He was referring of course to the state court system in general but he could just as well have been speaking of its particular service of divorce. If marriages were dealt with as 'voluntarily entered contracts', then conditions for divorce and settlement could be worked out contractually, in advance, and the process of separation made far less tedious. Of course there would be nothing to stop conservatives entering into marriages which are considerably harder to break or lawyers devising marriages with the aim of maximising the welfare of children. I do not believe that state marriage laws are what keep the family together. The Mormons, historically the greatest defiers of such laws, are the most family-minded people I have ever met. I believe that marriage should endure, and as a Catholic I find the idea of homosexual and polygamous marriages distasteful. I do not, however, see this as a good reason for outlawing them. Wilhelm Von Humboldt summed up my case quite well almost 200 years ago:
'The results of marriage are as various as the characters of the persons concerned, and, as it is a union so closely related to the very nature of the respective individuals, it must have the most harmful consequences when the State attempts to regulate it by law, or through the force of its institutions to make it rest on anything except simple inclination.'
Adapted from a paper entitled 'Marriage and the State' written by Matthew O'Keeffe whilst a student at Oxford University, published as Political Notes No. 31, by the Libertarian Alliance, 1 Russell Chambers, The Piazza, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8AA (tel 071 821 5502).