Is marriage necessary?

Great Debates
1

After reading a few threads about marriage, I just have to ask: Is marriage that important?

I am happily married but we never really thought it was that important to tie the knot. We’d been living together for 4-5 yrs before we got married and nothing has changed since we got married. We did it just because we thought there were some benefits to it (legal matters, etc.) and to keep our families off our backs (we’re not Americans; culturally it would be a bit weird). In short, it was for practical reason.

Had we known how to solve the legal issues then and if we knew of a way on how to circumvent the cultural pressure (more of family issues, really), we wouldn’t have gotten married.

We’re as close as a couple can be. We never wanted children (still don’t and won’t). We’re very open and trusting to each other, yet we do realize that things could happen. And marriage can be messy when it doesn’t go well.

Richard Taylor wrote in Free Inquiry :

(Bolding mine)

He then went on to tackle the legal issues by some form of securing property arrangements, for instance. Furthermore, the bond of legal marriage isn’t so strong after all according to him:

(Bolding mine)

The last two sentences above are pretty interesting. I am wondering whether anybody can come up with any data supporting/countering that claim.

Moving on to the issue of making the commitment, is it really important too? Should we really invest everything in a commitment and keep the bond as tight as possible? What if it breaks? Would the consequences be much more devastating than if we keep the bond looser?

In a new book called Liquid Love (link to an edited version to the foreword), Bauman suggests:

I think it is all sensible on the surface. My SO and I had never been big into marriage. We just don’t feel we have to have a wedding, a formal tying of the knot, the wedding rings (we never wear them), the formal announcement to the world that we’re married and all that.

Although we did get married we don’t feel it was necessary. We keep our relationship close but we do give all the space that each one of us needs. I think we keep the pressure pretty low by not demanding too much of each other. Since both of us work with enough income and don’t have children, we know, should we go our own separate ways, I think it wouldn’t be too terrible. But if we didn’t get married the pressure would’ve been even lower.

2

In Brazil there is a technical middle way. People living together for a certain time can be considered legally speaking almost like a married couple. So even for legal and economic benefits its not necessary anymore to marry.

I agree with most of what you said... it still mystifies me why gays bother to fight for marriage rights !  :)

In the end the issue is that you and your wife are sensible rational people as am I. Many on the SDMB too... but the romatic fools still exist. So there will always be someone who wants to fell more comitment and formality of their relationship.
3

Is marriage necessary? In a larger social sense, probably not, but it was necessary to me. If I was going to be dealing with the hassles of being married, by golly I was going to have the legal rights and protections of being married. (Anyone who claims there are never downsides to sharing your life with someone LIES, and we all know it.)

The whole long-term cohabitation thing just doesn’t work for me. It’s like hotpants and halter tops; go for it if it works for you, but I think I’ll pass. It just always seemed kind of half-assed to me, maybe because people would talk about how deep their commitment was, and then immediately talk about being able to just leave if it didn’t work out. Making it easier to leave if things get rough just never seemed all that committed to me. That is, of course, my own perception and all the standard disclaimers apply.

As for the quotes in the OP, they seem pretty obvious to me. If the common-law marriage (not that many states recognize them) is working out, there’s not much reason to spend $20K on a wedding. Of course, there’s no reason to spend $20K on a wedding anyway, unless that’s just what you happen to want. Weddings can be as cheap and simple as you wish, once you get the license.

A marriage, whether it’s been formalized or not, is always kept alive and vibrant by the devotion and consideration of both partners. That’s what marriage is. When that stops, the marriage starts to die. Sometimes it can be revived, sometimes it can’t. Still, though, when both parties are devoted and considerate, how in the world is either of them trapped or resentful?

Avoiding marriage in a long-term relationship because it might not last never made much sense to me. Of course it might not last. If you want a guarantee, buy the extended warantee on your new stereo. There aren’t any guarantees in relationships. Yes, I’m pretty much risking everything on my marriage. I’d be doing the same if we weren’t married, though, because I intend to give this relationship everything I’ve got, come what may. Really, is ending a 10-year relationship any less painful because you’re not married?

4

I have several questions that I hope you guys can provide some answers to in regard to the pros/cons between marriage and cohabitation (or de facto marriage). Specifically I’d like to find out about the following:

  1. Legal matters
  2. Financial issues
  3. Quality of relationship (e.g. how happy are you during the relationship?)
  4. Length of relationship

Have there been any studies comparing the pros/cons between married and unmarried couple?

