El Dorado's Mormon Thing

[jefelump]

from alexamenos:
as for the US, where there is no established church, the primary use of government regulation (as opposed to recognition*) of marriages was initially to impose a bigoted agenda....fighting polygamy (because that was something for asians and africans, not europeans) and preventing "mixed-race" marriages were high on the government's list (homosexual marriages being unimagined, then). i think if you scoured the state laws, you'd find all sorts of "you can't marry a white to a person who is 2/5ths indonesian....marriage licensing was a way of enforcing these laws.

Marriage licensing was also a way to generate further tax revenues. That's also why we have to pay for a drivers license, and then keep renewing it every X years.