Topic: Government Regulation
The Role of Contracts in Society & Marriage Market Contracts and Marriage Contracts....are they the same?by Christopher Espinal
(Conservative)
Friday, February 22, 2008
The recent debate on Gay Marriage at University of Chicago got me thinking of the fundamentals of contracts and its role in society.
Contracts allows for individuals to engage in basic to complex transactions, anywhere from market transactions to social agreements.
The problem with contracts is that some third party must exist to enforce the details of each contract, to ensure that all parties meet all requirements. If no third party exists to ensure that contracts are fully met, there will be no incentive for such contracts to be upheld. A lack of incentive can lead to a lack of trust in other members seeking some exchange of a good or service. Thus, societies disenfranchised of protection of contracts by the government can lead to economic and social stagnation.
Countries that don't have developed institutions to enforce all or most contracts eventually fail, because this mechanism of agreements serves as a foundation for varying facets of society. One facet of society is the accumulation of capital.
Societies that lack well structured contract laws essentially lead to dead capital, or capital that can't be used for reinvestment or accumulation. In other words, contracts that lack enforcement lose out on growth.
This brings me to discuss the most important form of capital in society: human capital. In general this form of capital depends on an almost infinite number of variables and conditions. I think people can agree that by far, the strongest variable with the most significant effect on this function of human capital is the family unit.
Families with the grandest of social bonds essentially produce children with the finest of human qualities: contributions to society. We can now shed light on the family structure.
What brings couples to marry each other is most likely this complex concept of an affectionate appreciation between each party. Thus, does this type of social agreement require some external actor for enforcement? Can government, enforcing exchanges of monetary value in the market place, enforce a social exchange in marriage like love?
There are numerous differences between exchanges in the marketplace and those exchanges between couples. Markets need enforcement of contracts because they comprise of two or more parties with a large asymmetry of information between each party. Enforced contracts by a third party ensure exchange security in the market place. Couples who seek marriage most likely have intimate relationships prior to their decisions, thus a lack of asymmetry of information exists, at least relative to that of the market place. A trust must have formed between both parties making a complex decision like marriage. We can agree that security already formed.
Security is what creates the incentive for engaging in contracts. This important facet of agreements is achieved much differently between marriage and markets. Thus, it seems that government or some third party doesn't have a role in enforcing marriage contracts.
However, I built this model of marriage contracts using various assumptions, or is true ceteris paribus. The definition of marriage varies according to religious and cultural standards. This model assumes that there are no differences. Another interesting assumption is that a couple can form a bond strong enough to account for security in this contract on their own. Can they really trust each other enough to know that each will uphold their responsibilities: such as rearing the children and sustaining a cash flow for basic family operations? Do people really make complex decisions accounting for all major and relevant pieces of information? It is complex because so many variable qualities must be taken into consideration. I should add that those taking a minimalist position on this issue would ask another complex question: can government ensure all of these specific details? They would say that people are the most aware of their situation, although with imperfect information, and on average can make the best decisions themselves.
In a place like the United States, I'm not sure if this model even exists because there are so many confounding factors. People do marry because of monetary gains and not for love. My classical model of marriage based on classical definitions probably wouldn't even work in this country because of the numerous additional variables in play, such as tax rights and other weird incentives to marry. Disincentives may even exist. Perhaps if there were no government involvement, these problems wouldn't even arise. I don't know enough about the topic to judge.
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2008 Christopher Espinal, all rights reserved.
Published: Friday, February 22, 2008
Last modified: Friday, February 22, 2008
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I think there are two aspects to the whole "gay marriage" angle. The first is a socioeconomic construct. Two people in some form of permanent relationship get certain tax, insurance, and other financial benefits from said legal construct. Limiting the benefits of this legal construct to only hetrosexual couples isn't logical. But that is not marriage. You may call it a legal union. It should be applicable across the nation, and regulated by the government as a legal partnership.
The other half is a religous ceremony and the attached civil and social recognization that the couple are a union santified by God. That is "marriage". That cannot be extended to homosexuals, period. I do not think there is any ambiguity on this issue in the Bible. To "force" churches to allow gay marriages would be to have government interfering in religon.
For those who are atheist, the issue of "marriages" should be irrelevant, the legal union is all you need. For gays and lesbians who want society to accept them as they are, please understand that will never happen. Homosexuality is either a genetic defect, a mental abberation, or a lifestyle choice that is abhoorent and unnatural. Regardless of which of the three it is, it's not what people believe in or want. It won't be accepted, it won't be made "okay", and it's not valid. Biologically it's pointless, culturally it causes friction, and morally from a Christian standpoint it's repulsive.
I don't see it as a business contract so much as a contract between man, woman, and God. Government has no right to define that. If you want to define a legal framework, yes, but not marriage.
Marriage is a basic civil right that should be attainable by all Americans. For the truth about gay marriage check out our trailer. Produced to educate & defuse the controversy it has a way of opening closed minds & provides some sanity on the issue: www.OUTTAKEonline.com
Posted By: Jennifer Roback Morse
Date: 2008-02-25 16:30:10
If marriage were only about an agreement between adults, this post would be more applicable than it actually is. Conservatives and libertarians like contracts, because contracts are a method for free and equal people to relate to one another. However, the point of marriage, and for that matter, the point of family law, is to protect chidlren, who are inherently unequal to adults. This is why family law is not a subset of property or contract law. The historical point of marriage has always been to attach fathers to children and mothers and fathers to each other, for the sake of children.
Viewed in this way, the presence or absence of information assymetries alluded to in the post, are not as important. The issue is: how can we induce mothers and fathers to cooperate with each other over the lifetime of their children? The move toward easy dissolution of marriage has largely undermined this purpose of marriage, much to the detriment of children, and we might add, to the overall fertility rate.
The extent of the government's involvement or concern with marriage is not to ensure specific performance of all the behaviors necessary to keep a household functioning. In my book Love and Economics, I argued that marriage shoudl be considered a partnership, not a contract, for some of the reasons Chris mentions. The govt's only interest historically has been the policing of the most basic norms of the marital relationship: sexual fidelity, child support and spousal violence. Even then, the most involved the state would get was to treat some forms of infidelity as civil offenses, meaning that only the aggrieved party could bring an action. The police never went around peeking in bedroom windows looking for adulterers to arrest.
I did an article a couple of years ago called Marriage and the Limits of Contract, which deals with some, though not all of the issues raised in this post.
CIvil marriage is to establish kinship. It's not primarily about contracts, even though we use contract language for marriage.
The importance of kinship it to establish who is related to whom. This matters when death and illness arise, and your comments about whether a couple "trusts" each other is not relevant. I trust my partner, but without a lot of expensive legal paperwork, or civil marriage, he can't inherit my property should I die, or speak for me when I can't.
Children are irrelevant to marriage discussions. We don't require heterosexuals to begat, and allow them to marry even when begatting is impossible (people in prison, infertility, long distance relations etc.) Children are co-incident with marriage, not the sine-qua non for marriage.
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2008 Christopher Espinal, all rights reserved.