A question I have is...why marriage at all?
Is there a reason I need the government to recognize the union between my and my SO?
But, getting married (after 7yrs with SO) had 2 powerful effects:
1. The power of social contract as a signal to family, friends, society etc is huge. It's also really nice to celebrate with loved ones. There's not enough ceremony in our lives as it is...
2. The power of agreement with SO had an immensely positive impact on our relationship. Words have power, agreements have even more so. Just choose carefully and intentionally the agreement that you're entering with your partner.
I can't say it has affected our everyday life in any way but it is an experience that you end up sharing forever and becomes a part of your relationship.
That said I'm lucky that we both wanted a small ceremony. I may not have fared as well if we were dropping tens of thousands of dollars and spending months planning a wedding. That'd be a whole different animal.
Which is not necessarily good. If your marriage fails, it's 'regretting forever'.
I'm not saying you have to get married to make a relationship feel serious and long-term-ish, but it certainly enforces that feeling.
In many cases, you can actually save more money by filing separately, and instead of getting legally married, just become "domestic partners". Health insurance treats domestic partners just like spouses (so you can still add each other to the primary person's insurance if you want).
Many of the other "benefits" of marriage can be solved by intentionally creating a living will where you state how you want medical issues to be handled, and where you have named the other person as your benefactor if you die. You can even list your domestic partner as the benefactor on your life insurance policy.
As for kids, you don't lose your parental rights just because you aren't married. It's still your kid, and you still owe child support regardless. There are plenty of people who are divorced and have kids. Being in a domestic partnership with kids works just fine.
Honestly, I don't even know why anyone gets married these days. The laws regarding marriage in many states are so antiquated and nonsensical. A lot of the laws and protections in marriage are designed around the antiquated idea of stay-at-home moms who can't work or provide for themselves. That's not the modern world we live in anymore.
My significant other and I have been in a relationship for over 5 years now, and we have a 3 year old kid. We keep almost all of our finances completely separate (with the exception of a shared savings account just for household and childcare expenses). She makes her money, and I make mine. We track all of our shared household and childcare expenses using Splitwise, and we file our taxes separately. When we do our taxes, we figure out who gets the bigger refund that year (when filing for head of household and adding the childcare expenses), and then we split the refund difference.
Everything is totally fair, and everyone pulls their own weight in the relationship. We split all of the household duties, and we split things like childcare duties, too. For example, she watches the kiddo all day on Saturday (giving me a day off), and I watch him all day on Sunday (giving her a day off). We also play World of Warcraft together in the evenings after the kiddo has gone to bed. Life is great!
I went to a wedding recently and it made me think about my marriage and the thought that occurred to me was how insanely dependent I've become to my wife. It's like I've cut off a leg, given it to someone and said "Yeah, you use that and just give me a hand whenever I need to hop around."
Honestly that's not the weird part for me though. The weird part is that this woman I depend on so much surprises me so much. I've known her for 20 years. Almost every night I got to sleep knowing I can just reach over and she'll be there. And still she'll say something and I'll think - How can she believe that? Or she'll do something and I'll wish I was that kind. Or be happy I'm not so stubborn. :-)
I'm in Europe, so most of my friends with children aren't actually married. They know what you wrote above. Most of them still get married at some point, because it's an effective way to reinforce the internalized relationship status by externalizing it, which is in general is valuable to long-term couples.
I have two kids. The idea of raising them by myself seems nearly impossible. Maybe it's doable if you're already independently wealthy or can heavily rely on nearby family or both. Still doesn't sound as healthy as having two dedicated parents.
I'm not sure the divorce rate agrees that this constitutes a promise.
> Makes it a little harder for one partner to just leave.
I think that is more than enough to support the claim of: 'a little harder to leave'.
One could also establish an LLC for the purpose, or not merge assets, of course.
First, children who grow up in an intact, two-parent family with both biological parents present do better on a wide range of outcomes than children who grow up in a single-parent family. Single parenthood is not the only, nor even the most important, cause of the higher rates of school dropout, teenage pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, or other negative outcomes we see; but it does contribute independently to these problems. Neither does single parenthood guarantee that children will not succeed; many, if not most, children who grow up in a single-parent household do succeed.
That, coupled to the fact that marriage improves stability. You have less incentives to overcome disagreements and other issues if not bound by law.
Put it another way, there’s a reason marriage has existed and was pervasive on every continent every human was on, even prior to the Columbian exchange. You can go against the grain and say the government has no place qualifying your relationship, but it does have some say in that and for some good reasons.
I am aware of one reason to get married. US Immigration does not recognize common law spouses as spouses for visa purposes. You want to travel to the US because your partner has gotten a job at Google? You must be married to have the relationship recognized.
Many people now just do the civil ceremony and skip the religious ceremony. It was interesting to see all the couples outside the government office waiting to get married on whatever day marriages were performed.