BIRT THW Abolish Marriage.

The resolution before us today is Be It Resolved That This House Will Abolish Marriage. I will begin by defining the terms, and then delve into two constructive arguments entitled "What Does Marriage Represent ?" and "De - Clutter". Terms: By this house, I mean the United States of America. By abolish I mean to do away with [1] in its entirety. By marriage I mean the formal and binding legal concept and procedure of binding oneself with ones partner under the law ** Note ** This does not abolish marital religious ceremonies, or the concept of living with a partner and sharing with them fully. It simply has no significance under the law. Now to delve into my first constructive argument of "What Does Marriage Represent?" Part 1: Marriage - The Concept The state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for life [2] is the base concept of marriage in its purest form. The primary ideal for marrying another individual is the want to spend one's life with that person; moreover to want to unify one's life with that other person's. Two people are perfectly capable of doing the following without the legal contract which is now known as marriage. Many partners currently live their lives happily intertwined, without any sort of legal contract. Some due to personal preference, some due to restrictions (such as partners of the same sex). While it is clear that many same sex partners are lobbying for the marriage restriction placed on them in some states to be lifted, this is not due to unhappiness in their current state, but rather that of equality [3] making the example of same sex partners a perfect reason of why marriage is not necessary to make a partnership successful and fully enjoyable. Part 2: Marriage - The Contract The main benefits to the contractual agreement of marriage is partnership unity under the law. And by this, I mean that the two members are viewed as partnership in legal aspects of their life. This includes joint possession of many large and important ownerships (eg. children, house and other investments). One example of the usefulness of this is of course is the ownership of one's possessions once they pass away. If married, the deceased's spouse would be entitled to all of the deceased's possessions. Furthermore, marriage entitles couples to different standards (just one of many examples being income tax rates [4]). Furthermore, it appears to reduce paperwork and confusion in regards to registering joint ownership of any large or important possession (eg. house, investments, children); as you would not have to register and complete excess paperwork each time a new possession is obtained. However, I will falsify this last benefit to contractual marriage in my second argument. This being said, all benefits of contractual marriage can easily be replaced via simple measures such as in the case of ownership after one's death, a will; or in the case of government benefits such as income tax rates, filing them together with your partner. For these reasons, there is clearly no need for contractual marriage. Now, to move onto my second argument; "De - Clutter" In this argument I would like to discuss about the civil court system and the strain contracts in relation to marriage put on it. Last year alone in the USA, over 7 out of every 1000 people engaged in a registered marriage, while almost 4 people out of every thousand divorced [5]. This results in roughly 30,000 people getting married every year, and approximately 15,000 divorces every year. This creates a HUGE strain on the civil court system. With the divorce process ranging from 3 months to multiple years, the process of divorce in and of itself is extremely tedious and drawn out; partially due to a backlog of divorces filed in relation to the shear quantity [6]. Although the marriage process is not as time consuming, it still requires large amount of paperwork, consuming the time of court officials. Having already proved the extremely limited worth of an official marriage, and looking at the extremely high divorce rate, it seems that the concept marriage has come far from the original concept of eternal unity outlined in my first argument. For these reasons, it seems foolish to waste the court's time with an apparently trivial issue of legalizing a marriage. For the reasons of the extremely limited use of marriage (outlined in my first argument "What Does Marriage Represent?") and the enormous strain on the court systems via the large quantity of both marriage and divorce (outlined in my second argument "De - Clutter" this resolution must stand. ______ Sources: [1] http://www.wordnetweb.princeton.edu... [2] http://www.wordnetweb.princeton.edu... [3] http://www.equal-marriage.ca... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://www.cdc.gov... [6] http://www.attorneygates.com...