08-18-2004, 04:47 PM
Hi,
In law, where literal meanings are and should be pounded into the dust, both in creating the law itself and in the aftermath and later challenges in courts, extreme precision in usage and meaning are mandatory.
Yes. But the lawmakers are also members of society and thus subject to social assumptions. So, when the tax code was (re)written, and the categories "married filing jointly", "married filing separately", "unmarried head of household" were established, what was the *intent*? Do two people living together without children constitute a "family"? Does some number of people living together and raising children?
The point, again, is that the word "marriage" is already being used by government and industry to mean something other than it means in religion (which is again different from what it means in society). Now, either the lawmakers indeed need to use "extreme precision in usage and meaning" and rewrite the laws to say what they mean or we have to examine the words used in the context of the society that the lawmakers lived in.
After all, if in two hundred years the word 'voter' can evolve from 'adult white Anglo-Saxon male with real property' to 'The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude' and '. . . on account of sex' and '. . . by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax' and '. . . on account of age (though they did slip that bit about "eighteen years of age or older") then I think there might just be some room to expand the *legal* definition of marriage. After all, as you implied, the legal definition is not always in total accord with the common usage.
--Pete
In law, where literal meanings are and should be pounded into the dust, both in creating the law itself and in the aftermath and later challenges in courts, extreme precision in usage and meaning are mandatory.
Yes. But the lawmakers are also members of society and thus subject to social assumptions. So, when the tax code was (re)written, and the categories "married filing jointly", "married filing separately", "unmarried head of household" were established, what was the *intent*? Do two people living together without children constitute a "family"? Does some number of people living together and raising children?
The point, again, is that the word "marriage" is already being used by government and industry to mean something other than it means in religion (which is again different from what it means in society). Now, either the lawmakers indeed need to use "extreme precision in usage and meaning" and rewrite the laws to say what they mean or we have to examine the words used in the context of the society that the lawmakers lived in.
After all, if in two hundred years the word 'voter' can evolve from 'adult white Anglo-Saxon male with real property' to 'The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude' and '. . . on account of sex' and '. . . by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax' and '. . . on account of age (though they did slip that bit about "eighteen years of age or older") then I think there might just be some room to expand the *legal* definition of marriage. After all, as you implied, the legal definition is not always in total accord with the common usage.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?