John Coleman writes in Reason that government should get out of the marriage business. If people love each other, they ought be be allowed to marry.

It is time to privatize marriage. If the institution is really so sacred, it should lie beyond the withering hands of politicians and policy makers in Washington D.C. There should be no federal or state license that grants validity to love. There should be no state-run
office that peers into our bedrooms and honeymoon suites.

We certainly have a thin view of society when all we have is the individual vs. the state, the state having consumed all the social space called public. Is there such a thing as the instituion of marriage? Or is marriage merely a legal construct of the state – or a personal commitment of two (or more?) people (beings?) who love each other?