Montana Trio Applying for Marriage License

[HereSince1628]

21. Messy yes, but more complex relationships than 2 party partnerships also exist in business

which on dissolution also have to deal with dividing up assets and liabilities.

What is/are the State's interest in licensing marriage? If it is neat and tidy dissolution, it seems that organizational structures for marriage could be chartered to guide that so that persons have protections that insure fair treatment.

If I had a clear understanding of the State's interest in marriage it would be possible to consider if and how plural marriage might work for and/or against the interest of the State in licensing such marriages.

I don't claim to clearly understand the State's interest in marriage. But, those interests seem to be about how the State recognizes marriage's influence on public and private promises and obligations and engage taxation and access to public services.

Questions about joint property, parental responsibilities and rights would be made across more people. Yet, these things already do exist for people who despite the nation's traditions of monogamy actually practice plural marriage as a series of one monogamous relationship at at time, and who accumulate on-going responsibilities and rights across relationships with multiple partners.

And I can see how questions about means testing for eligibility and allocations of public service/assistance/tax benefits would need to be made across more people, but I don't see a significant change in character of the state's interest.