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Comment by jitl | Hacker News Reader

My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married.

Marriage is a complex and binding contract that for two high earners is a tax disadvantage. The most prominent benefits I’ve learned are some situations around visitation rights, and avoiding being compelled to testify against your spouse. It comes from a very dubious history of the husband essentially owning the wife. The “commitment” of the legal marriage obviously doesn’t prevent people from falling out of love or breaking up, not that it should – if one partner stops loving another they will still leave the relationship one way or another. So, why marry — besides “tradition” and “society wants you to for whatever reason”?

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"My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married."

Depending on your location you might already be married in a common law marriage.

> Depending on your location you might already be married in a common law marriage.

Generally, where common law or informal marriage is recognized at all, it requires both shared intent to marry and publicly presenting as married. I know I’ve seen fiction where it requires little more than cohabitation, but that’s not a real thing.

In Canada all you need to do is live together in a "conjugal relationship" for 12 continuous months.

Or have a child together. But common-law relationships and marriages are not the same thing in Canada, whereas other places where common-law marriages are recognized, they are legally identical to other marriages.

That's a bit misleading. The specifics vary by province. eg. Common Law kicks in after 3 years living together (in a marriage-like relationship) in Ontario, and after 2 years in BC.

Revenue Canada has their own definition of common law, for tax purposes only (not litigation), which is independant of that and is 12 months.

"I know I’ve seen fiction where it requires little more than cohabitation, but that’s not a real thing."

New Hampshire: Common Law Marriage: "persons cohabiting and acknowledging each other as husband and wife, and generally reputed to be such, for the period of 3 years, and until the decease of one of them, shall thereafter be deemed to have been legally married." (N.H. Stat. §457:39)

So not really a fiction. There aren't many requirements there.

The old law in PA did not even require habitation or a contract. All that would be required aside from regular eligibility stuff would be presenting themselves in public as husband and wife plus exchanging words of intent at one time to be married (verbal contract). That law was active until as recently as 2005.

Your own NH quote, emphasis added: “people cohabitating and acknowledging each other as husband and wife…” It’s not something that happens by accident just by cohabitation, even under that rule.

Your recent PA law is in accord with my point that the rules usually require mutual intent to marry plus public presentation.

"I know I’ve seen fiction where it requires little more than cohabitation"

Emphasis mine. Merely stating you're husband and wife is "little more" in my book. It's pretty easy for people to think you're married, especially if you tell people you're husband and wife to make the conversation easier.

Yes, if you read that one sentence out of context of the immediately preceding one, and the post that the post it is in is responding to, I can understand your response.

Can’t really understand doubling down on claiming it is relevant after having the relevant issue pointed out again, but, you know, you do you.

Whatever. If you actually cared to think and reread, you would see there is more content and context than what you are selectively seeing. That one could in fact be common law married by accident given the NH law if they merely lived together and said they were husband and wife to make conversations easier, as others have admitted to saying in the comments. That's were you have a contradiction/inaccuracy in your comment. NH does not require any proof of shared intent, and with one party deceased they can pretty much rely on how things appeared to the general public, including if you just told people you were husband an wife to make things easier. But yeah, by your own words - you do you.

That essentially just says "if you got married and told everyone you were but never filed the paperwork, it counts." It doesn't seem like, if it came to it, you told a court or government that you weren't married that they'd go "but you are."

It depends on what the charge is. In most cases the government wouldn't care, or they would favor them not being married for tax issues or to void legal protections. They certainly could try to prove you are married, but they would need some reason to want to. It's more likely one spouse would want to prove they it during a divorce.

In NZ cohabitation for 3 or more years usually puts you into a de facto relationship which has basically the same legal status as a civil union or marriage.

Married people report significantly higher levels of happiness/life satisfaction in the middle and later stages of life than non married people. This is a durable finding across many studies.

Married people vs singles or vs long terms partners living together?

Is it the marriage contract that brings the happiness? Or is it a lifelong relationship with someone they love? Do such studies have a reporting group for “we’ve been together 40 years but didn’t get married”?

I would definitely like to see those studies broken down by how happy the marriages are. Somehow I doubt it's accurate for married couples who are constantly at each others' throats.

Doesn't mean marriage affects your happiness.

Compared to people in cohabitating couples? Are singles included?

It could also be that people who are generally happier tend to be those to get/stay married.

I also wonder if there is some sunk cost psychology involved when surveying those later in life.

Yea, I'd assume the chronically unhappy/depressed are probably less likely to find a long-term partner than average.

It would potentially be also interesting to control for sexual activity? Presumably most married couples were sexually active together at some point, which I'd assume generally increases happiness.

Wouldn't that be selection bias?

Presumably Married people at that stage are there because they work together not because there's just someone else there.

I think a significant chunk of people will say and believe that they're happy because they checked some of the life-milestone boxes that are supposed to make them happy.

