Diamond or cash wedding anniversary?

Happy anniversary darling, now where's my money?

We’ve finally reached the point of pure silliness when a suggestion to pay people money to stay married is taken seriously.

August 13^th is apparently National Marriage Day (I didn’t remember it, but then I sometimes forget my actual wedding anniversary as well) and two groups hit the Australian headlines with a proposal of a ‘marriage bonus’.

The Australian Family Association and the National Marriage Coalition had their bit of fame on ABC News Breakfast.

Mary-Louise Fowler is the AFA’s vice president.

"People who marry and stay married, and bring all these benefits to society and go to that effort, are in fact pretty much ignored and treated just like everybody else."

“Treated just like everybody else”. Important phrase.

I might be really missing the mark here, but why should being married entitle you to any further special treatment – like cash bonuses? And I say further because science has already shown us that generally speaking married people are happier, healthier and live longer than singles (sometimes their spouses might prefer it to be different though). Being married already has that benefit. Then you have the tax benefits of being married, co-contribution for superannuation etc, shared wealth in asset building. The list is quite extensive really.

The AFA also wanted the proposed parental leave benefit of 18 weeks at minimum wage to be paid to stay-at-home mums because they didn’t qualify as they weren’t in the paid workforce, and that was unfair (media release from AFA and Kids First Australia May 19, 2010). They have a plan to re-jig whole system and then scrap the baby bonus.

In this case they WANTED people to be “treated just like everybody else” and obviously the baby bonus must have been the wrong kind of bonus.

Certain groups felt the baby bonus would be abused as people chased the almighty dollar and had babies just for the cheque. It wasn’t nick-named the ‘plasma bonus’ for nothing…

So why a marriage bonus?

I don’t mind governments providing the odd safety net, especially in a wealthy nation like ours. Protections for those on very low incomes, a helping hand for the unemployed and those unable to fund their own retirement etc.

Then there are there other kinds of ‘helping hands’ like various rebates and bonuses for just being normal. The aforementioned baby bonus is a big one as is the rebate for private health insurance.

We live in a society where we choose our marriage partners (yes I know there might be the odd arranged marriage in this country but by and large we pick our partners). Sometimes it lasts and sometimes it doesn’t. Surely the Australian Family Association and the National Marriage Coalition wouldn’t want people to stay in a marriage simply to get the bonus. Would they?

Sure, it would make our statistics look great! The divorce rate would drop, single parent families would become fewer and we would appear to be a nation with a very stable family life. On paper at least.

The AFA recognises that a marriage is a voluntary contract between a man and a woman. So why would my tax dollars go to reward them on their choice? I don’t get a bonus for staying healthy and not using the health system (shhhh, that might be next) or a bonus for keeping my cats in an enclosure so they don’t kill heaps of native wildlife.

Interestingly the Australian Family Association’s own guidelines don’t support their idea either. As quoted from their website as part of a definition of family:

“The maintenance of the family should be the financial responsibility of the father and not of the State.”

I guess they just haven’t updated their website to add “…except for a tax-payer funded bonus for staying married.”