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DanArmak comments on Poly marriage? - Less Wrong Discussion
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People are bad at predicting what legal protections they may need in the future, and marriage covers a lot of them. Boilerplates are useful even in fields where there is pretty arbitrary freedom to customize. I didn't try to write my own contract with the Cryonics Institute, for instance, though as far as I know they and I are entitled to enter into any contractual obligation we'd like.
Marriage isn't just boilerplate for private agreements. It gives married people legal privileges: custody of children, hospital visiting rights, rights to decide partner's medical treatment in an emergency, tax reductions in some jurisdictions (usually for joint-owned property or for inheritance between the married partners), and so on.
Lack of good boilerplate for marriage-like agreements isn't the problem. In many states, private agreements cannot grant most of these legal rights. That's why abolishing government-defined and -controlled marriage is a prerequisite to equal-rights private agreements.