Question.

[letsgetfree]

I've been thinking about marriage a lot.

I primarily see it as a way of social organization. Societies need a way to track the progeny of certain people, and I feel this is a throwback to the days when family determined a child's future prospects. Children born in aristocracies were accorded privileges and resources that children born outside of these social groups were not. Language and euphemisms were even developed to describe children who could not accurately be socially tracked to their parents or were placed outside the familial organization- bastard, illegitimate child, orphan and so on. Even today, we place a lot of weight based on what a child's, and especially a male child's, family name is.

My question to you is if you believe marriage could work if stripped of all the ideological baggage Western society burdens it with. I'm talking about the typical property rights and patriarchial aspect of it. Purely on secular terms, do you believe that a human being can develop a deep sense of attachment to another human being, and pledge loyalty in matters of any type of intimacy? And do you believe that sexual fidelity strenghtens this bond, and that sexual infidelity weakens it?

[dirtycommiebastard]

Well, this concept of marriage is one that is strongly related to religious ritual. Various religions have their own interpretations of the significance of marriage but all in one way or another have a material basis, due to the nature of the economic system in which this religion existed and humans' relation to labour.

I would assume that in the near future, even if socialism was established in the world, that committed lifelong couples (man/woman, woman/woman, man/man) would still exist for a while, but a lot of this has to do with material conditions. In most cases, marriage was a tool for survival of either party.

I don't think this concept of life partners will last forever, as the material basis for it will disappear.

This is purely just navel-gazing, in my opinion, but an interesting topic nonetheless.

May I suggest The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State by Engels?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Civil unions will probably be necessary for any system built around private possessions. I imagine "marriage contracts" would be converted into civil union contracts - or at the bare minimum civil agreements, which can be issued to any mutual parties wanting to identify shared property and visitation rights so that the community can recognize it - spouses, friends, etc.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Why?

Even if there are private possessions, it seems unnecessary to to legitimize them with contracts.

If the economic system is one of material abundance, what is the point of justifying who in the relationship owns what?

Material abundance does not translate into lack of universal scarcity. For the foreseeable future houses will be limited, as will antiques and homemade objects. There will also be objects which haven't been produced in years, or which are produced only in a certain region of the world in a small workshop.

Civil unions and/or agreements are necessary for legitimizing co-ownership. If a couple or polygamist family separates, there are usually repercussions in the form of debates over who owns what. Civil contracts also allow for special privileges. You don't want any Joe Blow walking into your hospital room.