A quick Google search shows that the marriage rate in Quebec is about half that of the rest of Canada combined. Who knew?
Agree that there are a few issues here:
In lower socio-economic classes, single parenthood means poverty.
In higher socio-economic classes, our society is set up to offer more support to couples with a marriage license. Like inheritance rights, or health insurance.
Socially, it depends on your circle. I have a number of acquaintances in long term relationships with kids and I have no idea if they are married or not - they have different last names. They might be married, they might not. Certainly I don’t treat their kids any differently. (Come to think of it, I’m in a long term relationship and have kids and have a different last name - people don’t quiz me on if my husband and I are actually legally married). My cousin has two kids with her partner-who-is-not-her-husband. Maybe some day they’ll get married. Maybe they won’t.
From the upper midwest US, if you are over about 35 and live in the same household, people will assume you are married. Add kids and that is even more true. Marriage is at least the mental default state. Lack of marriage is seen as an inability or unwillingness to commit.
This might well be political suicide here. Other than at a local level (city council maybe), if a candidate was living with someone and not married to them, I would assume that their opponents would splash that all over the media, with connotations that it made the candidate unfit to hold office. “If she can’t commit to her boyfriend, can you trust her to commit to the office?” kind of thing.
Aha! I think I’ve found it here (page 8). In 2004, Quebec had 59% of births out of wedlock, second in Western countries after Iceland (64%). The report appears to have been published in French only, but it should be understandable enough.
It is slightly surprising, as unmarried cohabitating couples are still fewer in numbers than married couples. But I guess cohabitating is more popular among younger couples, who are the ones making most children. The report also shows that Quebecers are marrying and having children at later ages than before.
Here are stats for marriage rates in the Canadian provinces for 2001. Quebec is at 3.0 per thousand and the next provinces are Saskatchewan and BC at 5.0 per thousand. This is in fact a quite large difference. In this 2007 article in Le Devoir, some explanations are attempted:
The article also mentions that cohabitating couples have no legal recognition in the case of a separation or death, which is something people should be aware of beforehand.
And the best-known premier of Quebec, when he was elected in the 70s, was separated from his wife and living with his (much younger) girlfriend. I think he married her after taking office.
For the most part, private lives of politicians are still private in Canada. It’s changed a little over the years, but I think you’d find that most Canadians couldn’t name our Prime Minister’s wife, or tell you how many children they have.
I’m pretty sure it’s Mrs. Harper.
I see you’ve earned your name. 
According to economist Jacob Hacker in his book The Great Risk Shift, it’s actually married couples with children who are at the greatest risk for significant financial upheaval. This is because wages have stagnated over the last 30 years. Whereas a dual income once actually meant you had a financial cushion to protect you from a job loss, nowadays most dual-income households can’t afford to lose either job. So all being married does anymore is double your risk for taking a financial hit.
To clarify: single-parent households are still proportionally the most impoverished. Married households are those identified as the most economically volatile.
See, this just blows my mind. I married at 23, and compared to my peers and people in my family, I waited for freaking EVER. My mother’s first marriage was at 18, my grandmother married at 16 and my youngest aunt married at 17 (the marriages were all disastrous shotgun weddings of course, which is why I waited so long.) Yet among college students my age I acknowledge I’m definitely in the minority. Nothing was weirder to me than being a senior undergraduate married student after taking two years off. I felt like I was on another plane of existence.
In the culture I grew up (rural/suburban working-class Southeast Michigan), being born out of wedlock carried a pretty heavy stigma. I know, because not only was I born out of wedlock, but my Mom blew threw three marriages and was working on a fourth when I was growing up. I was once stopped on the street when I was 9 or 10 by an adult neighbor who found it his duty to inform me that I suffered from a tragic lack of moral guidance due to the fact that I was a bastard child. And I remember a kid on the bus who would pretty much mock me daily for having been born out of wedlock.
That’s why marriages happen so early in certain cultures, see. Because being married to an abusive asshole when you’re 16 is nothing compared to the shame and difficulty of being a single parent. I don’t suggest the attitude exists universally, but it is still highly pervasive in many American subcultures.
Ours is a society that favors marriage. I did not learn this until I fell in mad love at an unexpectedly young age – 19. My husband and I became serious very early into our relationship. We were both bright, reasonably mature, responsible college students who clearly shared values and life goals, but particularly among family members on his side of the family, our relationship wasn’t taken very seriously because we had not yet ‘‘legitimized’’ it with marriage. We wanted to get married eventually, but undergraduate school didn’t seem like the best time.
During college, my now-husband’s grandparents paid for his tuition, room and board. About three years into our relationship, we lived in a household with 4 other roommates, all of us having separate bedrooms, and my husband was so scared that his grandparents would pull financial support if they knew that we were living in the same house that he didn’t tell them.
Even while we were engaged, I was not allowed to spend the night at his father’s house, even if my then-fiance and I slept in separate bedrooms, because we were not married.
