Marriage institutions have to die.
At least in a legal sense. You can still roleplay cute ring ceremonies however you like.
TL;DR: it’s a non-configurable contract that gives you zero flexibility, so you’d prefer not to have it at all.
Replace it with a customizable contract built on specific trust delegation, for any life case.
Why marriage has to die
Historically it was a formal necessity, in the age of kings and queens.
Now, in the modern world, it’s outdated af. And it never really served the freedom of either participant. Well, maybe males actually got preferential treatment, but that’s just the whole patriarchy vibe we got tired of already.
Problem: it’s a contract that is all-or-nothing. It gives each of you a wide range of preferences and responsibilities you can’t conditionally opt in or out of, or pick the ones you agree on.
All the current systems are fundamentally unfree, because they force you to go all or nothing into a predefined set of rules.
It bundles 10 or 20 important life and end-of-life decisions into one single Yes or No. Half of which you might not even be aware of, or know how they work.
And the terms are deliberately vague – because vagueness always benefits whoever can afford the better lawyer.
You know what’s a more serious commitment than marriage? Co-signing a lease. No wedding-industrial complex for that one, but the legal weight is heavier.
Prenups don’t solve much, as they still rely on some central legal definition.
Fancy "civil unions" follow the same pattern – they feel modern, but they’re actually the same thing.
And don’t get me started on the so-called ‘progressive’ places where you could already be in one without your consent at all.
The state doesn’t care about your love. It cares about who gets the house when you die, who makes the call when you’re unconscious, and who takes the kid when both parents are gone. All of which a modular contract answers in plain language.
This is the actual point. Marriage is a death-and-disaster contract wearing a wedding dress. When you can’t speak for yourself, the contract speaks for you – and the default has you speaking for everyone you’ve ever married, in a language you didn’t write, under terms you didn’t pick.
Modular makes this yours. Who gets the house. Who gets the bank account. Who makes the medical call. Who raises the kids. None of them have to be the same person. None of them have to be your spouse. You could even leave it all to your cat – your call, your contract.
The state shouldn’t be in this business
I also consider marriage-preferential stuff like tax breaks unfair to everyone.
People living together already have an easier time sharing infrastructure, making their lives even better?
Unfair! And it’s an incentive to join in ‘marriage’ just for those benefits – potentially endangering your well-being even more by trusting someone.
We must treat each individual as solely responsible in their financial matters, unless a specific agreement is made.
Not to mention state intrusion into our lives!
Being required to register somewhere?! To follow THEIR predefined rules?
You must decide the rules – business has contracts where you have the most freedom. Why is this case any different?
The alternative: modular trust agreements
Solution – a case-specific "Modular Trust Agreement" or "Personal Contract"
For a wide range of life situations.
A delegation of trust where you choose who and when and how and how much each party owes the other.
Currently there’s only one option: by marrying someone you auto-give all other rights and benefits, while it should be case-by-case only.
You may…
- trust your ‘wife’ with finances but not with your health
- trust your friend to take care of your property but not your ‘spouse’
- decide that only this group deserves your inheritance or delegate the decision to them
…and all the typical cases.
Picture this. Sam, Alex, and Jordan share a flat. Six years, two cats, no kids, complicated feelings all around.
Under marriage: pick two of you, the other one’s legally nobody. Funny, right?
Under modular: one afternoon at the kitchen table. Sam handles Alex’s finances. Alex makes medical calls for Jordan. Jordan takes the cats. Inheritance splits three ways unless someone opts out. Parents of any of them get nothing by default.
The state doesn’t ask who’s sleeping with whom. It just reads the contract.
Same outcome for the people who want it. Cleaner for everyone. Zero labyrinth.
Divorce wouldn’t exist – you specify the time of the contract, or revoke it any time you no longer trust them. Or if you’re very sus – specify exact terms for a premature-expiry case.
Any financial agreements are between you and whoever else signed – exactly like a prenup but flexible!
What if you have a roommate you live with and want to share a household? Covered!
What if you consider that actually your cat deserves all your inheritance?
Also, it has no presumptions about the number of people. Or the shape of the relationship. Or whether members can be added or removed.
Marriage assumes exactly one shape: two people, monogamous, sealed. Everything else – polycules, intentional families, group households, networks of mutual care – is locked out. You either pretend to be ‘just friends’ or invent elaborate legal workarounds. Funny how the law pretends to be neutral while being a one-shape-fits-all machine.
Under modular: as many connections as you want, provided all parties agree on the same terms. Three people, five people, twelve – the framework doesn’t care. As long as consent is real and the terms are clear, it’s valid.
And the rules of participation are themselves a contract option. Can someone join later? That’s a clause. Can someone leave? Also a clause. If they join, do they share all responsibilities or just some? You guessed it – a clause. (hehe) You build participation rules the same way you build relationship terms – out of clear, modular pieces.
The whole question shifts from ‘is this marriage or not?’ to ‘what specific terms do all of you actually agree to?’
A contract doesn’t even assume a specific life form. You could agree on something with your toaster – provided it can sue you later. Your kinks, whatever.
