Photo by Flickr user misterbisson. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Meghan O’Rourke of Slate’s XX-Factor blog says

Three cheers for Stephanie Coontz’s piece in the New York Times today in defense of taking marriage private. She asks:

Why do people—gay or straight—need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.

She offers a persuasive case that in today’s climate—with divorce rates still high—we need to rethink the state’s involvement in marriage. And she points out the logical peculiarity of the fact that unmarried couples who’ve cohabited for 19 years might have no hospital visitation rights—while two kids who get married on a whim automatically do.

O’Rourke said it here.

All well and good in an abstract “right on / all wrong” sea of opinions left and right. But O’Rourke brings the point down to cold, hard brass tacks when she adds

These are all questions I’ve had on my mind, because I got married this summer after a six-year relationship. I’m happy to be married—in fact, this week, I’m particularly glad, because I’m scheduled to have surgery, and if I weren’t married, my partner might have met with far more resistance from Oxford Health Plans when he called on my behalf to investigate the fine points of the claims process. Being able to say the words my husband to doctors and nurses has made bureaucratic matters far easier to manage than the words my boyfriend ever did.

In the face of that it really isn’t ok that an unmarried couple of 19 years (or nearly 30) should face very real legal discrimination that a couple who’s marriage lasts less than 55 hours wouldn’t have to.

Knowuddamean?