How many people are going to choose to have a mid/late-life crisis because a survey made them wonder if they were truly happy with their huge, life-changing and nearly irreversible decision to be married?

Survivorship bias?

Somewhat, there are studies that control for "never married" vs "divorced", and other studies that lump them together.

In the cases of "never married", their happiness level approached that of married people in the last 10-15 years. Whereas divorced people were absolutely miserable, especially in the first few years following the separation.

This suggests that it's the divorcees who bring down the average happiness level of the "single" group, not that "marriage" brings up the happiness levels.

Wet roads have also been found to have a much higher chance of being somewhere rain has recently occurred than dry roads.

But the wet roads didn't cause the rain.

I wonder how much of that is tied to wealth. A wedding is (ridiculously) expensive.

Right, but those benefits come from being in stable, committed partnership with an awesome person. What the poster above is saying is that one can also have essentially all the benefits of a strong partnership (the ones that really matter, anyway), sans marriage.

As for benefits that don't matter so much I count things like societal approval, "doing what my parents always wanted", etc. Which matter for some, but certainly not for all.

One benefit I feel towards being married: those visitation rights. I’ve seen others refused entrance alongside their partners in the hospital, and it’s a heartbreak I’ve never had to experience myself.

I also appreciate how I have a partner against this world, legally and emotionally.

Where I live, you can file a “declaration of domestic partnership” online to receive those rights: https://www.miamidade.gov/global/license.page?Mduid_license=...

Worth doing then. It’s the rights that matter, not necessarily the titles imo.

Bought a house together and are high earners? I thought marriage was the best way to buy a house with someone, because of all the default legal considerations.

For example, if you die, in marriage the house easily passes to your partner. Otherwise, it may go to next-of-kin.

Also divorce offers a structured way to manage ownership after a break-up.

I am not particularly fond of our marriage system, but LGBTQ fought for marriage rights for a reason.

The house purchase documents reflect an equal ownership share between the buyers - same as any other joint ownership situation that happens. We’re both on the deed, etc.

We both have wills, which deals with with the probate issue of our ownership shares. You should have a will, even if you’re married! Probate can be expensive for your successors and family, and the process without a will is much more involved with the state. I also recommend establishing a revocable trust for these reasons.

I think the idea of a legal structured process for other belongings in event of a break-up sounds appealing in some regards, but reviews from friends who have been through the process rate it at “0 out of 10 this SUCKS” and “now I owe alimony for the rest of my life-ish because my ex decided to quit their job and become a grad student before we split”. In any event if we break up acrimoniously, we can still hire lawyers…

Tradition is a good enough reason for me.

"But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask 'Why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous?' Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition!"

I saw a production of Fiddler maybe 15 years ago, but from what I remember its message was something like “don’t let tradition stand in the way of love”. My family has found plenty of ways to honor tradition while reshaping those traditions to also honor our values and views; our Seder Haggadah is full of taped-in pages like modern plagues and Miriam’s Cup, and crossed-out or edited sections like “the wicked child”. But a legal contract/institution is a bit more involved to edit and update…

Hmm - TIL that Power of Attorney is not automatic for spouses (although I imagine it is set up practically by default for most people who get married, and the laws differ by state). (https://www.google.com/amp/s/estatelawatlanta.com/do-spouses...)

Seems like something folks would care about? It's adjacent to the "When I die, who gets my stuff?" part of the marriage contract which I remain convinced is the real reason governments need to be involved with marriage contracts. I also know a lot of folks who would rather their S.O. make medical decisions for them if they're debilitated than, say a sibling (especially if they're estranged).

But yeah, this doesn't explicitly prevent you from assigning power of attorney to an unmarried partner, of course.

Both of those goals can be accomplished without marriage; a will can be free although I consulted with a probate attorney and established a revocable trust, and a probate attorney can also help with the medical decisions paperwork.

> Marriage is a complex and binding contract that for two high earners is a tax disadvantage.

You can file separately.

You cannot file as single while married.

You can file as 'Married, filing separately', at least in the US. We considered it last year, but jointly ended up saving us a bit of money in our situation (I was surprised, I assumed based on something in our circumstance I don't remember offhand that it would be the other way around).

You will pay more tax than file as single.

In the U.S. tax code there are both marriage rewards and marriage penalties. Community property law (about 1/3 of U.S. population by state) further muddies the water.

"Two high earners" is not a meaningful description. Two people each earning $500K is far different than one earning $300K and one earning $700K.

Sure; but we file separately while unmarried as well. I noted that because it’s often listed as one of the objective benefits of marriage.

Are you not defacto by law anyway?

I don’t think so, but haven’t consulted with a lawyer about it. My googling about “common law marriage” and “domestic partnership” didn’t turn up much that supports that claim in the US. Only a few states have “common law marriage” and California, New York, and Florida aren’t among them.

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