What do we mean by legal marriage?

A marriage license
issued by the State

Legal marriage is the granting of a civil marriage license by the State, and its recognition by other levels of government.

One thing legal marriage is not is an honorary certificate for living right or for making a good choice in the person you decide to marry. We know that because a pair of strangers can meet on a sidewalk, fall instantly and madly in love, run off to a wedding chapel – and get legally married. As long as you’re not causing harm, the government doesn’t typically care who you marry. That’s your choice. The role of government in granting the license is to acknowledge that you are no longer single but that you consider yourself married to a certain person and you want the government to treat you that way.

Laws associated with legal marriage

In 2004, an attorney for the Legal Marriage Alliance studied the Washington State statutes and tabulated 423 state laws that grant rights or impose obligations that depend on a person’s marital status.

And the US General Accounting Office, at the request of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, did the same kind of analysis at the federal level. The GAO found 1,138 federal laws that provide different rights and obligations to married people than to those who are not legally married. (The 1997 report counted 1,049 laws, the 2004 update increased it to 1,138.)

Number of laws attached to legal marriage

So when we’re talking about legal marriage, we’re talking about a huge set of laws that distinguish between married people and single people. For example, the matter of who is treated as next-of-kin. In a married couple, it’s the spouse. But in a non-married couple, like me and Chris, even though we’ve been together a dozen years and we live together and provide for each other, in the government’s eyes we are legally strangers to each other, with no more connection than if we were roommates.

And it’s not just statutory law that’s involved. It’s also the way the courts and judicial precedent treat married couples differently from singles – not out of prejudice, but usually with good reason. So there’s a lot riding on whether a couple gets that civil marriage license.

And as we look at the history, we’ll see various kinds of couples demanding the right to get that government-issued marriage license.