Relationship Commitment

During my entire adulthood the issue of marriage and partnerships has been a highly politicized issue. The primary issue has been reconciling the lack of equality extended to non-heterosexual couples --- or for some the idea of preventing this from happening because of their religious or personal viewpoints. Today, many large companies and local governments circumvent the unequal distribution of marriage rights by providing partnership benefits. In some cases states are passing laws to allow gay marriage while others are banning it even if it is passed nationally. In my personal view, I would be happier if marriage was retitled something with less of a root in paternal ownership and intertwinement with religion. However, tradition is hard to break and indeed many marriages today are based more upon wholesome commitment and love and have nothing to do with male ownership or religion. For many people marriage is one of the most important parts of their life and rightly so. However, it perplexes me how people that enjoy something so much would deny it to so many others. 

Life partnerships or marriage is an important social institution. It affords participants community validity, financial benefits, health security benefits, and important informational rights of privilege during times of health emergencies. More than that it is a symbolic bit of identity for the couple within the relationship. In my somewhat independent mind, I have liked believing that it is unnecessary to involve the government or other other institutions to validate a relationship. However, the reality is that we do need the social privileges associated with these cultural institutions. A situation lacking institutional validity might work with universal health care security and use of alternative legal paperwork to afford partners the rights to care for one another. However, marriage links all the benefits together in one simple package. Additionally, while it is an annoying hassle to deal with all the paperwork and legal issues of a marriage perhaps the symbolic bond and legal hoops are also an important part of the process. They provide a level of trust and disincentive to giving in to the many difficulties that can drain on a modern day partnership.