I think part of this is due to the safety net here being designed to encourage individuals to make themselves destitute on paper before they can get Medicaid for nursing home care. I think the other part is due to the US’s nature as a country of immigrants seeking ‘fresh starts’ and ’2nd chances’ from the old world. We tend to view our family obligations as things we make ourselves and not things the state imposes on us.

You ask, “But does this obligation exist if there are yet no children from the marriage? If so it seems like it is about something other than children!”

No, as long as both spouses are still alive, the law regards them as the potential parents of the in-laws grandchildren; a possibility that ceases on the death of one of their daughter. Laws are made for the general case and, to reduce litigation, the court refuses to enquire into other obstacles to fertility.

“Ahhh, so as he is ‘part of the family’ the family is obligated to help him.” Of course and he ceases to be so, if he fails to provide the family with its next generation, or if his issue becomes extinct. That is why he has heritable rights in the family property – a usufruct over his wife’s estate

No doubt, marriage can be viewed as an agreement between the spouses, but there is nothing contractual about the obligation of a (solvent) mother-in-law to support her unemployed son-in-law

I think you’d find most Americans would be rather surprised at the concept of a legal obligation to support a deadbeat son-in-law.

Now this obligation ceases, if her daughter is dead and there are no children of the marriage alive.

But does this obligation exist if there are yet no children from the marriage? If so it seems like it is about something other than c hildren!

Because he is no longer a part of the family, extending through time.

Ahhh, so as he is ‘part of the family’ the family is obligated to help him. That’s fine, although most Americans I think would find this a little too intimate for the state to be inserting its authority….they would rather decide for themselves whether an unemployed son-in-law merited financial aid or simply a stern lecture.

The whole system rests on filiation being clear, certain and incontestable. The persons entitled to receive support and those bound to provide it are determined, exclusively and conclusively by the Civil Register of births and marriages.

Well, filial support laws exist in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. The provisions vary a good deal. I have only glanced at them, but none of them, to my knowledge, include in-laws: a curious omission, but so it is.

No doubt, marriage can be viewed as an agreement between the spouses, but there is nothing contractual about the obligation of a (solvent) mother-in-law to support her unemployed son-in-law It is an obligation imposed by Articles 206 and 207 of the Civil Code, based on the mere fact of marriage and nothing else. She may detest the man and she may have opposed the marriage, but her duty arises from the mere fact of his status, as her son-in-law, a member of her family.

Now this obligation ceases, if her daughter is dead and there are no children of the marriage alive. Why? Because he is no longer a part of the family, extending through time. The same, of course, holds true of the reciprocal obligation of the son-in-law to aliment his mother-in-law.

As always you provide us with a useful alternative view of how things are done. In the US the experience I have is that most programs to help those in old age are premised on the person being broke, without resources. Hence many people with means plan their final years to become technically bankrupt signing their assets over to other family members and such so Medicaid will pay for nursing home care. This keeps social safety net programs less expensive but at the cost of what you’d call ‘vertical integration’ in families.

This does lend support to the views I’ve expressed, though. Marriage law goes far beyond simply addressing the issue of filiation (and as you’ve pointed out PACs and such seem perfectly structured to frustrate the all important interest in filiation that post Revolutionary France supposed adopted civil marriage for!). Not really an argument against SSM IMO. ‘Vertical integration’ would both be as applicable and as socially useful for SSM as DSM.

Here are the rules governing mutual support

CHAPTER V – Of the Obligations Arising from Marriage

Art. 203 The spouses contract together, by the sole fact of marriage, the obligation of feeding, supporting and educating their children.

Art. 204 A child has no claim against his father and mother for a settlement in view of marriage or otherwise.

Art. 205 (Act no 72-3 of 3 Jan. 1972) Children owe maintenance to their father and mother or other ascendants who are in need.

Art. 206 (Act of 9 Aug. 1919) Sons- and daughters-in-law owe likewise and under the same circumstances, maintenance to their father- and mother-in-law, but this obligation ceases where the spouse owing to whom the affinity existed and the children born of his or her union with the other spouse are dead.

Art. 207 (Act no 72-3 of 3 Jan. 1972) The obligations resulting from these provisions are reciprocal.
Nevertheless, where the creditor has failed seriously to fulfil his obligations towards the debtor, the judge may discharge the latter from all or part of the maintenance obligations.

Art. 207-1
[repealed]

Art. 208 (Act no 73-2 of 3 Jan. 1972) Maintenance shall be granted only in proportion to the needs of the one who claims it, and to the wealth of the one who owes it.
The judge may, even of his own motion and according to the circumstances of the case, couple the periodical payments with a revision clause permitted by the law in force.

Art. 209 Where the one who provides or the one who receives maintenance is placed again in such a condition that the one can no longer give it, or the other is no longer in need of it, a discharge or reduction of it may be applied for.

Art. 210 Where the person who must provide maintenance establishes that he cannot make periodical payments, the”family causes judge”(Act no 93-22 of 8 Jan. 1993) may, with full knowledge of the facts, order that he shall receive in his home, feed and maintain the one to whom he owes maintenance.

Art. 211 The”family causes judge” (Act no 93-22 of 8 Jan. 1993) may also decide whether the father or mother who will offer to receive, feed and maintain in his or her home the child to which he or she owes maintenance should in that case be exempted from periodical payments.

Note the emphasis throughout on the “vertical” or inter-generational character of the legal concept of “family,” something that tends to be overlooked in these discussions The limitation of the obligation under Art 206 is significant here.

