Libby Purves rips to shreds the Law Commission's idiotic proposal to give co-habiting couples the same rights as married couples: Some couples – I know and love many – jointly decide not to marry. Good luck to them. They don’t whimper for new laws; if they are wise they make legal arrangements about property ownership (like becoming tenants-in-common with appropriate shares) and ensure joint responsibility for children. If they are not wise, then by definition they are fools. You cannot frame every law to suit fools, even fools for love.

As Daniel Finkesletin puts it:

A couple decide not to get married because they don't wish to make a commitment with each other in law. Now the state decides that they can't do this. They don't need to have guests, a reception and a cake with white icing, but the rest of marriage - the rights, the responsibilities, the legal bond - that they must accept. Whether they want to or not.

I prefer the old fashioned way, in which people decide for themselves when they should get hitched. Under the new proposals, a legal precedent will eventually be established which determines the exact moment when leaving your toothbrush at your boyfriend's flat established his right to a share of your income.

Brilliant, eh?

Establishing a legal link between a couple is what getting married is for. Why can't they just leave it alone?Establishing a legal link between a couple is what getting married is for. Why can't they just leave it alone?

I'm getting married in a few months. I've never been more excited about anything in my life (even, would you believe it, the thought of Major Miller's comeback race). But according to these dolts, my fiancee and I might as well not bother.

It's easy to sound like some old fart when writing about marriage, but the Law Commission's proposals have nothing to do with righting a wrong or correcting an unfairness in the system, and everything to do with unthinking change for changes sake. Sheer genius: a law with no benefit.