Good morning. So I've been thinking about divorce in a free society. And again, thanks and welcome to everybody who's new.

Who's listening in if you're returning, boomerang style. Nice to see you again if you're here for the first time.

Nice to see you at all. So, divorce.

So what is the purpose of marriage?

What is the purpose of marriage?

Well, if you look at the two things that are essential to marriage, it's resource provision and monogamy.

There's two things that are essential to marriage. You have to have a monogamy sexual relationship.

And a partner, almost always the man, has to provide resources.

And that's like if you think of sort of two people who, you know, just hang out and shack up like they both work, they don't want kids or whatever, right?

There wouldn't be any particular need for a contract. I mean, I was, had roommates and was a roommate for many years when I was in my teens and my twenties.

And we never, we never had a contract. We never had a contract of any kind.

It was sort of obviously you got to pay rent and so on, but yeah, there wasn't, I never signed anything because it doesn't really matter.

I mean, it doesn't really matter. So why is it that we need this marriage contract and why does it require monogamy and resource provision?

Well, because marriage is for the production and protection of children.

That's the whole thing. Now, of course, you know, if you happen to be childless, you have fertility issues, you just don't want kids.

Of course, you don't get married and so on, but that's not what it's for fundamentally. It's not why the institution exists.

Like when I was younger, I, I biked on the roads. Right? I biked everyone on the roads.

But the roads weren't built for me. Right? The roads were built for cars and trucks and lorries.

As they would say in England, like that old tongue twister, red lorry yellow, red lorry yellow,

lorry yellow, or whatever we used to do as kids. So the roads were built for something else, but I was welcome to use them.

Well, not always welcome, but you know what I mean, right? So marriage is for the children.

Now, if marriage is for the children, then the most fundamental thing to understand is that the marriage contract

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