I know a lot of happily married people. But I don’t know that many people who are in a (long-term) de facto married relationship. Yet I think it might work just as well (and according to the articles linked above might even be better).

5

I was under the impression that, in the States, couples who’ve been living together for seven years are considered “married” by common law.

6

There are very few states – and common-law marriages are state-by-state basis – that have common-law marriage these days. Certainly, my aunt and uncle have been living together as partners for longer than I’ve been alive (they were high school sweethearts, I’m told) and aren’t considered married by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Exactly what qualifies as a common-law marriage also depends on jurisdiction.
To the OP: Whenever I see a question of type “Is X necessary?”, I need to ask, “For what?” Necessity doesn’t exist in a vacuum. For having a successful relationship in the abstract? No, obviously not. For having a specific successful relationship? Depends on the relationship, the people involved. For any of the other things that marriage may affect? Depends, again, on what the things are, what the people want, how they respond to things.

It’s not a question that has a pat answer. It depends on the people.

7

Me: Hey sweetie?

Sweetie: Yes, Dear?

Me: I’ve love to spend the rest of my life with you, buy a house, raise some children, and grow old with you.

Sweetie: I feel the same way. When do you want to get married?

Me: Whoa! I’m not ready for that kind of commitment.

Marc

8

i think that marriage is outdated. of course it will still go on forever as a standard way to bind a couple together in “holy matromony” but i agree in that it is not necessary in general. i know i don’t ever intend to get married… these days so many young couples are running off together getting married and divorcing anywhere from a few months to a few years later. i think that it would avoid a lot of hastle if people would forget about marriage for a while. i do understand it if there are kids involved but still. and if marriage is absolutely necessary i think it should definately wait a few years so the couple really know each other and know they want to spend a long time together if not the rest of their lives. it’s odd because marriage really used to be something that was permenant and lasted forever, now some crazy percent like 40 some or more divorce before 5 years or something like that. and i would like to know the percentage of marriages that last for the rest of people’s lives. anyway those are my views as a teenager. i don’t know if things will change but right now i’m intent on not marrying (or having kids).

9

BB4, it’s perfectly possible to set up medical power of attorney, next of kin, and other things so that you have the legal advantages of being married. A lesbian couple I know just went through all that a few months ago. It was a huge pain in the ass that took several months, and it cost them a couple thousand bucks in legal fees. (That is, incidentally, about what our wedding cost, except the wedding was a lot more fun and had much better food.) Our marriage license took about five minutes to get, and cost $27 in Louisiana.

As for financial issues, well, every couple handles those in the way that seems best to them, whether they’re married, living seperately, or shacking up. There’s not much difference in, say, buying a house together when you’re married versus cohabitating, so it’s pretty hard to compare or contrast the financial situations.

How happy you are in the relationship is purely dependent on the relationship and the people in it. Some people just aren’t happy in one state or the other, and some relationships just aren’t that great, whether you’re married or not.

Length of relationship is likewise dependent on the participants. I’ve known couples who had lived together for over 10 years and were going strong. I’ve known couples who were divorced after less than 2 years. Those are, of course, in the minority for people I know. Short-term cohabitation and long-term marriage seems to be more common in my experience.

Colin, that’s a fairly common misconception. When I took civics in 1990, fewer than ten states (I think it was six or so, but that was a long time ago) in the union recognized common-law marriages. Even in those states, if something happened to your partner during the time before your CLM was recognized, you had no legal rights regarding their medical decisions or estate planning (unless you’d already had paperwork to that effect drawn up.)

And I’m not at all sure that other states had to consider you married if you moved. I know that states have to honor legal marriages that take place in other states, but I have no idea if they honor common-law ones. My guess is that they probably don’t, but that’s just a guess.

Of course, there’s generally a lot more to CLM than just living together for 7 years. The specific requirements vary, but commonly you have to represent yourselves to the public as being married, either by telling folks you’re hitched or by using the same last name, and have demonstrable joint finances above and beyond splitting the bills.

I think Marc summed up my feelings on the whole commitment thing. People talk about not wanting to be tied down by marriage, but if you’ve really and truly committed to someone, you’re already tied down by your heart. After all, it’s certainly not the paperwork that keeps me here when DrJ’s getting on my nerves. It’s not the hassle factor, either, because breaking up a household is a hassle regardless of the circumstances. Moving out of the dorm room at the end of the school year was a hassle, for pity’s sake. It’s the relationship that keeps me here, the same as it is for unmarried couples.

