Why do people get married?!

This question bothers me a lot. Practically a long term relationship is not different from marriage, right? I mean it shouldn't be. So why in the modern world anyone would bother making it official? Before it made sense because there was virginity, total male domination and women were more like goods, so you had to put a label on what is yours. For a long time I thought it should be a declaration of love. But then when you really love, why marriage? And no, I am not saying I am against it, I want to know your opinions.

Personally, I believe in marriage for the same reason that I wouldn't enter into a business deal with a handshake. Call me old fashioned and/or a horrible person, but I've always felt that if I'm going to put my trust and heart into someone whose mind and intentions I can never know for sure, I am damn well going to make it harder for him to pick up and run if he decides twenty or thirty years down the line that he wants someone younger or prettier or God knows what. Sure people still pick up and run even from long marriages, but at least you've got some protections in place if there's a valid contract. I guess what it comes down to, for me, is that if a man is going to profess to love me and want to spend the rest of his life with me, is it really too much to ask that he file a few silly legal pieces of paper?

Marriage is to make things finally official; a legal contract between two lovers. Everything one does, the other feels. I still believe in it, still would like to get married but I'm in no rush, unless my number gets called I've got plenty of time.

You'd have to go back to what a marriage is, for your answer. I see marriage as having a dual purpose: One is a religious/ spiritual covenant, the other is a legally binding contract for purposes of the state.

Not everyone looks at marriage as a covenant or sacramental, but for those who do, the reasons for marriage have to do with your worldview and what you consider your purpose in life. In my everyday identity as a Catholic, a marriage is a vocation, in the same way as becoming a member of clergy is a vocation. You enter marriage as a way of fulfilling your spiritual purpose.

Otherwise, there are many, MANY areas where the legal institution of marriage is useful:

Tax purposes, both income and estate tax

Holding of real estate

Next of kin for final disposition

Medical consent

Not to mention the whole host of child rearing issues that are much easier dealt with as a married couple.

Hope that answers your question.

I agree completely. It is a deeply religious issue for me as well as personal reasons and I did not want my children to be born out of wedlock.

I feel the same way as you do. Marriage is basically saying, "even if we find ourselves miserable in the future, we are legally bound together". What's the point? If you're happy, you'll stay together anyway. And if you're not happy, then you have the freedom to part.

The only time when I see marriage serving a purpose is when children are involved. In that case, you might want to be bound together, to ensure that you try to work through the miserable times for your children's sake.

I agree completely. It is a deeply religious issue for me as well as personal reasons and I did not want my children to be born out of wedlock.

I agree as well, except the spiritual thing. My fiancé and I aren't religious so for us that doesn't even play into it for us.

For me, a large part was religious. The next sacrament. Pledging a lifetime together in front of God and our families.

We also didn't believe in having a family outside of marriage, meaning we didn't want to raise children if we weren't married.

Plus, all the legal stuff. The 'formal' legal commitment to each other.

For us, it just made sense. It was right. It was something neither of us questioned. When we found the person we wanted to spend the rest of our life with, we knew we would make those pledges to each other, in front of our families and friends, and as part of our faith.

Things did change emotionally for us when we got married. Being together 6 years, living together two years before we got married, but there has been a shift in the level of commitment and emotional connection, and now we move forward in our married life, committed to each other, and looking forward to being in our first home, starting our family and our life together.

The only time I ever buy the religion excuse (lack of a better word) is when both parties involved have not yet had sex before marriage. If they have, they must not have been very religious to begin with and are just fooling themselves. It's very hypocritical to have your cake and eat it too.

Marriage is an outdated institution. The percentage of people getting married today has never been lower in the history of known civilization. Added with the fact that the odds of a relationship ending due to some form of infidelity are 50/50 (no joke, it's been studied) let alone the "natural" struggle of keeping a relationship intact it is just not worth risk. If a woman decides that marriage is more important than spending time with me she is free to leave and I make that very clear in my relationship, especially with my current girlfriend. A lot of her friends express desire to get married and have kids within the next 3-7 years and are just looking the best possible guy to fill for that timeline. I feel sorry for the eventual guys that will fill in the respective roles. My GF has told me that she has no desire to leave and agrees with my perspective, but I'm a bit skeptical. Hopefully she meant it but there are no guarantees in life.

Modern marriage is an institution for woman and for the most part men have nothing to very little to gain. This isn't sexism at play. Father's rights are a pain to fight for. Loss of financial assets that can never be repaired. For what? A piece of paper that says I get a little tax break? Please.

Too many people put into their heads that they're life will be like:

1 around age x

2 around age y

I'm looking at life

1: Enjoy/stay with a quality woman and see where it goes from there.

2: Kids if/when I am ready with the aforementioned woman.

Not to say I will never get married, but I'm surely not rushing into it and will be signing a pre-nup whether I am the bread winner or not. And I sure as hell will not be regulated to weekend father. And if I never find that woman, so be it.

A marriage proposal in my eyes is a proposal to start a family. It isn't just something to do. If people took it more seriously then people might not be telling their buds they want to be a divorce lawyer.

People get married because they mistakenly believe it's glamorous, and its the next natural step in a relationship and it represents a higher level of commitment and will give the relationship a greater chance of succeeding when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

People are blinded by love and they let their emotions dictate their actions rather than logic. Truth is, most marriages fail, it's about 60/40 at the moment. And it's really worse than that because of the remaining intact marriages many of those are together for the wrong reasons.

Look at it this way..

If someone put you in front of ten doors and said you can either walk away or take your chances.. and behind four of those doors is a lifetime of happiness and behind six of those doors is years of misery and financial devastation and emotional grief greater than anything you have ever experienced, would you open one of them?

And like I said it's even worse than that because the odds are that even if you pick one of the four lucky doors, it's still not going to be so great after a while.

