"Peter Tatchell thinks singles should be allowed to nominate a
friend or relative to be their "significant other", who would enjoy
the same exemption from inheritance tax as a spouse, and the same legal rights
as a next of kin."
Quite so.
Never having needed to be consummated, civil partnerships ought not to be confined to unrelated same-sex couples, or even to unrelated couples generally.
Furthermore, any marrying couple should be entitled to register their marriage as bound by the law prior to 1969 with regard to grounds and procedures for divorce, and any religious organisation should be enabled to specify that any marriage which it conducted should be so bound, requiring it to counsel couples accordingly.
Statute should specify that the Church of England
and the Church in Wales each be such a body unless, respectively, the General Synod and the Governing Body specifically resolved the contrary by a
two-thirds majority in all three Houses.
There should be similar provision relating to the Methodist and United Reformed Churches, which also exist pursuant to Acts of Parliament, as well as by amendment to the legislation relating to the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy.
Entitlement upon divorce should be fixed by Statute at one per cent of the other party's estate for each year of marriage, up to fifty per cent, with no entitlement for the petitioning party unless the other party’s fault be proved.
That would be a start, anyway.
There should be similar provision relating to the Methodist and United Reformed Churches, which also exist pursuant to Acts of Parliament, as well as by amendment to the legislation relating to the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy.
Entitlement upon divorce should be fixed by Statute at one per cent of the other party's estate for each year of marriage, up to fifty per cent, with no entitlement for the petitioning party unless the other party’s fault be proved.
That would be a start, anyway.
You are suggesting something similar to America's experiments in Covenant Marriage.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting proposal, but I wonder if a two-tier marrriage system can ever really work.
Ultimately, given the choice, people will take the easy option and civil partnerships (or marriage-lite) will drive out the pre-1969 tier of marriage the same way bad money drives out good, because it's easier.
Also, our post-Christian society (and particularly our benefits system) has abolished any financial consequences and associated shame and stigma which once attached to unmarried motherhood.
Then there's the problem with contraception which, by severing the link between sex and life, has abolished the need for marriage as a prerequisite to sex, without which it becomes worthless.
This is a tricky issue, and I don't see a way out of it, especially as Christianity doesn't look like coming back as a moral force in Britain any time soon.
You clearly don't read the papers, then. Or does "moral force" just mean "telling people to vote Tory while telling the Tories to be as cruel and spiteful as possible"?
ReplyDeleteYour definition of everything in terms of economics makes you a Marxist, of course. All Thatcherites are, by definition. They cannot think outside that paradigm. Not that she herself knew what it was.
Once you go down this road, it will be possible to have a civil partnership with your children, ensuring that inheritances can be passed on from generation to generation without any inheritance tax. This is great for the Camerons and Osbornes of this world and will facilitate the concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands.
ReplyDeleteOnly to one person who was already living there anyway, and probably will have been for decades, possibly all of their lives. Nothing wrong with that.
ReplyDelete