Alan W Cohen

Private Vows Alan W Cohen

Is state regulation of marriage and divorce unconstitutional? The answer is yes. The Supreme Court in 2015 found that marriage began in America as completely private affair, and then evolved. This book, usually, historical and legal analysis, explains why governmental interference into the family is based on the Court's adoption of the laws of the Anglican Church. The problem was the rules of the Anglican Church did not comply to nonconformists, but only to those that entered into an agreement with the Church to comply. The Supreme Court, in 1888, was buried deep in a sense of Christian superiority, and America was then a union of theocracies, as the Court refused to recognize the Fourteenth Amendment's application to the states. This book, using a hypothetical Mormon family seeking to enforce their plural marriage, Private Vows argues that not only is state regulation of marriage and divorce unconstitutional, it, along with federal interference, has served to destroy, not preserve, marriage, and why returning marriage to its origins of a private contract, free of any governmental interference, would resurrect that vital institution.