But ‘consent’ can’t be the foundation of paternity. The chief problem that filiation attempts to solve is the father who does not want to take responsibility for his children either by denying he is the father or claiming some other man is the father. Yes if a man acknowledges a child is his that makes life much easier but the story doesn’t end there. If a man denies he is the father and the woman claims he is the state gets involved ordering DNA tests and forcing paternity upon him.

It establishes no legal bond and no right or obligation of support between the ascendants of one partner and the ascendants of the other.

I’ve asked you this before but you haven’t responded, what obligation of support to ascendants? In the US one has no legal obligations to one’s mother or father-in-law. But let’s say there is under French law. Tht would indicate that marriage isn’t just about filiation and children but the couple and family. I can see why society would want to obligate a man to the children he father’s, I’m not seeing why society would feel its necessary to obligate the man to the adult parents of the woman he produced the child with if its just ‘about the children’.

Now, I suggest that these differences are all reflections of the difference between an institution to regulate the rights of couple and one orientated to the establishment of a family.

But a family is much more than just children. After all, if you marry for life in, say, you’re mid 20′s you can easily expect 40 to 50 years of married life. Raising a child to age 20 would take up only 1/4 to 1/2 of that. What’s up with the other half? It is about family which again is the couple’s mutual support for each other, and to a lesser degree the extended family (although in the US there’s few legal obligations that apply to extended family, you’re perfectly free to never accept your daughter’s husband, your aunt, or even your parent’s new spouse).

To date no one here has presented any worthwhile arguments that could stand up to scrutiny about how SSM would disrupt or harm that. Yet I think its pretty clear to see how PACs can. You’ve basically created a ‘marriage-lite’ that seems perfectly designed to produce plenty of children with weak family bounds diluted by transitory coupling, diluted blood relations between siblings and so on (How easy is it with PACs to rack up half-brothers/sisters, quarter brother/sisters and so on…at least marriage requires a somewhat legally tramatic divorce)

Blake,

You’re repeating yourself yet again with points that have been refuted over and over again. I’ve come to the conclusion that you need help to learn the skills to avoid wasting the comment space here. Therefore I’ve decided to enlist the community to help you. Going forward I will not address any of your SSM arguments unless one of the conditions applies:

1. You raise a worthwhile point that you haven’t raised before.

2. At least one other member of the community is willing to say your point enough merit to justify a response.

Another lie from the man who talks of nothing but lies. He doesn’t “hate” gays or “harbor ill will.” He just thinks they are “bestial.”

“I think the problem is that it is not up to Christians to “stand against” homosexuality… their sin is none of our business….We should focus our efforts not on restricting their right to be bestial, but on restricting their efforts to make others be bestial with them”

It’s best to keep track of the lies one tells about oneself.

A “pacte civil de solidarité,” or PACS as its name implies, regulates the rights of the couple. The sex of the parties is irrelevant and about 90% are believed to involve opposite-sex couples, although sex is not recorded in the Civil Register.

It establishes no legal bond and no right or obligation of support between the ascendants of one partner and the ascendants of the other. It confers no right of inheritance to the inherited property (biens de famille) of the other party. Gifts between them, unlike those between spouses, are irrevocable, but each partner retains the right to dispose of his or her own property by will, subject to the reserved shares of certain blood relatives.

If one partner acknowledges the child of the other as his, then, of course, filiation is established. The great Revolutionary principle of consent (through marriage or acknowledgment) as the foundation of paternity is preserved. [« l’importance donnée par le droit révolutionnaire à la volonté comme fondement de la filiation » as Prof Dekeuwer-Défossez has called it.] Similarly a woman can avoid filiation, by exercising her statutory right of giving birth anonymously, although there are only about 400 cases of this a year. This is the Roman law principle that “nemini invito suus heres adnascitur” – No one can have an heir born to him or her without his or her consent. In practice, tacit acknowledgement is readily presumed.

A PACS can be terminated at will.

Now, I suggest that these differences are all reflections of the difference between an institution to regulate the rights of couple and one orientated to the establishment of a family.

Marriage has a procreative/family making aspect, and that part is not detachable.

If you try to either detach that aspect of marriage, or try to pretend that what gays are doing when they “make” a family is “the same thing” (when it is different in several really crucial respects), you are making a significant change to “marriage”.

I don’t begrudge you the right to have your relationship, live life your way, or have your relationship recognized. But you do need to understand that there are limits: you do not have a right to force me to pretend that your relationship is the same as a real marriage, because it isn’t.

You don’t have the right to force me to pretend that your child has “two mommies”, not only because that’s nonsensical, but because it’s cruel, and you don’t really even have the right, ethically, to foist such a dysfunctional fantasy on a child, let alone have the right to force anyone to participate (even though of course we know the whole fantasy falls apart if you can’t surround the child with people who reinforce the myth).

You don’t have the right to “change” the definition of marriage, because you can’t: if you inherit the word “marriage”, the meaning of the word itself will have to change, and the fact that we really do need and use the real institution of marriage will force us to find some way to find a new word to describe a new institution – one intended for people who aren’t just about celebrating their own phallus, but are also about honoring both their other family members and the obligations that go with building a real family.

Ultimately, truth always wins out. You don’t have truth on your side. You have to force children to lie, and force adults to lie to children. You will continue to gain support only until you become successful enough for the real consequences of “gay marriage” become clear – it will be just as is happening with abortion: at first the promise of “freedom” will win support, but then when people start seeing that such “freedom” requires that we sacrifice children, support will drop, because most people are decent and good.