Talk:Timeline of civil marriage in the United States

Untitled
does anybody know any good sites for info on marriage from 1850-1900

May 2007
I added the POV tag because I think there is a bit of NPOV here, basically in what this listing does NOT cover. There is a big gap of 20 years from 1976 to 1996, where there was much action on same-sex marriage, like the Hawaii Supreme Court decision, that are left out of this listing entirely.

Also, the last entry seems quite POV in the way it's worded, and citing an obvious conservative source. The numbers may be accurate, but crediting a source that is a major participant in this issue detracts from Wiki credibility. Why credit any group? "1900 - All states now grant married women the right to own property..." does not cite anyone. T-bonham 11:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

2006
"2006 - According to the Heritage Foundation, 24 states have protected traditional one man, one woman marriage within both their statutes and constitutions. There are 44 States that have either a statutory or constitutional definition of traditional marriage.[1]"

I've removed this line for three reasons. First of all, it's POV (specifically, the part about "protecting traditional marriage" is); but what's a bigger problem is that it's also unclear to me what this is actually supposed to mean - I originally wanted to reword this in a more neutral manner, but then I realised that I have no idea what those states (supposedly) really did. And third, we should at the very least be careful when using biased organisations like the Heritage Foundation as sources, and if possible, avoid them altogether and instead rely on neutral, reliable sources instead. -- Schneelocke 07:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I see no current POV problems. If nobody objects, I will remove the template. DGG (talk) 18:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Polygamy
I'm curious. Why are there half a dozen links in 'Other' to pages about same-sex marriage, but no links to pages about polygamy? Or women's right to own property? I think I'll add some.Carl.antuar (talk) 10:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm concerned about all the claims that DOMA the various recent state laws outlaw polygamy. Is there a source on that? Because the laws generally limit what is considered a marriage, but not how many marriages one may be in (which is not to say that such things aren't covered by other laws.) - Nat Gertler (talk) 16:25, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Accuracy
In addition to failing to cite primary sources, the article confuses the role of the federal and state governments in the United States. For example, the Defense of Marriage Act did not outlaw same sex marriage; it merely provides that a state is not required to recognize one contracted elsewhere. There are several other instances of inaccuracy or incompleteness in the article.John Paul Parks (talk) 16:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, DOMA does outlaw federal recognition of same-sex marriage. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Rename
Perhaps this would be better titled "timeline of United States marriage law". —Mrwojo (talk) 01:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Renamed to "timeline of civil marriage in the United States" and removed list-vs.-prose related cleanup tags. —Mrwojo (talk) 00:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)