Writer's Block: Church and State
citizens ask the court to get involved when they file for divorce and want the court to decide custody and property issues. Legally, marriage is a contract, and a court determines if a valid contract exists, before enforcing any provisions of it. A legal definition of marriage has to exist for the courts to serve the function asked of them by people divorcing.
One assumption is that , following legalization of gay marriage, the next step will be legalization of polygamy. In contract law, a contract is usually between two parties, A third party cannot become part of the contract without a novation- an agreement among all three that the contract can be altered to include the third party. This would be problematical in situations where , in the first marriage, one party believed in monogamy or even merely chose to assert their right to inherit or use the property of the other and the other undertook a second marriage while still married to the first, The party marrying twice would be giving the second spouse some rights to property that the first spouse already had rights to and hadn't signed off on giving the second spouse claim to by means of a novation to the original contract.
I suppose, when people speak of polygamy, there's an assumption that they are talking of polygamous family groups, all consenting parties to an enlarged definition of family, but problems could easily arise when , between the first two parties in the first marriage, one decides to believe in and practice polygamy when the other has married in the belief in a monogamous marriage-the rights of the individual become couldy here and make the job of judges to rule on issues of divorce, inheritance, and custody a problem. A court needs a clear definition of the relationship on which to base its decisions.
This would be further confused when there is death of one of the parties to the marriage and relatives start asserting rights to propeerty.
Can our courts handle this stuff?
Should they have to?
One assumption is that , following legalization of gay marriage, the next step will be legalization of polygamy. In contract law, a contract is usually between two parties, A third party cannot become part of the contract without a novation- an agreement among all three that the contract can be altered to include the third party. This would be problematical in situations where , in the first marriage, one party believed in monogamy or even merely chose to assert their right to inherit or use the property of the other and the other undertook a second marriage while still married to the first, The party marrying twice would be giving the second spouse some rights to property that the first spouse already had rights to and hadn't signed off on giving the second spouse claim to by means of a novation to the original contract.
I suppose, when people speak of polygamy, there's an assumption that they are talking of polygamous family groups, all consenting parties to an enlarged definition of family, but problems could easily arise when , between the first two parties in the first marriage, one decides to believe in and practice polygamy when the other has married in the belief in a monogamous marriage-the rights of the individual become couldy here and make the job of judges to rule on issues of divorce, inheritance, and custody a problem. A court needs a clear definition of the relationship on which to base its decisions.
This would be further confused when there is death of one of the parties to the marriage and relatives start asserting rights to propeerty.
Can our courts handle this stuff?
Should they have to?