This is a test, to see if your anti-robo program is working properly.

It seems that John Searle (formerly of UC Berkeley) touched this issue in several of his works on consciousness; language; mind and social reality. Specifically, he addressed what he calls institutional facts and constitutive rules, among other notions which comprise his philosophy of mind and language. Marriage, in his view, is an institution (or institutional fact), which is governed and described by constitutive rules. (This account is bare-bones, because Searle has much more to say about the construction of society; linguistics and a host of related topics.) In any case, marriage arose out of the need for conformity and uniformity. Governments wanted to exert regulatory domain over their subjects, for a number of social, economic and cultural reasons. Marriage, having withstood the ravages of time and social unrest, is viewed with some sense of reverence by government and indeed by its precursor, faith (or theology; or religion; or whatever other descriptor, one might wish to elect, uh, select...).

Not all people who wish to cohabit choose to marry. That is not, however, strictly the point. More people do marry (or may wish to do so) where there are fewer constraints than there used to be. Marriage, as an institutional fact with its own set of constitutive rules, confers certain rights, responsibilities, privileges and so on which are not available to those in unmarried cohabitation. This is precisely how governments and religious leaderships want things to be. Marriages between same-sex couples, though frowned upon, covertly or overtly. are therefore more desirable than unmarried relationships. This too is how those who govern or minister prefer things to be.

No. I was just asking why there seems to be some difficulty in submitting comments. The previous one made above appears to have answered my question. Thank you, Laura.

To your questions (May 17, 2018, 1:13 PM): The problem was CAPTCHA. About four days ago, I was trying to comment on another post, prior to leaving remarks on this one. After forming my comment, I tried to do the CAPTCHA puzzle(s). After going through a dozen or so puzzles (cars, street signs, store fronts, etc.) I simply gave up and returned to the home page. Before then, I had never been subjected that much CAPTCHA interrogation. I have no idea what, if anything, I was doing wrong.