Real freedom for all turtles in Sugarscape? - Presses universitaires ...

A l s t o t t - M a r r i a g e s a s a s s e t s ? 59when children enter the picture, since it is childcare rather than householdwork that seems, today, to cause the large gap in economic achievement bygender. Accordingly, protections for care work might be built into the lawsgoverning parental obligations. Parents’ obligations to children should notbe set in a "check-the-box" manner (because children cannot consent), andthe law could layer in obligations by parents engaged in less care work tothose engaged in more.These questions require further consideration, but their depth andimmediacy suggests that relational freedom has promise as a framework forthinking about the institutions that define marriage and other relationships.Scarcity, it seems, isn’t the critical point. Marriage partners may, indeed, bescarce for some people today, but if better institutions could extend toeveryone a fair chance at marriage and other relationships, then scarcity isan artifact of present injustice rather than – as in the case of jobs -- aninevitable failing of market distribution.Conclusion: a marriage tax?Van Parijs’s discussion of marriage concludes that wives in possession ofhusbands should be taxed. I am less certain that marriage partners are scarcein principle, but I agree that under current social and legal arrangementsthey are scarce. I have begun to sketch a first-best approach, which wouldseek to equalize background conditions and expand the legal menu ofrelationship options. Society might also, as a second-best or interim matter,impose a marriage tax.We needn’t imagine a highly salient (and therefore highly unpopular) lineon the income tax form: "Are you married? if so, pay an additional $1,000."Instead, a marriage tax could be built into the rate schedule. Some couples inthe United States already pay a marriage tax, but the present tax targetsmiddle-class couples. A concern for relational freedom suggests thatwealthy couples likely reap economic rents from current arrangements.Different-sex couples also benefit, today, from laws that enable them tomarry while denying same-sex couples the same options. The marriage taxisn’t, of course, a practical political agenda, but it does offer food forthought: marriage-law reform might proceed apace if wealthy marriedcouples otherwise faced a sizable tax burden.ReferencesDWORKIN, Ronald (2002), Sovereign Virtue, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.