So, I'm certainly trying to examine my thoughts closely here, to see if there is definitional prejudice going on here. But, well, in the end, you do have to define marriage as _something_, and in my mind defining it as binary emphasizes the primary importance of each person to the other. I note that I have no objection to poly folks getting married to one person and then continuing to have serious relationships with other people, whether together with their spouse or separately. I just think you should limit to one the number of people you're making the more profound and permanent commitment to.
I'm a bit icky with the idea of closely monitoring the power-imbalance situations, just because it gets too close to government interference in private personal lives. The vastly different experiences of poor and rich families with potential child neglect/abuse situations comes to mind here.
I definitely agree on being able to expand the definition of "emotional family," with perhaps a restriction on time-limits for knowing the person or something? Not disagreeing, but it's quite possible that I would have defined, say, my frosh year roommates as "emotionally family" fall of freshman year, and 9 years later, I don't plan to say hi to them if I see them at reunion.
OTOH, certain friends will be undoubtedly be called Uncle or Aunt by our kids, and those relationships will be very important. The advantage, though, of biological family is that you're less likely to lose permanent touch with them, or drift away, and you're likely to have at the least many shared experiences and views. Obviously this is not necessarily true. If, say, A. and I and all of our immediate families except our hypothetical 3-year-old were killed in a car crash, I'd rather have the kid be raised by very close friends than, say, distant cousins, and that's not cuz I don't like our cousins. It's messy. And to a certain extent, I'm not sure how much officialness and legality helps.
Prejudice and so forth.
I'm a bit icky with the idea of closely monitoring the power-imbalance situations, just because it gets too close to government interference in private personal lives. The vastly different experiences of poor and rich families with potential child neglect/abuse situations comes to mind here.
I definitely agree on being able to expand the definition of "emotional family," with perhaps a restriction on time-limits for knowing the person or something? Not disagreeing, but it's quite possible that I would have defined, say, my frosh year roommates as "emotionally family" fall of freshman year, and 9 years later, I don't plan to say hi to them if I see them at reunion.
OTOH, certain friends will be undoubtedly be called Uncle or Aunt by our kids, and those relationships will be very important. The advantage, though, of biological family is that you're less likely to lose permanent touch with them, or drift away, and you're likely to have at the least many shared experiences and views. Obviously this is not necessarily true. If, say, A. and I and all of our immediate families except our hypothetical 3-year-old were killed in a car crash, I'd rather have the kid be raised by very close friends than, say, distant cousins, and that's not cuz I don't like our cousins. It's messy. And to a certain extent, I'm not sure how much officialness and legality helps.