Most relationships fail too so maybe people should not enter those either, yet they still do it.

I have yet to be stripped of half my assets in any of my break ups. The biggest thing most people lose in dating and LTR's are feelings and pride. That can be mended relatively easily with space and time. Finacial net worth? Not so easy.

Oh ok I understand, one's heart means nothing but the buckeroo is the end all...gotcha.

Most relationships fail too so maybe people should not enter those either, yet they still do it.

Well that's like saying we shouldn't try to take any risks in life even if we would benefit from the gains, because we're afraid of failure.

Take the example of a guy who invests all his money and borrows what he can't cover to open a business. If it prospers, he can be rich, if it fails, he can lose everything.

Marriage offers no benefit as far as the risk/benefit ratio goes. Nothing to gain, everything to lose.

Ah well I do not share that cynicism.

Ah well I do not share that cynicism.

You sound like someone in a happy successful long term marriage with no serious issues, who has never been divorced.

I've never met anyone like you before and it's a pleasure to have made your acquaintance.

Oh we have had our issues, believe me, but no I am not divorced. However my mother has been 3 times. So I know the pain of it from a child's perspective. I did not want that for my son so I have dedicated myself to work harder.

Oh we have had our issues, believe me, but no I am not divorced. However my mother has been 3 times. So I know the pain of it from a child's perspective. I did not want that for my son so I have dedicated myself to work harder.

So you're staying married for the sake of your child.

Got it.

So you're staying married for the sake of your child.

 

Got it.

No, but you will assume whatever you like. Does not bother me.

Oh ok I understand, one's heart means nothing but the buckeroo is the end all...gotcha.

I'm too pragmatic to be ignorant of the current state of marriage. Plus it doesn't help being around some friends and family that have been through the experience. Talk about heartbreaking and awkward. There wouldn't be sugar daddies/mommas if matters of the heart were the end all be all. Marriage experts don't recommend going over finances before tying the knot for fun. It's a big part of what marriage is all about. I really wish I didn't have the cynicism I have, but I do. I'm just not prepared to take some of the risks a lot of people are willing to take. Then again I'm pretty poor (at least by my families standards, yeesh) and frugal to begin with. I don't have a TV and my mattress is on the floor, but that is the life of a bachelor for ya.

If you pay attention to the link removed commercials (good thing my computer has cable programming though they make a BIG deal about how 1 in 5 MARRIAGES (not relationships, but marriages. They point this out for a reason) start online nowadays. So who is their target demographic? People who are looking for MARRIAGE. Not a PARTNER. This irks me beyond belief because I get the feeling these online dating sites are in the business of arranging marriages rather than meeting a compatible person. Then again, this has to be my cynicism talking. There are no divorce themed movies that I know of, while there have been a a whole lot of marriage focused movies. (Princess bride, big fat greek wedding, the proposal, etc etc.) But that is kind of out of place. Eh.

This irks me beyond belief because I get the feeling these online dating sites are in the business of arranging marriages rather than meeting a compatible person.

A few years ago, I went to a wedding where the couple met on link removed. They were PERFECT for each other. they have been married for over five years and are very happy. They are working on their second child. They are one of the most happiest people I know.

Just sayin'

And I also third on NowandZen's comment. Couldn't explain in any better!

This question bothers me a lot. Practically a long term relationship is not different from marriage, right? I mean it shouldn't be. So why in the modern world anyone would bother making it official? Before it made sense because there was virginity, total male domination and women were more like goods, so you had to put a label on what is yours. For a long time I thought it should be a declaration of love. But then when you really love, why marriage? And no, I am not saying I am against it, I want to know your opinions.

To me it is very different from being in a long term relationship. The marriage vows we took are part of the reason it is different and feels different, the legalities of it also affect the relationship dynamics and the plans we make for the future(just speaking for us not others). Also I think personally that if you're going to have children it's in the best interests of the child to be raised by married parents. Just my personal opinion. It also affects for me who my family is. His parents are now my inlaws and that title affects how they regard me and what family decisions I'm involved in, and vice versa.

 

Oh there are tons of divorced themed movies. I recall a thread on this forum or another where people were listing them all. Kramer vs Kramer comes to mind as one of the most popular divorce themed movies of all time.

I have asked many people this question: DId your relationship change once you got married?

And most people said "Suprisingly, yes!!" So...basically, a lot of people I know entered into marriage thinking it wouldn't really change things...but yet, the response I am getting (from most people) is that it DOES change things. For the better. And these are people who lived together for a while, so they were totally common-law, living their life together.

And yet according to them, the official marriage raised it to another level. To their surprise!! That is very telling to me.

For me (I am not yet married), yes, it is the committment factor. I want to be with someone who loves me enough to commit to me, to make us an offical team. And when times get tough, we have that committment so we will try our hardest to work things out.

I was with a guy, living together for 6 years, committed relationship. Unmarried. We hit a rocky point and he gave up on us - he ADMITTED that if we were married, he would have made an effort to try to work it out. But we were not married, so it was pretty easy for him to walk away to "greener pastures". Relationships take work. But to not be in a married relationship, it's too easy to give up. If a guy chooses to marry me, he is telling me he will NOT give up easily and we are a team, we are tackling life together.

For me, it is symbolic and it means a serious committment - not one to be taken lightly! There are people who take it too lightly. But for those of us who don't, it is a very meaningful, significant step in our lives. And it should be a mature, adult decision.

the response I am getting (from most people) is that it DOES change things. For the better. And these are people who lived together for a while, so they were totally common-law, living their life together...And yet according to them, the official marriage raised it to another level. To their surprise!! That is very telling to me.

Give 60% of those happily married couples a few more years. The statistics don't lie. Their relationships will be at another level alright.

But the progression is not linear.

What goes up...must come down.