Should society have the right to determine what a healthy relationship is?

It seems to me that society at large, through both the power of law and the power of social pressure to conform, has given itself permission to define what a healthy relationship is. No plural marriages and no same-sex marriages. But in addition to that, even if those kinds of relationships happen in private, people have to hide them. Otherwise, they will get a lot of disapproval from people that have no business getting involved.

Or do they? Child protection seems to be an important area where society sets a standard of care and… well…. should we question their standard? Yes, we want to protect kids, but it seems like in our zeal, we get the wrong people too often.

Here are just a couple of examples: In order to adopt you have to fit a certain model of relationship. The notion of statutory rape. Just because someone is under 16 or whatever it is, it’s statutory rape, no matter how voluntary. Thus, we say that people under age 16 or 18 or whatever it is are not really people, in the sense that they don’t officially have the power to control their lives.

We are supposedly protecting these various classes of people. And when young people on fluther ask if their relationship is ok or love or whatever, we will often say they are too young to do this or that.

So what’s going on? How do we, as a society, come up with these standards? Do we have it right? Is it beneficial for society to even set standards at all?