am I interested in having the government 'deregulate' marriage, because marriage (of the opposite-sex variety) has an objective existence apart from any governmental definition, and it's the government's job to recognize marriage, not redefine it. Also, I don't think interracial marriage is a new thing which never existed before the 1960s - or else why did Shakespeare assume it was valid?" I was talking about government *recognition* of marriage, not "regulation." For example, the government recognizes marriage by not forcing a person to testify against a spouse. As for common-law marriage (below), this applied to people who had the right to marry each other, told everyone they were married, and had marital sex. This made sense when religious dissenters didn't want to have a Church of England ceremony (the only recognized marriage ceremony), but it could lead to problems. So most states require people to have *some* kind of ceremony to get married, whether it's in a church with the organ playing the wedding march, or in the Ethical Culture hall, or a naked pagan ceremony with a priestess throwing salt at you (or whatever they do). If you're kinky, you can actually go to a government office and have an official marry you. Whatever floats your boat. If you don't have a marriage license, the marriage is still valid, but the celebrant can be fined. The government wants to encourage record-keeping. Go back and look at the records and you discover that there were a ton of folks in