What's the point of getting married?

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She's not religious.

Atheist means not religious.

She's not having a party.

She can be in love with him and live with him.

She doesn't live in a country which is backwards in terms of medical stuff. We have an NHS.

I don't get it.

I don't get why she doesn't wait til 2022 and invite everyone like before. Then she'd have a nice party & wedding.

I would like to be married, but I don’t like the idea of it being a prerequisite for sex.

Note to self: Never date a conservative.

LEGAL marriage is entirely a convenience. That’s all it is. You don’t really get married out of love or wanting children or lifelong companionship. Those are good reasons to get married, but those aren’t the main focus of being married.

If, say, someone ends up in the hospital. Having a marriage partner means you have someone who can step in and make sure your wishes regarding treatment, life-saving procedures, and even end-of-life concerns are respected.

If you become disabled long-term, you don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen to you because you have someone who can deal with that.

Or suppose you split up. If you have children, you can easily hire lawyers who will negotiate for you how to allocate property held in common, visitation/primary custody, child support, etc., both of you have to agree on terms, and a judge has to sign off on it. If your spouse poses a threat to you, you can get a temporary restraining order. Then it’s DONE and you can try to live normal lives again. Marriage laws offer that level of protection, whereas shacking up does not. If you shack up and your partner cheats on you, which she is free to do any time, there are no consequences. She can walk right out of your apartment with your TV that you paid for, simply claim it’s hers, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you’re married and you think she’s cheating, you can hire a private investigator to follow her, collect evidence, and take her to the cleaners. If SHE paid for the TV, oh well...shoulda thought about that before you CHEATED!! !

Marriage basically functions as a way to say you are going to take responsibility of everything in life together, both the good and the bad, and legally binds you to it. If something goes wrong, it gives you an escape route.

Start a romantic relationship because you love someone. Don’t get married for love. Love just gets you to the altar or the JP. Everything else is just business. I married my best friend, so things like love, etc. are not things that we really have to worry about. It’s understood and obvious we love each other, so that’s a given. Our actual legal marriage is about a lot of other things and is helpful when it comes to children, school, real estate ownership, what happens when one or both of us is out of a job or even homeless, not having to worry about who pays when we want a new gaming console, etc. You can do the same thing without a legal marriage, but, again, that also leaves you vulnerable.

We are both former paralegals, btw, who spent more time than we like to admit ending people’s marriages and ruining men’s lives. We used to run scenarios about what would happen if WE decided to divorce, none of which ended well. Men, myself included, don’t tend to want to end relationships, especially not marriages. The problem is they seldom understand their rights and typically don’t fight for them, so we usually lay down and play dead. We both are aware of some of the intimidation tactics lawyers use to force a guy’s hand, and we both know better than to do something stupid (like dating) during divorce proceedings. But more recently lawyers and judges tend to favor parties who want to reconcile. That means you can fight a divorce, bury your partner in paperwork all the way to the bitter end, and make life a living hell for them if you don’t get what you want.

Try that after just shacking up with someone and you’re liable to go to prison. If you love her more than life, as stupid as that is, you can’t fight to get her back, nor can you demand restitution if she does something ugly. Marriage allows you to do that and gives you some options if things were to go sour.

Angelrho is sweeter than he's making out here. I think he's just putting on some practical pants for the sake of the theme of this thread.

I think the OP wants to know what logical reasons there are for marriage.

I'm not married, so I can't really contribute.

Also Jesus was God.

If someone had a virus when Jesus was there, he could have cured it. Heck, he rose the dead.

Someone gets corona? A regular person can't do anything about that.

That's why we ought to obey the law. The law doesn't want more than 30 people at a wedding. It's wise for those of us who aren't God to listen to that, rather than relying upon our own ability to perform a miracle.

Who was saying it wasn't ok? What people were doing was joking about how they didn't want wedding ceremonies and sending others in their place. It sounded like a response to those comments.

Back to the topic - why I got married:
It's a clear, unambigous message to the family, state, church and anyone potentially interested, about the nature of the relationship and its importance.
After getting married, it's clear e.g. to my parents that they are no longer my no.1 part of the family.
Saying "I have a boyfriend" to anyone you meet is ridiculous but wearing a wedding ring is perfectly socially acceptable.

So, to me, getting married has an important dimension of message to the society.

Can I have some wine?