms that were designed to make "most" as high a fraction as possible were in place to protect women, not men. The number of poor, innocent men who are "tricked" into fathering children by lying, deceitful women is trivial compared to the number of situations where the genders are reversed.

Mr. Cohen, thank you for your time. So, roommates = marriage? You don't approve of abortion and no birth control is perfect, you are saying don't touch the opposite sex until you are ready to have children, or am I missing something?
The assumption I am working with is that civilization needs fruitful marriages, and those who built civilization should be treated better then those who don't. Other competitors?

Thank you for responding, B. Please look at your 1:07 post again. First you take the fact that men are always responsible for their children and discount it. Then you mock it a second time by blaming the man and not the woman for the fact she was such a slut she doesn't know who the father is.
Then, you make light of the fact that the mother can murder her children if she doesn't want them.
Consider in the future that men might want children, to have and to raise. That sometimes the woman got divorced for no good reason. If marriage is so bad for men, why are they the ones starting the marriage? You may think being on the prowl all the time is fun, but most men find it empty and joyless.

Robert: You appear to have interpreted my post very strangely.

"First you take the fact that men are always responsible for their children and discount it. Then you mock it a second time by blaming the man and not the woman for the fact she was such a slut she doesn't know who the father is."

I don't understand what you're saying here (especially at the end, where you seem to be showing far more hostility to women than I've ever shown or felt for men). Yes, men are always responsible for their children. And?

"Then, you make light of the fact that the mother can murder her children if she doesn't want them."

I'm making light of the fact that you seem to think that women are privileged because they can have abortions. How lucky for my daughter that society will teach her that killing her unborn baby would be No Big Deal! (Oops, there I go with the mockery again.)

"Consider in the future that men might want children, to have and to raise."

Yes, so men should make sure they think long & hard before they get into a situation where there is even the tiniest chance of having a child.

"That sometimes the woman got divorced for no good reason."

Yes, divorce is far too easy in our society.

"If marriage is so bad for men, why are they the ones starting the marriage?"

I never said it was bad for men. I said on the whole it serves more to protect women & children, compared to the alternatives. I don't understand what you mean by claiming that men are "the ones starting the marriage."

"You may think being on the prowl all the time is fun, but most men find it empty and joyless."

No, I don't think that would be fun at all.

Thanks again for your time B. First, you talk about men having to support their children financially, and imply that being responsible for raising the child without being there to raise the child is easier on the man. Then you talk about men running away and not getting caught. I don't see how you could do that if you are not a complete loser. She doesn't know where you work? Doesn't know your family? Or friends? Or are you saying that committing a felony and ending every contact you have made up to this point is easy for a man?
Second, what would else would you consider it? It is a privilege, an Evil one.
Third, I agree, men should avoid women. Until the laws change, the risks are too high.
You said that the end of marriage was bad for women and children, not men. If the end of marriage isn't bad for men then marriage wasn't good for them. What I mean by men starting the marriage is they are the ones who ask for dates, keep asking for dates, and get the ring and ask for her hand in marriage. I know that some women have asked to get married, but I've never seen it. Considering the laws in place, where men are always responsible and women never are, that needs to change.

David is right. There is nothing terribly new or outrageous about this. It is just a continuation of the war against private, consensual marriage with all its implied and commonly understood obligations, and just as importantly, its ideals. The purpose of the post was to point out the on-going intervention by the state in relationships where no common understanding exists and to draw the obvious comnnection with the war against traditional marriage through according (ex poste facto) the entitlements with none of the duties.

Why Robert insists on taking a consistently virulent misongynist line is a mystery only he can explain.

Thank you for your thoughts, Peter. I have nothing againest women. I have problems with a legal setting that treats them like children. I can understand why you would think this misongynistic, but women and men are equal and should be equal in the eyes of the law.

Robert: Exactly. Don't have sex until you are happily married. You really should wait until your first anniversary just to make sure it's really going to take, but we're not extremists here.

Kind of my point Mr. Cohen. Given that no fault divorce ended marriage in America, there is no reason to date, and having sex is beyond reckless.

One of the things I've noticed around here and elsewhere is how quickly some libertarian-minded men who pat themselves on the back loudly for their belief in gender equality will get angry and resentful at being called to account for predatory behaviour and their duty to support their children and those who care for them. There seems to be a very short road between the abstract rantings of various Womyns'Studies Faculties and the timeless male fantasy of consequence-free sex.

David:

The first anniversary? Man, I keep trying to tell you, if you don't rein in those out-of-control passions, they will destroy you in the end.

Robert: The most important lesson I learned in Law School came from my Trusts and Estates professor. Sometimes, even after you've done your best to draft as tightly as you can and prepare for any eventuality, you just have to trust someone.

Thank you for responding Mr. Cohen. That is a nice summation of Marriage, pre no fault divorce. There was a social and legal contract, and both parties were bound. There was a price to pay if either side broke it. We have lawyers for a reason.
You trust the person you're signing the contract with, or you wouldn't sign it at all. But the contract in in place because people change and stuff happens, and sometime you were wrong to trust them.
Now, with no fault divorce, there is no social contract, and half of a legal contract. Peter B can smear men all he wants, but I'm not going to play the game as long as the rules are "Heads You win, Tails I lose". I may be fat and lazy, but I'm pretty good about duty, and I'm not going to be one of those hollow men who have been reduced to a monthly child support check to children a thousand miles away.
And then we get to Abortion. The law is quite clear. I must stand there and smile while she murders our child in a moment of fear. How would you recommend I prepare for that Mr. Cohen?

That's the point: you have to trust someone, even though you can't control her.

Thanks for posting Mr. Cohen. Trust goes both ways. As it stands, she doesn't have to trust me, but I have to trust her. If only men were angels.... I don't have to trust someone. I don't have to play the game. I'm not the only one to make that choice. I believe you were the one to post the item about the dropping marriage rate. As long as marriage is a collar and not a handshake, I think this will continue