That’s a very deep statement, Mark, and deserves a thread all its own. What is the source of those restrictions? Their nature and scope? You state “We must ask ourselves what extra-legal claims made by our neighbors we should honor.” This implies that honoring such claims is voluntary. What is the consequence of declining to do so? And what if the claims I choose to honor are different that those you do? Does that mean that either one of us really “deserves” to be a serf?

I think what this is all getting at is the basis of a moral code. But even if you can answer that, how do we handle competing moral codes? This appears to be the fundamental problem being faced by western society today, and (because of mass communications, ease of travel, and globalization generally) it seems more serious than at any other time in human history.

Is is fair to say that when you claim marriage is only a contract, you mean that legally marriage is only (or should only be) a contract between two parties, while socially it may be much more?

Indeed.

And also, that you are open to non-contractual obligations like that between a parent and infant?

Quite so, but but also that relationship is the result of choices, I would actually say that there is an implicit contract involved too.

We will be governed. If we do not wish to be governed by the state, then we must govern ourselves.

That is exactly why preventing the destruction of civil society is so important and why statists of every ilk try to destroy it so unrelentingly. When civil society is gone, there is no alternative to the force imposed politically derived values of the state.

Ah, then you misunderstand me…

And for that I apologize. I am sorry that I have taken up people’s time if we have just been talking past each other, and I really appreciate the engagement all have made with the discussion.

If I understand your point now, the legal problem of gay marriage is resolved if the state is removed as an actor, leaving the social problem.

Is is fair to say that when you claim marriage is only a contract, you mean that legally marriage is only (or should only be) a contract between two parties, while socially it may be much more? And also, that you are open to non-contractual obligations like that between a parent and infant?

We will be governed. If we do not wish to be governed by the state, then we must govern ourselves. We must ask ourselves what extra-legal claims made by our neighbors we should honor. This is what (albeit clumsily) I have been trying to get at. If a woman tells us she is married, we should act differently towards her socially even if we have no legal or contractual obligation to do so. If we are only sensitive to those restrictions on our actions enforced by the state then we deserve to be its serfs.

a) marriage is no more than a contract between two parties, and

You are entitled to your opinion of course but I suspect for once my view is far from a minority view (not often that happens) and becoming more prevalent every day.

To say marriage as an institution has been de-sanctified is a masterly understatement. Just look at the divorce rates and lack of enthusiasm for ending no-fault divorces.

b) removing the role of the state from marriage will resolve the social issues surrounding gay marriage [...] I just don’t think this will magically resolve the social issue as claimed by Mr. de Havilland.

Ah, then you misunderstand me… indeed it does not resolve the social issue because that was never my objective. What it does do is to make it a social issue. My approach stops it being a political issue entirely.

I am not arguing for the involvement of the state.

I am arguing against the claims made in the original post that:

a) marriage is no more than a contract between two parties, and

b) removing the role of the state from marriage will resolve the social issues surrounding gay marriage

Marriage is, and is widely understood to be, more than a contract between two people. When gay couples want to be married they want it all: covenant between couple, community, and future, the works. By all means, remove the state from marriage. I just don’t think this will magically resolve the social issue as claimed by Mr. de Havilland.

What claims could the child make on it’s parents? That they provide for it, that they make a home, that they both are in the home together to nurture it on a daily basis?

I don’t know whose marriage you’re describing. It sure wasn’t mine.

What I was trying to get to was this: can’t both you and your wife expect single men to treat your wife differently when they know you are married than they would if you were each single? If so, then you see what it means for a community to accept and support your marriage.

So, why is state involvement required (and what would state involvement do) to prevent legal-but-boorish behavior, again?

Of course the child has a claim on their parents. What does that have to do with marriage?

What claims could the child make on it’s parents? That they provide for it, that they make a home, that they both are in the home together to nurture it on a daily basis? You don’t see what that might have to do with marriage?

I am not saying that the claims a child may make on its parents are not there if they are not married. I would argue that parents who do not have the kind of relationship we think of when we think of marriage are hard pressed to make good on those claims.

Your hypothetical of a guy hitting on your wife at a party has nothing to do with marriage either unless you hold a rather chattelesque view of the status of a wife.

I guess this was a clumsy example. I didn’t think of the guy hitting on your wife as an assault, deserving the protective intervention by any bystander, but instead I was thinking of the perfectly civil byplay to be expected between single adults who are wooing each other. What I was trying to get to was this: can’t both you and your wife expect single men to treat your wife differently when they know you are married than they would if you were each single? If so, then you see what it means for a community to accept and support your marriage. If marriage is just a private contract between you and your wife, you could reasonably expect your wife to rebuff his advances, but you would have no role in the matter, no claim on his behavior.

So let’s say that you are married, and you have a child: that child has no claim on you? You entered into no covenant with a generation yet to be, so who is that child to you?

Let’s say that Perry and the hypothetical mother of our hypothetical Perry Junior are NOT married but have a child. What’s the difference? (Hint: there is none.) Parents have a legal obligation to the care of their children, regardless of marriage. Courts (in the US, no idea about the UK or elsewhere) will easily order child support even where the parents were never married.

Or you are married, and at a swank Samizdata get together, and some guy is hitting on your wife constantly. You tell him, `Hey, ease off, friend, that’s my wife’ and his response is “what is that to me? I have taken on no obligation of recognition of your purely private contract!’ and you are fine with that?

The odds of me being at a swank Samizdata get-together are very approximately the same as the odds of me being asked to emcee a Barack Obama 2012 fundraiser being hosted by Focus on the Family. However, the marriage is irrelevant. Crass behavior towards a woman is not a crime until it becomes one (usually, with unwanted physical contact) and her marital status is irrelevant either way. And state involvement in her relationship with someone else is also irrelevant.