Michaelson

Quick one: is it immoral to marry for reasons other than love? Say, to get a passport, or to qualify for welfare or any other legal benefits that go along with it?

Always yes, always no, or dependent on circumstances?

Even suppose two people are in love, but are enticed to marry for the legal benefits.

Pyrrho

I don't think it is immoral to marry for reasons other than love, provided that this is made clear to the person to whom one is getting married (and, as always, provided no one is being coerced into it).

Marriage has many legal implications, and it is important to think about them in order to decide whether or not to marry.

And, of course, the people who are thinking about getting married should discuss what their expectations are for the marriage. For example, are they going to expect sexual fidelity? And will there be any children? If not, what will be done to prevent them? If so, how many, and how will they be raised?

In other words, they need to communicate very clearly to each other what a "marriage" means to them.

Or to express the same idea in different words, when people get married, they should know what they each expect of the other. This should all be made clear before they are married; assuming that all of the involved participants have the same idea of what constitutes a marriage is extremely foolish.

Toto

Marriage is a legal and financial arrangement, and as long as both parties agree, I don't see a moral issue.

It is no business of the state why you get married. It could be love, an arranged marriage by your parents, a financial arrangement.

Toto

But you should be aware that if the purpose of marriage is to gain citizenship or residency, the Immigration Service might challenge the marriage as a sham.

keyser_soze

Leave morals out of it, marriage is a government institution. If both parties agree to the arrangement, leave it for what it REALLY is, a contract. The whole "standing before the minister" is bullshit, always has been. If two people are entering into the relationship as a contract, who cares what the reasons? It is like bitching about what two people do in their bedroom. It's none of yours or anyone else's business. What gives one person the right to pronounce their personal "opinion" about another's choices. If they fall outside law(and I mean real law, not the don't shoot whales from moving vehicles, or no sodomy, etc...i.e. blue laws) then they are obviously violating another's rights, but to bitch that they are violating your sense of "decency" is the lowest form of intolerance. I dislike jackasses that don't use turn signals, and I think we should move the punishment to imprisonment. Doesn't mean that my sense of judgement is dead on, does it? And neither is most people's. Everyone hammered Clinton for his escapades, a good example. I thought his personal inclinations had crap to do with his work(let's face it, anyone who thinks a president has any power is deluded anyway)...and probably 90% of the non freak guys out there had a slight high-five moment before they went into societal disapproval mode. A blow job under the oval office desk while talking to the russian president? You think he was the first? You think Billy Graham isn't gettin a bit of action? I'm not even going to go into the priesthood. Oddly enough, the most apparently moral people, are the most decayed. Screw the moral majority, they need it badly. Shit, I have done gone WAY off the topic.

Michaelson

uh, yeah. I think so.

Okay, specific example. In Australia, for students to qualify for welfare, they need to be a fulltime student and considered 'independent'. One way to qualify for independence is to be in a marriage, or marriage like relationship (other's include earning a certain amount within a certain time frame, proving that living at home is intolerable etc.). In a newsletter that I picked up at market day a few weeks ago, it stated that homosexual couples weren't able to gain independence, because Centrelink (Australian welfare organisation) doesn't recognise gay couples as being de facto, no matter how long they've lived together. This is ridiculous, and the pamphlet I was reading suggested that some people might want to engage in marriage with gay friends of the opposite sex in order to qualify for Youth Allowance. I have no problem with this, and consider it a legitimate form of protest (particularly considering gay coupoes, under state legislation, in every state, can be de facto).

Now, upon reading this, a friend of mine who is living with his girlfriend suggested that he should get married. They're talking about it, and it looks like they're going to do it. Is this moral? Or is it simply a scam to get more money. I err toward the second option, to be honest. But at the same time, I don't see any problem with marrying in order to get a passport, so are my priorities all messed up, or what?

keyser_soze

I don't think your morals are in question at all. I think you simply realize the hypocrisy of the system.

AdamWho

Isn't it funny how some laws designed to make people more moral often wind up doing the exact oposite?

Monkeybot

Nah, as long as both parties are clear on the exact reasons why they're getting married.

Daisy

I think that marriage would be immoral if it is meant to defraud one of the parties to the marriage - but it's the fraud, not the marriage, that is immoral.

Note: odd that defraud isn't like defrost or delouse where the 'de' means to remove....