Marriage Fraud

INTRODUCTION

In the last two decades, marriage has emerged as an enormously important topic of legal scholarship, not just in the area of traditional family law, but also in constitutional, tax, immigration, social security, welfares and criminal law. The marriage equality movement and its attendant legal questions of whether same-sex couples can be integrated successfully into marriage as we know it animates much of this scholarly interest. The scholarship on marriage has been remarkably polarizing in its definitions of and assessments of marriage as an institution. Much of the scholarship either advocates for the abolition of marriage altogether or for the replacement of marriage with domestic partnerships or civil unions for all. On the other side of the debate are conservatives who wish to retain marriage but limit it to heterosexual couples and expansionists who also want to retain marriage but open it up to gays and lesbians.' The most common compromise position suggests retaining marriage but also making a registry or domestic