Living with an Unmarried Partner Now Common for Young Adults
census.gov
census.gov
The concept isn't hard to get your head around. Businesses draw up similar contracts all the time. You're just expressing a formal mutual accountability. It enables one partner to "safely" make sacrifices (or exploit time preference).
If you don't want to be accountable to each other in a formal way, by all means, keep your relationship informal.
Marriage has privledges it grants that you may find necessary when you least expect. Medical responsibility is one of them. You don't have a say in their medical treatment if they are unconscious or otherwise unable to make judgements.
I understand not wanting the religious part, and I understand reviewing the cons of marriage and rejecting it, but making it about the 'government knowing' is the least of the problem really.
In the case of divorce that actually becomes very important. You now have a judge from the government who is making life decisions for you and your family. Source: grew up in a divorced household.
This is one of those things many people I've spoken with never considered or knew about (why would you!) until it was too late and -- had they been "married" for 2/3/5 years or some threshold, everything would've been a cakewalk.
Canadian immigration gave us hell because we could only prove the relationship existed for 11 months and 3 weeks (gotta be able to prove 1 year).
In the end we were saved by online pizza receipts and amazon orders that proved we were living in the same place at the same time for a while. Delayed the application for months though. Should have just put a ring on it earlier, even if a pro-forma sign-at-the-courthouse thing.
I would like to gingerly suggest that this is a subject for which you might not want to sole-source your advice from software developers. We are an odd lot.
In essence, the average man living with a female partner would get a "nuisance" investigated, diagnosed with cancer, and (sometimes) treated; while the average single man sought treatment only when the condition was truly disturbing, and by that time it's too late to treat the cancer.
Some of that is just timing, like if the average age of death per the actuary tables is like 79, and your spouse dies at 80, you're statistically going fairly soon as well.
(old joke)
If I knew what I knew now, from my own relationship after being married for 20 years, and observation of friends, I would not have got married. People can drift apart. Situations change. Health problems get between you. What can remain is obligation and legal difficulty for a lot of people and nothing more. And in some countries, such as the UK where I live, this is a massive problem because the law is predatory and unfair towards one or both parties. This is an inescapable risk as well.
I am extremely lucky with the respect that we are extremely good friends, but we go our own ways now and cross paths to look after our children together and share our advantage of working together to go forwards in life.
We are still bound by law however which makes it difficult to be independent once tied if you need to be and is also a situation which is expensive and difficult to change.
And the only reason we got married was it was seen as the done thing and a lot of peer pressure from the last generation. I've learned to think about things as calculated risks and not take advice from my parents now.
When I got divorced 20 years ago some of my friends thought it was unfair that my ex took $20k (of $40k) out of savings, packed her stuff and left. When I tell that to men my age they're like HFS!!! fist bump
Another fiend got divorces, wife got full custody, child support and alimony. The take was so much he and his two kids had to move back into his mom's two bedroom house.
Friend of mines after she married her husband quit his job and started playing video games full time. Spoonged off her for ten years till she divorce him. And so now he's legally sponging off her using his partial custody as a lever.
Currently I have a GF who's been unemployed for a year. Sort of typical in her industry. If we were married we'd be hosed because health insurance would cost me another $800/month.
That aside, problem with the law is the law can't cover the myriad of ways people can get screwed over in relationships. My take is don't get married it either allows the other person to screw you or gives others the ability to screw you.
We have both decided to not discuss marriage until we're 26. We both know that people change and we want to make sure we both have our independence and our early 20s.
For example, age 18-24: drop of 22.6% married or with partner
* 1968 = 39.2% married + 0.1% with partner = 39.3%
* 2018 = 7.3% married + 9.4% with partner = 16.7%
Age 25-34: drop of 26.6% married or with partner
* 1968 = 81.5% married + 0.2% with partner = 81.7%
* 2018 = 40.3% married + 14.8% with partner = 55.1%
I think we should have a few different types of marriage and then see what people choose.
For example one marriage option could be the man gets automatic full custody of the kids in the event of a divorce.
We could have another free and easy option like you are suggesting.
Etc.
Then we let the market sort it out.
On the other hand, at least in the US, there are huge numbers of people who fought for decades just to have the right to enter into the arrangement we're pretending needs to be fundamentally re-thought.
Past generations of my family were prohibited from marriage because of race. It took a lot of rethinking of what marriage was for them to be granted those rights, ditto for LGBT people who just got those rights a few years ago in the US. There's still no reason why the current definition of marriage is the right definition.
From a formal perspective, considering marriage as a (very old) legal and economic arrangement, and stripping it down to its essence (without any of the bullshit about it being a means to bring children into the world or express Judeo-Christian values), marriage is about durable interdependency. You agree to combine assets and opportunities, in order to maximize those opportunities jointly and to bear the costs of misfortune together.
