Fair enough, but I thought love was supposed to transcend all that stuff.
I think that’s one of the reasons there are so many unhappy marriages.
I mean, imagine a person had a step-kid. Step-kid’s other bio-parent is long gone. Person is always saying to step-kid “You’re one of mine. I love you just as much as if you were my blood. blah blah blah” Step kid says “Hey. I’d love to be able to call you “parent”. I don’t want to have to be a special category in your will, or maybe argue with my siblings about who gets to help you when you are old and in the hospital. Why don’t you adopt me, so that I am legally exactly like your other kids.” Person is all like “No, I think the fact that there is no legal recognition of our parent/child relationship makes it More Special. I don’t want the law involved in something that’s really between us”.
Would you buy that that person loved their step child more, because they didn’t let the law see it even existed, but kept it all a choice?
Yeah, that’s all romantic and stuff but it gets to be a colossal headache as soon as someone is unexpectedly in the hospital and unable to communicate or some similar situation where the legal document does a hell of a lot to smooth out the complications.
The issue with step-kids and legal relationships has also been addressed. It sucks if the bio-parent is out of commission due to accident or illness or whatever and there are no legal ties to the kid your suddenly responsible for. Not as good as an actual adoption, but the spouse of bio-parent is going to have a much easier time navigating the complications than someone who is a legal stranger no matter how long they’ve been in the kid’s life.
I don’t think marriages inherently go one way or the other, but I suspect that the societal expectation that pressures many people to get married regardless of whether they’re sure the person they’re marrying is a good match for them is an overall negative societal effect.
It seems to me that if there wasn’t this expectation to get married, a lot of people that have made poor marriage choices may not have fallen into such bad relationships. Those people who do have great marriages and they increase their happiness? I’ll wager the majority of those would still be either married or in a relationship almost like marriage.
People will enter into bad relationships as long as there are people. It’s just too easy to mistake sexual chemistry for compatibility. While sexual chemistry is intoxicating, it’s a really bad thing to base a long-term partnership on.
One, I think a lot of people marry because they are lonely or dislike living alone, and that has nothing to do with social expectations.
Two, if there is any social expectation that I think is a problem here, it’s that you don’t live with your parents past 18-20. It’s very difficult to support a household on many people’s incomes during the first 10 years or so of their career, but there is a lot of pressure to leave the parental home. So you pretty much have to either marry/shack up or have a roommate, and having a roommate can be logistically very difficult to even arrange, and is inherently unstable.
Honestly, a social expectation that young adults stay part of their parents’ household (and contribute toward that household) would probably do more to stop too-quick pairing off than anything else.
People do dumb shit all the time without being ‘socially obligated’ to do so; I don’t buy that the social obligation to get married is what causes people to get into bad marraiges. If they weren’t in bad marraiges they’d still be in bad relationships and knowing the bad decisions people can make the lack of marraige wouldn’t offer any financial protection for their bad life choices.
I would argue that the prospect of being married can give some spouses an incentive to work harder at their relationship than if they were just in a casual partnership. Divorce can be messy/expensive/painful and there may be situations where someone would normally impulsively just break things off on a whim because things aren’t going 100% for them; but if they are married it gives them an incentive to try harder at making it work. I understand the taboo of divorce for many people bites them in the ass but by and large for many others the commitment of marraige helps them build a relationship together.
I heard an interesting theory that people that believe in the concept of ‘soulmates’ actually are less likely to be in a comitted, happy relationship. Reason being, these individuals think that if there is some perceived flaw in the other person, “it wasn’t meant to be” and can be rather flighty. People who believe in building a relationship with their partner, in contrast, are more likely to have a stable, happy relationship because they are more willing to work and develop the relationship.
Ideally a marraige should be an ongoing effort for both partners that they continue to build and develop their whole lives. For people who are comitted to each other and make the effort to maintain their marraige, I would say they are happier. But not everyone who is married is willing to put forth this effort.
You’re asking two different questions, which one did you want answered?
- (from the subject) Does marriage increase happiness?
- (from the body) Do you think a lot of people get married because it just seems like the thing people should do?
By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
Socrates
Is there a reason why you can’t answer both? 
I do. Being married, along with owning property, being employed, and having children, is emblematic of “having your shit together.” People naturally want to look like they have their shit together. Pressure isn’t always someone explicitly telling you to do X, Y, and Z. Pressure can be simply watching what everyone else is doing and being nudged to conform similarly (So when are you are gonna get married? Have children? Buy a house???) I don’t see how this pressure DOESN’T cause some people to jump the broom when they shouldn’t. The same pressure causes people to buy homes they can’t afford, go to college when they aren’t suited for it, and have children when can’t even take care of themselves.
I also think societal pressure keeps people from leaving bad marriages, though this is certainly fading.