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Untying the Knot : Marriage, the State, and the Case for Their Divorce / Tamara Metz.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2010]Copyright date: ©2010Edition: Course BookDescription: 1 online resource (216 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691126678
  • 9781400832224
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 306.84/10973 22
LOC classification:
  • HQ536 .M48 2010eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Toward a Liberal Theory of Marriage and the State -- 2. Confusion in the Courts -- 3. Marriage and the State in Liberal Political Thought -- 4. Marriage: A Formal, Comprehensive Social Institution -- 5. The Liberal Case for Disestablishing Marriage and Creating an Intimate Caregiving Union Status -- 6. Reconsidering the Public/Private Divide -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Marriage is at the center of one of today's fiercest political debates. Activists argue about how to define it, judges and legislators decide who should benefit from it, and scholars consider how the state should protect those who are denied it. Few, however, ask whether the state should have anything to do with marriage in the first place. In Untying the Knot, Tamara Metz addresses this crucial question, making a powerful argument that marriage, like religion, should be separated from the state. Rather than defining or conferring marriage, or relying on it to achieve legitimate public welfare goals, the state should create a narrow legal status that supports all intimate caregiving unions. Marriage itself should be bestowed by those best suited to give it the necessary ethical authority--religious groups and other kinds of communities. Divorcing the state from marriage is dictated by nothing less than basic commitments to freedom and equality. Tracing confusions about marriage to tensions at the heart of liberalism, Untying the Knot clarifies today's debates about marriage by identifying and explaining assumptions hidden in widely held positions and common practices. It shows that, as long as marriage and the state are linked, marriage will be a threat to liberalism and the state will be a threat to marriage. An important and timely rethinking of the relationship between marriage and the state, Untying the Knot will interest political theorists, legal scholars, policymakers, sociologists, and anyone else who cares about the fate of marriage or liberalism.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400832224

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Toward a Liberal Theory of Marriage and the State -- 2. Confusion in the Courts -- 3. Marriage and the State in Liberal Political Thought -- 4. Marriage: A Formal, Comprehensive Social Institution -- 5. The Liberal Case for Disestablishing Marriage and Creating an Intimate Caregiving Union Status -- 6. Reconsidering the Public/Private Divide -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Marriage is at the center of one of today's fiercest political debates. Activists argue about how to define it, judges and legislators decide who should benefit from it, and scholars consider how the state should protect those who are denied it. Few, however, ask whether the state should have anything to do with marriage in the first place. In Untying the Knot, Tamara Metz addresses this crucial question, making a powerful argument that marriage, like religion, should be separated from the state. Rather than defining or conferring marriage, or relying on it to achieve legitimate public welfare goals, the state should create a narrow legal status that supports all intimate caregiving unions. Marriage itself should be bestowed by those best suited to give it the necessary ethical authority--religious groups and other kinds of communities. Divorcing the state from marriage is dictated by nothing less than basic commitments to freedom and equality. Tracing confusions about marriage to tensions at the heart of liberalism, Untying the Knot clarifies today's debates about marriage by identifying and explaining assumptions hidden in widely held positions and common practices. It shows that, as long as marriage and the state are linked, marriage will be a threat to liberalism and the state will be a threat to marriage. An important and timely rethinking of the relationship between marriage and the state, Untying the Knot will interest political theorists, legal scholars, policymakers, sociologists, and anyone else who cares about the fate of marriage or liberalism.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2021)