The morning radio is a buzz with the debate regarding the opposition Tory think tank (headed by that ‘quiet man’ Iain Duncan Smith) and the pronouncements regarding encouraging heterosexual marriage through the tax system. I find it quite telling that in our materialist society that encouraging heterosexual marriage is best seen done through a purely financial incentive. It says a lot about our society that the conservative opposition says is ‘Broken’. I would venture to say that if heterosexual marriage is in such decline that you effectively need to bribe people to be a part of it then that in itself is a fundamentally ‘broken’ and desperate ideology.
It Seems to appeal to middle England anyway. I’m waiting for the announcement of public flogging of single Mothers and childless couples (married or not) quite soon.
Update: there’s a good condensed pros and cons on the proposal over at The First Post.
And the BBC reflects on the facts, figures and reactions.
Here in the US, marriage has long been treated as the be-all-end-all ultimate expression of love. If you don’t get married, you don’t really love eachother, or you’re just going to split up.
This drives me absolutely bonkers, especially considering that, here anyway, over half of all marriages end pretty quickly. Obviously it’s not all its cracked up to be.
When you take into account that most benefits (survivor reparations, hospital visitation, child custody, etc) are handled using marriage, this has become quite a problem. Those of us who choose not to marry (or those unable due to church doctrine incompatibilities, ie. gays) kind of get left out in the dark.
Me? I’d rather none of those above-mentioned things involved marriage — something which to me seems obviously religious in nature.
Hello Jer-Heterosexual Marriage rates are at a record low here in the UK and I guess politicians are looking for easy scapegoats for the ills of the modern world (and the UK is even more a secular society today). If marriage is somehow ‘out of fashion’ then it may be for a good reason as we all go through this transition period where we all start to form our own custom family and relationship structures that better suit our lives than that of our parents and their parents. It could also be that with the average wedding now costing around £20,000 (and average 1st house price at £150,000) that many are realising that’s a very expensive membership fee.
I would imagine that tax breaks for heterosexual couples but not for gay couples would infringe EU equal rights laws.
The second point is what about people who are married but live apart (perhaps with a partner they are not married to)? Will they get the tax break and if not, why not?
This is obviously a Daily Mail stuffed shirt type of proposal and I doubt whether it will ever become law.
Hello SilverTiger-I guess primarily it’s a bit of policy primarily designed to appeal to a certain potential electorate to encourage them to vote Tory. I believe the initial proposal is to give tax breaks to married heterosexual couples with children where only one partner works. I suppose it is discriminatory in that it discriminates against heterosexual married couples who are childless. Like all similar arguments I would prefer that people were paid a living and liveable wage rather than social engineering tax breaks for an ‘approved’ electorate demographic (of which I’m soooo not on their wanted or approved list).