Define marriage as an "at-will" arrangement dispenses with durability. A person in a transient marriage can't reasonably put their spouse through medical school, or help them start a company --- or, for that matter, raise children --- without an onerous set of additional contractual arrangements that would asymptotically approach what marriage already is.
Again: it's totally reasonable to want a long-term at-will relationship, and to seek one out. You don't have to get married.
But they used to so what has changed? And could it be changed back?
Edit: If anything people used to jump into them too quickly.
But, the toothpaste is out of the tube. I don't feel the need to get married because anything a wife can do, I can do with appliances and without breaking a sweat. Anything else can be supplemented by services. House dirty? My robot vacuum picks up a lot of the slack, and if I don't want to do the rest on my own, I can schedule a maid service. If I don't cook my own meals, GrubHub can be my personal chef. Something broken? Need some tough work done? There's apps that will hail handy-people for you. It doesn't end there; there's a plethora of engaging entertainment you can engage with and you don't even have to leave your home. This situation is salient to both men and women.
I think marriage will continue to decline no matter what, but one thing that might make it somewhat more appealing is if western culture could do away with the needless expenses around the tradition and the ceremony. The amount spent on a mere ring is absurd(honestly wtf is going on here), but people want these crazy weddings where 3 parties, the couple, the wife's parents, and the husband's parents have to chip in. The dress has to be expensive, the venue has to be expensive and booked way in advance, the catering is expensive, etc. And I'm supposed to want all of this? Good grief.
If it was not a disappointment that people have modest weddings, perhaps a few more people might get married? Eh, I don't really know about that.
By the way, I'm in no way complaining. There was a time not that long ago when even men who weren't married by a certain age had a stigma against them. In some ways that stigma still exists, but it's largely been defanged as companies today are perfectly willing to hire men who don't have families.
It's more about sharing your life with someone than getting chores done.
one thing that might make it somewhat more appealing is if western culture could do away with the needless expenses around the tradition and the ceremony...If it was not a disappointment that people have modest weddings, perhaps a few more people might get married?
It used to be that only rich people spent $8k-$80k on a wedding. Most of the time in the US, it happened in the living room or in the local church, and the reception was in the backyard. Today's weddings are a fabrication of the wedding industrial complex. They're rich people's affairs sold to the common person as a necessity, much like the diamond engagement ring. Spending the equivalent of today's $300 all told on a wedding used to be the norm. The ceremony and the gathering of friends and community can be wonderful, even magic. I think the money and glitz get in the way.
I've been in some bands that would get hired for weddings, and the most beautiful weddings I've been at were DIY affairs done at home on the cheap, but with sincere feelings and meaning. My own wedding was pulled off on the low end of the price scale. We hired a waterside Chinese restaurant, got good fuss-free catering, and got the day-of coordinator and linens for free. I hired musicians I knew and we went and got orchids from a nursery and bought our own drinks from Costco.
The most beautiful wedding I've been to was a quaker wedding held in the back yard, completely DIY. Barely nothing more than a circle of chairs and home made decorations.
I agree, but it's also about those things as well and has been since time immemorial. When those things go away, is it surprising when people settle for relationships over the complexities of marriage?
> I've been in some bands that would get hired for weddings, and the most beautiful weddings I've been at were DIY affairs done at home on the cheap, but with sincere feelings and meaning. My own wedding was pulled off on the low end of the price scale. We hired a waterside Chinese restaurant, got good fuss-free catering, and got the day-of coordinator and linens for free. I hired musicians I knew and we went and got orchids from a nursery and bought our own drinks from Costco.
That sounds great!
Long term relationships are complicated as it is. Just how much additional complication is caused by marriage?
Your third paragraph partially addresses that, but I disagree: effectively nobody is having weddings beyond their means, or feeling required by society to do so. Plenty of people have modest weddings, you just don't hear about them, because fewer people are invited to a small wedding than a big one, so there are fewer people who have been to a small wedding than a big one.
There are just some really rich people (or averagely-rich people with really rich extended families) who pay to have fancy weddings because they can.
> effectively nobody is having weddings beyond their means, or feeling required by society to do so
Our experiences differ significantly in that area. Even when it's within their means, it takes them a considerable amount of work to get there. For many, the outcome isn't worth the amount of effort.
Society isn't requiring people to get married, but that doesn't mean that people aren't subject to cultural expectations and peer pressure. As a perpetually single person, I am regularly asked by people whether I've "met that special woman yet." A person who gives more shits than I do would likely feel that they really ought to find that other person and "settle down", if you will. Society doesn't need requirements for people to do things in order to conform.
> There are just some really rich people (or averagely-rich people with really rich extended families) who pay to have fancy weddings because they can.
That, I never denied.
The gov't should not be able to be so asinine as to say something like "ability to pay does not affect obligation to pay" -- in other words when a (typically father) gets laid off or makes much less money, they will not lower his support payments to be in line with his new pay. This is how we get working, homeless men living in vans -- some of whom later kill themselves.