Rights and Obligations
See also: Rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United StatesA marriage, by definition, bestows rights and obligations on the married parties, and sometimes on relatives as well, being the sole mechanism for the creation of affinal ties (in-laws). These may include:
- Giving a husband/wife or his/her family control over a spouse’s labor, and property.
- Giving a husband/wife responsibility for a spouse’s debts.
- Giving a husband/wife visitation rights when his/her spouse is incarcerated or hospitalized.
- Giving a husband/wife control over his/her spouse’s affairs when the spouse is incapacitated.
- Establishing the second legal guardian of a parent’s child.
- Establishing a joint fund of property for the benefit of children.
- Establishing a relationship between the families of the spouses.
These rights and obligations vary considerably between societies, and between groups within society.
Read more about this topic: Marriage Law
Famous quotes containing the words rights and, rights and/or obligations:
“The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given control of the property interests of the country.”
—George Baer (1842–1914)
“If the veil were withdrawn from the sanctuary of domestic life, and man could look upon the fear, the loathing, the detestations which his tyranny and reckless gratification of self has caused to take the place of confiding love, which placed a woman in his power, he would shudder at the hideous wrong of the present regulations of the domestic abode.”
—Lydia Jane Pierson, U.S. women’s rights activist and corresponding editor of The Woman’s Advocate. The Woman’s Advocate, represented in The Lily, pp. 117-8 (1855-1858 or 1860)
“The parent who loves his child dearly but asks for nothing in return might qualify as a saint, but he will not qualify as a parent. For a child who can claim love without meeting any of the obligations of love will be a self-centered child and many such children have grown up in our time to become petulant lovers and sullen marriage partners because the promise of unconditional love has not been fulfilled.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)