>>818755A larger point I am implying is that human pair-bonding naturally tends to monogamy, loyalty and legitimacy under free conditions, and so where marriage is freed from constraints, it will become more common, whilst a patriarchal culture denies the reality of marriage. In abolishing "marriage", you institute it as a natural fact. Marx makes this point in part by seeing how secular governments like the US often have a theocratic civil society. So, law is often opposed to custom.
>>818722But you would still see each other as spiritually married, right?
>>818717Right, so marriage is understood as a contract. It is also classically a property transfer of one party to another, by the permission of the father in "giving away" his child. We see this in Levitical Law, that if a husband dies, the widow should then become the wife of his brother. In India, the practice of wives killing themselves on funeral pyres was common after the death of their husband. No such arrangement as a self-possessed woman existed (except the mythic Lesbians), although in other cultures, such as the Greek, we see that Penelope had a duty to re-marry, but was also to be courted by potential suitors; a theme reminiscent of the later Dark Age, given from Arthurian romances. Romance increases as women are more independent - this is empirically verified by records of "Love Marriage" as opposed to patriarchal marriages. We see Schopenhauer scorn the rising idea of the Lady; a Victorian invention, found in the fiction of the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen. Female fantasies of romance increased in tandem with Feminist politics and liberty.
The violation of the marriage contract was often seen to be treated by death - Levitical Law states that adultery is a death sentence. We also see in the Greco-Roman case a death of dishonour. Honour killings still exist today in patriarchal cultures. We thus see that death is a clause of violation in the contract. Now, the concept of Catholic annulment officially mediates a marriage by declaring it as never having legitimacy. It is a retroactive edict, as a way to displace divorce. Divorce did not exist, while the separation of partners could find a way to justify itself. As I said, divorce was only given from the 19th century onwards, and immediately there were regulations which restricted the terms of lawful separation. The terms of separation could only be enacted by "adultery, cruelty, or desertion". This of course required proof, and so made marriage a matter of lawyers' self-interest. Divorce laws create divorce courts, and so demand creates supply. No fault divorces were actually only allowed in the UK in 2022, and within this, the terms of marriage are still held by conditions of "reflection" - where a marriage cannot be dissolved until after 20 weeks (5 months).
So, there are four given conditions of the marriage contract: (i) death of a partner, (ii) legitimacy of union, (iii) the loyalty of a partner, and (iv) duration of union. The death of a partner dissolves the marriage contract, which either leads to death or repossession - in antique contexts. Legitimacy mainly concerns the love marriage, where a "loveless marriage" is sought to find annulment. Loyalty concerns adultery, which is seen as universally trespassing against marriage. Duration concerns the present terms of reflection, and so limits one's ability to terminate the contract; long and short term contracts are also recognised in different fields, with penalties for not fulfilling the time promised. When you suggest types of regulation of marriage, which area is considered? It appears that you see that "reflection" is needed for periods of lovelessness, and so you see that legitimacy ought to be tested beyond a selected period of time. So, how would you measure for a sufficient lovelessness?