10

God did not mean for man to be alone. I think marriage is a good thing. I am divorced and married for all the wrong reasons. I one day hope to meet the man of my dreams!

11

While such an argument might be applicable in some cases, the concept of being “tied down” might conceivably be different than what you are implying depending on the individuals involved. (In other words, it’s a bit of a straw-man.) For example, some people might be willing to commit a great deal of themselves but wind up blanching at marriage because they do not wish to make the “until death” promise. One must admit it’s potentially a daunting thing to promise to do anything for upwards of 50+ years. Not everybody can handle the concept of a 30-year mortgage either… Life is uncertain, and different people deal with this inherent uncertainty in various ways.

And although I suppose a wedding (and thus vows) could be modified to some degree, I can also imagine that many people have a innate resistance to the archaic concepts of possession that some perceive to come along with the institution… So in a sense, a resistance to marriage in some instances may be less about being tied down to each other than it is about being tied down to society’s norms.

Another possibility is a definition of “commitment” that runs contrary to the common version. For example, when you buy a car, you are making a commitment, but of course it does not mean you necessarily wish to drive that car forever–instead you will drive it as long as it works well for you. I hate to make an analogy like that, as people are not cars, yet unfortunately it would not be too hard to find a person who loves their car more than their mate. For a person with a sufficiently self-oriented philosophy, a reluctance to commit in the conventional way makes quite a bit of sense.

Of course, I would never dismiss the possibility of certain people being bubble-headed morons. :wink:

12

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I don’t see how that makes her point a straw-man.

**

Any major decision that has such an affect on your life it is going to be a daunting decision. One of the ways some people deal with the uncertainty in life is to simply not make commitments. Someone who can’t handle long term commitments of any kind probably doesn’t have much of a future. Simply deciding not to make commitments seems like an unhealthy way of dealing with the uncertainty of life.

**

The concepts of what a marriage is and the vows people take have changed drastically over the years and across cultures. It seems silly to me to look at marriage today and think of it the same way it was in the past. If it is the same then my father-in-law owes me some goats and a cow or two.

**

Then of course that person shouldn’t get married. At the same time that person shouldn’t expect to be in any relationship for the long haul. Besides, who the heck wants to marry someone who just wants to trade me in a few years down the road?

Marc

13

The vow is the guarantee.

I think the married person does risk more. To be married, I stood up in front of all my family, friends, and all hers. We proclaimed publicly in front of witnesses and god to have and to hold blah blah blah. Then we signed a piece of paper attesting to the whole thing, then we had a big party (BIG party) commemorating and celebrating the promise. THEN we went to the beach for a few days.
If we divorced, we’d be breaking not only a promise to each other, we’d be breaking our word to everyone who was at the ceremony (but not those at the beach, I don’t think they’d care) so yeah, more painful than if we’d just shacked up and never promised anything, or even if we’d just promised each other privately to be together forever.
Giving a non married relationship “everything you’ve got” isn’t the same as with a marriage. With a marriage, you’ve got more to give.

Without that promise, we’d have broken up by now; and I know I wouldn’t be the person I am without the relationship. Mrs. Greck says the same.

Is marriage necessary?
Having two parents in a stable relationship is still the best way to raise children, and it seems that there needs to be (in most cases) public proceedings and ritual to verify, bonify, and solidify a relationship.

14

Marriage may not be necessary, but it’s handy.

It confers legal status that can be accomplished (for the most part) through other means, but not as easily.

It gives an easy title for the loved one (my sister has been living with a man for ten years. They’re both over 40. I refuse to say he’s her “boyfriend.” Yeuck).

It makes the relationship somewhat harder to discard, and even when discarded the relationship stays on your permanent record! (I’ve always wanted to say that.) For me, that’s an important motivation. I’m lazy, dammit, and the harder you make it for me to leave (within reason, of course) the less likely I am to do it.

I wanted to marry my husband. I didn’t want a wedding, but I wanted to be married. Fortunately for me, he wanted to be married just as much.

Julie

15

Strictly speaking, it was your point.

And you don’t see how these statements exaggerate the alternative position into absurdity?

First, just because a particular person might want to avoid the specific commitment of marriage doesn’t mean that person is unable to deal with other commitments. (For example, the world is full of people who are good with money but terrible at dealing with people, and vice versa.) It may seem “unhealthy” to you to suspend judgment on a long term outcome, but other people see life in far different terms. Tell me exactly how the Israeli-Palestinean situation will look in forty years, please. Please? Don’t be afraid to commit… :wink:

Second, I did explicitly state that people are not cars–if a relationship has any value, the concept of merely “trading it in” as an analogy fails miserably in most cases. (Or at least one would hope.) The point was limited to the extent of demonstrating the concept of a variable spectrum of commitment. Just as some people will drive and repair their cars until they rust into pieces, others will lease or continue driving only on a “pay as you go” basis.