And also, this system is fully compatible with all the previous ones. You could have your own religious private ritual – legally it is just one of the default contracts – and you can just sign off and call it a day as if it had always been this way.
What’s in one, and what to call it
So… special name?
Hard to come up with a specific term, but concepts are plenty!
- Medical decisions → Healthcare Proxy or Medical Power of Attorney (you got this one right!)
- Money stuff → Financial Agency or Durable POA (limited scope)
- Living together/cohab → Cohabitation Agreement or Domestic Partnership Contract
- Property/inheritance → Trust Agreement or Property Contract
…unified into general business-like contracts with notarization.
Also, it’s a beautiful thing: it actually makes you think about what delegation rights you have available and to whom you can allocate them.
Instead of following the default that the state makes for you.
"But what about…"
"But think of the children!"
Easy. Whoever paid the biological or financial cost – call them the gestator – has primary guardianship by default. The gestator is the one who bore the child, hired the surrogate, or sponsored the artificial womb. Someone has to bear the sacrifice, and that person gets the first say.
Unless you contracted otherwise upfront. Then the modular contract wins – and this is where the framework actually helps parenthood. The gestator’s rights, the other parent’s role, inheritance, medical decisions, custody in case of separation – all spelled out in plain language, all in clauses you both signed. No legal labyrinth just because you had a kid.
The other parent gains rights through an identical adoption-contract. No gender-specific path, no presumption based on biology alone. The gestator can form a shared responsibility agreement with whoever they choose, but they retain more weight in rights by default.
The state retains override for bad actors. Orphans, or a biological parent giving up rights – the state takes responsibility.
This is for NOW and the FUTURE – lab-grown humans, mutated uteruses, biological reproduction gone entirely. The principle holds: whoever paid the cost has the primary say, unless they agreed otherwise. Rights come from commitment and responsibility, not biology alone. Showing up matters. A biological material donor and a devoted parent are not the same thing – so why does the law treat them identically?
"But I want my catgirl wife to move in my country!"
Visa sponsorships.
Why the hell does your trustee have to be in an intimate relationship?
Could be a friend/parent/cousin/whatever.
Same unified mechanism for all who you trust – you prove you can provide funds and insurance, and risk your own ass for them.
Actual immigration procedures may vary but we must remove any definition of "relationship" in there. Only that you’re financially liable and legally bonded via contract.
If you think about it, the current system is awful – it assumes a default state of agreement between two humans, and applies it universally to everyone.
And if your system checks whether they actually married, it is just such an intrusion into private life – what sane person would tolerate it?
"But I just want to be with my person – I don’t want to plan a portfolio?"
Yeah, very easy. Just sign the default one. Or tweak it a little, however you like.
Or add additional rights to your parents or close friends for delegating important life events.
Or do it very light and agree on only very specific obligations between you so you could be free with one person, two, or many.
"Won’t this be a paperwork nightmare?"
Well, I’m sure we would have interfaces that explain it all very easily. All complexity is only opt-in. If you don’t opt in, you can just pick from other options or change them right away.
Much better than around 1000 pages of existing laws about marriage you did not read but signed anyway – full of rules and contradictions that you have to be a professional lawyer to make sense of.
In the end it saves you potentially years and thousands of dollars in lawyer fees, navigating this nightmare you did not even know existed.
I use ‘notary’ as a method of third-party verification that exactly two or more persons signed this exact contract, with clear intent and a timestamp.
Digitally signed and recorded in a tamper-proof public registry.
So when you’re bleeding dry in a hospital you don’t have to prove anything to anyone – just show a paper or a QR code.
What the default costs you
Look at what we built. Humans and their relationships are complex and messy – that’s the whole point of being alive. And for thousands of years, we treated this with one stupid binary choice: married or not. One signature. Default terms. Done.
You know what that solves? Nothing. It doesn’t reduce complexity – it just shoves it onto a divergent path you’re allowed to not think about yet. You say yes, you figure it out at the divorce. If you get there. If you can afford it. If the lawyers don’t bleed you dry first.
And because marriage is legacy code of society, we’ve built an entire parasitic industry around the wreckage. Prenups. 1000-page contracts. Lawyers charging by the hour to translate what should be plain language. Bloodsuckers thriving on the mess we made by pretending one signature could cover a lifetime of decisions.
Here’s the part that should make you angry. You’re expected to read a thousand lines of Terms of Service for any random app you use. Spotify. Instagram. The cloud. You scroll, you accept, you move on. But for marriage – the one choice that directly determines your quality of life, your wellbeing, your finances, your kids, your death – that one, conveniently, is left behind all that legacy crap. You sign without reading. You figure it out later. The whole system depends on you not reading.
This reform gives you your power and control back. Nobody interferes unless you decide exactly how. Nobody tells you how to relate to others unless there’s a signature on it. The state stays out of your bedroom, your finances, your death – unless you invite it in with a clear, modular contract that says exactly what you want.
Stop signing the default. Start writing your own.