Taking Chris’ first two points together, we can address them by taking a look at just what marriage is in the first place. Setting aside all of the loaded arguments about raising children and heterosexual relationships, the most fundamental characteristic of civil marriage which differentiates it from other contractual relationships is the fact that it establishes, legally, socially, and morally, a new kinship â€" and by extension, a new family.
A group of people can sign a contract for the purpose of setting up a new business, but they don’t thereby become kin or family. Two people can sign a contract assigning one the legal authority to make medical decisions for the other, but they don’t thereby become kin or family. Two people can sign a contract to jointly share property, but they don’t thereby become kin or a family.
When two people marry, however, they do become kin â€" they are now related to each other. Furthermore, they also establish kinship ties with one another’s families â€" and in some cultures, establishing kinship ties between the two families has been regarded as the purpose of marriage, not establishing kinship ties between the two people actually getting married.
All of this is makes marriage fairly unique among all other sorts of contracts that can exist in society â€" only adoption is at all similar. In fact, this is the one characteristic of marriage which seems to be common to all forms of marriage in all cultures and societies through time. The only natural kinship ties are biological, and the only obvious biological kinship which exists is that between a mother and her children. All other kinship ties are established through culture â€" even fatherhood, which is often as much a matter of social convention as it is assumed biological paternity.
Kinship and familial relationships create the smallest social units of any society. The importance of kinship as a means for structuring relationships and behavior is evinced in the way societies have had so many systems (formal and informal) for establishing pseudo-kinship between people who have no biological relationship and for whom there are no means for creating traditional kinship ties. Common examples of this are the informal ways people refer to one another as “uncle†or “son†regardless of actual familial ties, the prevalence of “blood brotherhood†ceremonies in various groups, and ritual kinship bonds created by different social groups.
Kinship is an important thread in the social fabric. It isn’t an “institution†like marriage because there are generally no specific legal, religious, or social rules regulating it. Kinship is, instead, an amorphous creation of many other institutions which help people structure their relationships with one another.
If you know that someone is your kin, you know that you have different legal, social, and moral obligations to them than you do to total strangers. If you know that two people are kin, you know that they not only have different obligations to each other than they do to you, but also that you have different obligations to them as a group then you would to them as individuals if they weren’t kin.
Marriage establishes a relationship which does not and cannot exist for people who are simply living together. However much a cohabiting couple may love each other and however long they may have been together, their relationship is not such that it can be described as “kin†and, as a consequence, they cannot make any legal, social, or moral claims on others to treat them individually and jointly as if they were kin.
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