Certainly you have a preference–and FTR, we probably agree on that–I personally like the concept of marriage in terms of commitment… all I’m saying is that the more fluid approach, a constant assessment of what the relationship is, is not inherently unreasonable, and certainly not as absurd as it is sometimes characterized.

16

I guess what I don’t understand is that many of the anti-marriage stuff that I read is by people who basically live married lives with their partners already. It’s almost like the ‘childfree’ movement in that it seems to be set up in opposition to the norm. There seems to be this idea that marriage can ruin a perfectly good relationship, and I am having a hard time understanding that.

I can say why I am very pro-marriage in my case (i’m sure everyone is in a different spot in their lives)…I married into a blended family. My wife had been married once before, divorced, and had 2 young sons. She was very careful in her dating post-divorce, and I was the first (and only) man that the kids met. I could have just moved in with her, and we would have still been a family, in my eyes…but providing a stable home for the kids was a huge priority. There are some things that you can take for granted, but believe me, there is a much different feeling between being ‘momma’s boyfriend’ and ‘Dad’ (and I know that I am especially lucky that my boys consider and call me so).

I also agree with jsgoddess on pretty much every point she made, and agree that I wanted Faeriebeth to be my wife, in name, in fact, in everything. I am still tickled at the idea every day.

just my two cents.

17

I wonder what the long term cohabitation rate is? If people get engaged, and move in together, it’s not quite the same thing as living together and not wanting to get married.

All relationships have ups and downs, and I think being married helps you get over the low points without splitting entirely. That’s the distinction in my book - are those who get married with divorce as an easy escape hatch in the back of their minds all that different from people just living together (except that they spend a lot of money on a big party?) Are people who live together with their affairs entangled any less “trapped” than people who are married?

Mainly, I suppose, if you are committed to each other, why not? (Unless you’re legally prohibited from marrying, of course.)

18

I don’t think there’s anything necessary about marriage. It’s just a social convention. Seems to me that most of the people who argue it’s necessary for society to survive are politicians in the midst of divorcing their third wives. :rolleyes:
Committing to someone else

I always figured I’d never get married, I’d just live with somebody. Looks like I was wrong about the first part. :slight_smile: But as someone pointed out in another thread on this board, a marriage should be a celebration of the relationship you had, not some kind of attempt to cement it. I’ve got no vested interest in the ceremony itself; I don’t like dressing up, I don’t care for big parties, and I never have fun when my extended family is around. :stuck_out_tongue:
On the other hand, we’ve got plenty to celebrate, and when the time comes I look forward to that. And maybe we’ll find a good band to play the reception. :wink:

19

Concerning the legal and financial matters of marriage.

First there are only 11 states which adhere to common law.

If your SO (I’m using SO to refer to anyone other than your spouse) were on life support or needed surgery and could not speak for themself a spouse could in certain situations dictate the care their spouse should receive. A SO OTOH could not.

Property owned by one SO partner would not necessarily go to the other upon death unless stated in an UNCONTESTED Will. For retirement benefits like armed forces retirement pay SO is not an option. Widow’s by the current definition are living spouses of the deceased recognized with a marriage license and are the default beneficiary of any deceased retirement pay.

You can’t claim married on your 1040 either with a SO. In some states if there is no spouse and no will then the estate is passed to the children per stirpends. A SO could be forced out of their “home” and see it sold to settle the estate.

If your SO decided to rid themself of you there is no legal framework in which to ajudicate the separation of property. If you were not listed on any of the ownership documents then you would have no legal recourse.

If marriage wasn’t necessary then there would be a lot of women screaming for their rights which marriage already addresses.

BTW if you are in any kind of permanent relationship (especially where children are concerned) a will, living will and power of attorney are things I would highly recommend. If you don’t have any of these the government will supply one which DEFINATELY won’t appeal to you.

And for those of you who don’t believe in marriage there is the old saying, “Why buy the cow if the milk is free?” Anyone willing to give away some free milk? :wink:

20

There’s a great site on this topic: www.unmarried.org (home of the Alternatives to Marriage Project)

They have great statistics and opinion articles on issues raised by this thread.