why get married?

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why not just live together and have kids if you want to without actually getting married. if you decide to separate, it would be easier without all the legal procedures.

Yep. I can't wait for the marriage licences with expiration dates, with option to renew.

Actually, separating even without marriage would be a pain for kids, imo. The whole idea is that it's a contract where 2 people agree to behave a certain way and people are expected to fill certain roles.

Used to be that marriage was more of a social business, but now it's looked at like a burden. Same goes with employment - it used to be a career for life, but now many people hop around every 3 years to someplace new. Comes from a disposeable cultural upbringing I think. If you don't like it, change the channel, sort of attitude. ADD lifestyle?

To prove that you love someone enough to take those vows, and that you intend to spend the rest of your life with them. It's commitment.

If there's no marriage in a relationship, then there's one less bond to hold a relationship together. If you're just dating someone, then it's easy to pull away from them, but if you're married then there's more of a reason to try and make things work (although that also more or less applies to having kids as well, in a slightly different way). Admittedly your relationship can't be too good if you're using marriage to hold it together, but it will improve if you manage to get over that.

Also, tax breaks. XD

Over the wknd. I heard interesting presentation on book by Nancy Polikoff called "Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing all Families Under the Law". She discusses how there are other tools to take care of what we assume comes with marriage, but that marriage is convenient "one-stop" mechanism by which we make one decision for a multitude of default choices. Book isn't against marriage, just an examination of the functions it fulfills, and how legislature enshrines the union of two "opposite-sex" people in way that excludes other relationships, which might take priority depending on circumstance.

For instance, if one's companion is terminally ill or in accident, which person in one's life does one want making those "end-of-life' choices on one's behalf ? Who does one want to leave one's estate, or children, in the care of ? One's parents, one's ex-spouse, one's current partner ? The law says one thing, presuming certain levels of relationship take precedence-but the lives of real individual people often would dictate something more nuanced & complex (in terms of one's right to decide, one's last wishes).

For those who do consider marriage a spiritual, romantic, or otherwise special status, no doubt they could provide many reasons why marriage is important to them. I just mentioned presence of legalistic purposes for the institution because those are what matter to me (since I don't have kids, have no assets nor debts, and have been married & divorced already).

for me the question goes a lot further... "why choose one person to promise to be with for the rest of your life?" Having been married & divorced, I don't see much point in it anymore. I LOVE living alone, not having to consult anyone on plans or projects... sure there's a workload, and there's a child involved, but the benefits to NOT being married far outweigh the downsides to being married. But maybe that's just me... and maybe I haven't met the right person yet.

When I got married I wasn't much thinking about the "staying together the rest of our lives!" part of it. We knew we wanted to be together but when you're young you have no idea how long life really is and what's up ahead. Now it seems kind of funny to be making that kind of decision even in your mid 20's. And legal & church marriage seems like a way to hedge your bet. If it's not going to work out, the church/law contract is not going to help.

I'm glad I got married... I WANTED to be married and at the time it was the right thing to do. But I'm glad I'm not stuck in that one relationship, in that one family structure and with that one person the rest of my life!

(I feel differently about my kid, of course... I'm happy that we will be part of each others' lives as long as we both shall live. But that's a different kind of relationship.)

I see no problem with marriage . particularly if you are going to raise children and have a family. If you are going to have children you should be committed to those children to raise them in a proper family and to make the relationship work come hell or high water if n to for your own sake but for the sake of your family and for your children.

Marriage has no context at all outside of keeping a family together
if you are not interested in a family or could care less about raising your kids then Marriage is pointless.

The whole concept of family is being eroded in these post modern times
and it hurts a lot of people. but nobody cares because even the concept of self sacrifice has been eroded and even the concept of real love that makes self sacrifice possible people want out of anything that takes real work and dedication and want the quickest way to self gratification at the expense of everything else.

I want to get married but I have a big problem because if I ever mention the M word or that I'm interested in finding a wife and not just a few sexual encounters. its like I said the most offensive thing in the world and I will never ever hear from them again.

I feel that if I have kids out of wedlock or even have sex out of wedlock, I will go to hell, and my family won't want anything to do with me.

So I am definitely pro-marriage.

I don't think it's the institution that's the problem. As I said earlier, instant gratification is the predominating cultural attribute in most of the developed world today. This is causing people to get married earlier in a relationship than they normally would have been. People who get married before they truly know that they want to spend the rest of their lives together (as the vow says) probably shouldn't be getting married in the first place.

Getting married involves two independent processes: a ceremony and a legal contract. A couple can choose to do both, either one, or neither. When I think about marriage, I consider the two components separately.

1. Ceremony - supposed to be fun and romantic, but is likely to be stressful and expensive; may be important to family members, may mean more to them than to you

2. Legal Contract - can be advantageous or disadvantageous financially, only available to couples consisting of one male and one female

There are all kinds of effects of being married that probably vary from person to person. The legal component of marriage makes it logistically harder to break up, but maybe this causes some couples to take each other for granted.

Culturally, the concept of marriage has changed. Cohabitation without marriage is widely accepted. There's less social pressure to get married than there used to be. So I would not do it unless my partner and I were very certain that it was a good decision.

Plus if two people don't get married, and they have kids, but later split up, they could have legal problems up the wazoo.

If you split up after kids, regardless of whether you're married or not, you're in legal/financial and emotional trouble.

Marriage is about commitment - formally agreeing to give it your best shot. Religion has very little to do with it.

The law is there to protect everything else.

My advice to most people; If your partner isn't willing to make a commitment to you, then they're probably not ready to raise a family.