THE POLYGAMY QUESTION: South African report

In South Africa, pension benefits have now been opened to life partners, straight or gay, and the old-limit of only one "life-partner" per person has also been removed.

Story here, excerpts below. This is one way that (to revert to last week's question) gay marriage leads to the deconstruction of marriage. There aren't that many gay people. So politically, in order to widen the returns, the tendency is to increase the number of non-married people who get new entitlement to benefits.

"Radical changes to the public servants' pension fund, which will bring relief to government employees affected by the HIV/Aids pandemic in future, were published in the government gazette this week. . . .One of the most important amendments is the change to the definition of a spouse. In the past, spouse referred to a legally married man or woman.

The amendment now includes a "life partner" (also same sex partners) and more than one partner in common law marriages. Louwrens said an employee would now be able to register more than one life partner with the fund who will be able to lay a claim to the pension when the employee dies."

posted by maggie at 5:38 PM VOTE

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