And then, once we were married, everything changed. Poof I was a part of the family. Not only was I more respected, but he was more respected and treated as an equal. As if tying the knot immediately made him into a man.
Then we moved to the East Coast – and boy is it different out here! Almost nobody our age is married and it seems long-term committed relationships are de rigueur for young people not finished with their schooling. Out of 150ish students in my master’s program, I estimate no more than 20 to be married. None of the Ph.D. students in his program are married, though a lot of them are coupled and have been for 7, 8 years or more. At a recent social engagement I joked that we were the impulsive ones, rushing to the alter after four short years together.
In my experience, even couples who started out cohabiting with no intent to get married eventually did get married and usually this had something to do with children, but not always. In cases of two of my acquaintances, one person in the couple stated a desire for children and the second person said, “Okay, but if we’re going to have kids I want to be married.” (In one case the man, in the other the woman.)
I know at least two couples who have no intention to ever have kids. They both started out just living together, but they both ended up getting married. There’s a perception that if you are a stable, committed couple, then you should be married. Putting off marriage for no tangible reason is seen as a sign of unreliability or immaturity.
In the United States, a person with children out of wedlock or cohabiting without being married would have a lot of trouble getting elected to any significant office.
Generally speaking, yes. When people get married, they intend it to be for life.
http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat/societe/demographie/naisn_deces/naissance/410.htm
A table showing marital status of children’s parents in Quebec from 1951-2009. In that period, the % of children born out of wedlock rose from 3.1% to 63.4%.
What I find interesting in this table is that in 1976, 9.8% of Quebec children were born out of wedlock, with nearly half of them (4.8%) of unknown/undeclared father. In 2009, as said, 63.4% of children were born of unmarried parents, but only 2.6% had an undeclared father. It suggests that the cultural shift we’ve experienced had the effect that couples are still committing to each other, but do not consider “marriage” to be a relevant institution in their lives.
And I must admit that I find the idea that an unmarried couple of long-standing implies that one partner does not want to commit, and is unreliable or immature, to be odd to say the least. To me, there is no meaning in not wanting to marry; it may simply mean that the idea of marriage doesn’t hold any special significance to the partners. I guess it’s a cultural difference.
And to me, marriage is the exact equivalent of commitment, as well as the granting of a series of legal benefits and obligations to the person you’re committing to. So far as I’m concerned, marriage is socially and politically useful in this sense. It’s an affirmative step that indicates you and your partner want to take on the attached benefits and obligations. (It is also the one thing that says to society at large: “Hands off, we’re exclusive.” So far as I’m concerned, if you’re not married you’re fair game for others seeking intimate contact.) I think there should be such an affirmative step and marriage to me seems to be the most obvious trigger. I don’t see any need for coming up with a new one. By declining to marry, you’re essentially saying, among other things, “I decline to give my partner the right to visit me in the hospital or to inherit my assets if I die.” If you intend to be committed, it seems pretty obvious to me that it is irresponsible or immature or something else if you decline to get married.
I don’t need a ceremony and a slip of paper to tell me that I’m committed to my significant other. A marriage for me would be a.) A primarily financial arrangement and b.) Possibly to soothe the concerns of the woman I’m with, if she’s the type who needs a marriage to somehow prove that our love is real and c.) A step towards guaranteeing that my children have my name.
Does anyone have information about the average or median numbers of marriages Americans go through in their life?
Acsenray:
So, if your SO of several years* had sex with someone else, you’d accept “we’re not married”? Or is it only an excuse for the third wheel and not the SO? If the third wheel can plead that, why not the SO?
- I’m presuming that having an unmarried SO of several years is even a possibility for you, correct me if I’m wrong.
“In the United States, a person with children out of wedlock or cohabiting without being married would have a lot of trouble getting elected to any significant office”
Ask Tom Jefferson about that. 
I’m talking from the point of view of the third wheel (i.e., society). If a person is married, it is incumbent upon outsiders not to interfere with his or her marital relationship. If there is no marriage, then from my point of view a third party need feel no moral restraint in trying his or her hand at getting some action or wooing one or the other partner away from the relationship.
If you want society to respect the bounds of your relationship as exclusive, committed, and permanent (by intention), the way you signal that is by marriage.
I see no problem with this position: “Until we are married, consider me still open to other potential suitors.”
This is a fascinating thread; I didn’t realize that Quebec was having such a different experience of marriage and common-law marriage than the rest of Canada. I also didn’t know that Trudeau was single when he was first elected. Hunh.
You should be aware that what is obvious to you isn’t obvious to all of us. My SO and I have the longest running relationship of any of our middle aged group of friends. About half have been divorced, the other half started their marriages after we became a couple. I’d say that 18 years of joyous togetherness has proven our point.
And meanwhile, the rest of us aren’t living in the 50s anymore.