Promoting Marriage Has Failed and Is Unnecessary to Cut Poverty (2015)

Re:Promoting Marriage Has Failed and Is Unnecessary to Cut P... by sickbeard on Thursday May 26, 2016 @09:48AM (#11777889)

I don't understand this report. You usually marry because you want to be with someone, not because it's efficient. Approaching it from a purely mathematical perspective assumes that randomly grouping people is equal to marrying someone.

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Re:Promoting Marriage Has Failed and Is Unnecessary to Cut P... by Eric_WVGG on Thursday May 26, 2016 @11:39AM (#11778774)

He's arguing against those who have tried to make advancement of marriage part of public policy as an anti-poverty measure.

The math stuff is just to prove that, as a policy measure, it's nonsense.

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Re:Promoting Marriage Has Failed and Is Unnecessary to Cut P... by dagw on Thursday May 26, 2016 @10:03AM (#11778001)

You usually marry because you want to be with someone, not because it's efficient.

I don't know. You decide to live with someone, share your life with them and and possibly have children with because you want to be with them. Your decision to actually marry them is, in my experience, often driven by some additional external force.

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Re:Promoting Marriage Has Failed and Is Unnecessary to Cut P... by ars on Thursday May 26, 2016 @10:16AM (#11778096)

Or you can do like me: Redefine marriage as "living together in a committed relationship". The piece of paper is irrelevant, the way the people live is what matters.

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Re:Promoting Marriage Has Failed and Is Unnecessary to Cut P... by dagw on Thursday May 26, 2016 @11:23AM (#11778603)

Depends where you live. In many places the piece of paper is very relevant when it comes to things like inheritance and child custody. That was one of the reasons my wife and I got married after living together for 8 years and having a kid.

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Re:Promoting Marriage Has Failed and Is Unnecessary to Cut P... by sickbeard on Thursday May 26, 2016 @10:11AM (#11778066)

It's just more convenient to have a marriage certificate than to be common law, legally and otherwise. There are built in protections for you, your spouse and children. I'm not saying you need to do it but it one less hassle to deal with in your day to day lives.

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Re:Promoting Marriage Has Failed and Is Unnecessary to Cut P... by dagw on Thursday May 26, 2016 @11:27AM (#11778645)

That's my point. My wife and I might still have gotten married eventually anyway, but the external legal protections where a very strong point in the pro column.

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