And yet Dagney paired with Reardon by choice despite marriage. I'd think voluntary partnerships would be more consistent to objectivism between two people (value=value) where will would determine the couple more so than a momentary contract designed to assure surety based on emotion. Further, the couple could then dissolve the pairing simply because one or both no longer saw value in the other and decided to move on.

To me that sounds much more aligned with objectivism than a voluntary enslavement enforced by law for 5, 10, 20+ years.

Marriage is "voluntary partnership", not "voluntary enslavement enforced by law", whatever that is supposed to mean.

No.

Thanks for the interesting question.

If you don't have any wealth and cannot provide goods or services to trade, how do you provide for yourself and happens to your status anywhere? It is just a fundamental fact of life that if you want people to do stuff for you, you have to do stuff for them, assuming you don't steal.

If the spouse really is a homemaker, doing work making the home run well, helping the other partner get to work, recover from sickness, deal with life's stress's and sorrows, the partners could (and should IMHO) make a deal to share all the wealth they produce 50/50. The partners are free to work out some other deal, perhaps based on the approximate going rate of everything they provide one another, but that strikes me as meretricious.

The fact they were married distracts from the main issue of what happens to people unable to provide goods/service to other but want others to provide them goods/services. That's never a good situation.

That is an optimistic view and one I would prefer to share, but is it realistic?

Such was my point. For example, the husband is a plumber, but his wife has always been a homemaker. If they divorced, the husband would retain his job, but his wife would now need to support herself, as there is no unearned income in the Gulch.

Unless the ex-wife is able to obtain independent employment (or get re-attached)...what happens to her status in the Gulch?

In Atlas Shrugged, Ragnar Danneskjold and Kaye Ludlow were married by Judge Narragansett. The situation of married strikers coming with their spouses was also mentioned in the book.

I have to assume that marriage "contracts" would exist, in the Gulch, and, possibly, divorce.

Odd question..I could be wrong, but isn't 'marriage' more of a religious construct? If this institution derives from mysticism isn't it against objectivist philosophy? Divorce would be moot, no?

"he or she had no other marketable talents?"
Other than what? I'm asking genuinely, not snidely, because people with no marketable talents will struggle in almost any situation.

My reading said that both spouses had to take the oath, so the philosophy part worked. If there were a divorce I don't believe either would have to leave. There is always a marketable skill.

Remember John's boss at 20th Century Motors never told his wife about the gulch because she wouldn't have got it.

Yes

Is that better?

I noted that bringing a spouse into the Gulch, by a striker, was acceptable, because of the mutual benefit in such a relationship.

My question is, what would happen to the spouse if the couple were to divorce and he or she had no other marketable talents?

Many years ago, I was stationed on the island of Okinawa. At one point, another Marine "discarded" his wife who was 6000 miles from home (this loser ended up in the brig). I'm sure the Marine Corps sent this young lady home (at her ex's expense), but how would this be handled in the Gulch?

Obviously, you couldn't simply send the spouse away...they would know too much about the Gulch. You could send them both away, but the striker may have a critical job within the Gulch.

I was hesitant to ask such a question, but something like a Galt's Gulch would, inevitably run into such a situation. I just thought I would see how a true Objectivist would handle it.

Please restate your question.