Why would it be more advantageous for a woman? I can’t fathom this. It certainly hasn’t been true for me. I came into my marriage with many magnitudes more assets than my husband, and if we ever got divorced, I would be the one who got screwed. Marriage is more advantageous for the partner with fewer assets. Assuming that’s the woman is rather a ridiculous and probably baseless assumption these days, with more women going to college than men and all.
I have a feeling many - most? - men have drunk the Playboy Kool-Aid, to some extent. That they are these wild, cool, swingin’ beings who want, no, DESERVE as many different women as humanly possible. The old Four F’s - find, feel, f*ck, and forget. They think this will go on forever, even when they grow old and bald and fat and sickly - there’s always more adoring women to come along. Look at the animated corpse of Hugh Hefner even today! That’s the way to live! Don’t be tied down, don’t live with boredom, be wild and non-monagamous and free! (Better be rich, too.)
So mention the word “marriage” and think: boredom; fat shrill women in stretch pants with curlers in their hair; balding grumpy suburb-commuting boring breadwinners coming home from work and zoning out in front of the tube; boredom; snotty loud messy kids who suck your bank account dry; boredom; loathesome in-laws, taxes, lawns that need mowing, boredom…
Marriage is somewhere in-between, isn’t it? I got married because I didn’t WANT to end up someone’s baby momma, or a party girl, or Weird Old Spinster Auntie, or Brave Single Mom. Mr. Salinqmind had to do something with HIS life - a Playboy, he was NOT! We were old-fashioned. We got married, (eloped, actually), had a child who is now almost grown, have a house, garden, two cars and a beloved pet. Dullsville? Yes, sometimes. So?.. When we lived in a swingin’ singles apartment complex and took vacations to exotic places and went on weekend getaways, and broke up and got back together, that stuff grew old, too. Life often is boring. It doesn’t matter if you’re planting tomatoes in the back yard or going on your 1000th blind date, there’s a 50/50 chance it will be fun or not fun. …The marriage seems to have worked all these years, and I really can’t see either of us getting an attack of mid-life crisis and trading up with a new partner, Not to say it can’t. But there’s a feeling we’ve come a long ways, we watch each other’s backs. We will be there for each other. We’ve walked down a long road together, and when you’re young and foolish, it can be adventurous and fun to go it alone, and see who you meet along the way. Older, not so much. When one of us needs to go to the doctor’s office for tests, who is going to go with us? Our mommys? Our daughter who lives away at college? A bimbo he picked up in a bar? Some divorced guy I ran into at the Mini-Mart? Just call a taxi, or drive there alone? Will they sit there holding your hand while you wait for the results?
That, to me, is the essence of marriage, never mind kids, money, excitement, Unending Thrilling Sex. Commitment. Teamwork. Responsibility. Building a life. Knowing that there is one person on the planet who, apparently, is There For You.
I suspect the OP is very young. Or possibly bitter. One major reason people get married is that they fall in love with someone and want to be with them forever.
As people get older, it becomes a lot harder to make and keep friends and close relationships with people. People are into their own things and are constnatly moving in and out of your life as jobs or other circumstances change. People like the emotional stability of having someone who actually gives a shit if they come home at night.
Now if you are asking why people get married instead of just staying together, I’m the wrong person to ask for that.
I got married primarily so I could have someone to split the rent with.
It seems to me the OP’s approach would work great if one was a 25 year-old guy, and was able to remain a 25 year-old guy indefinitely.
Many people have tried it, and it does work pretty well. Up until the time when they can no longer pass for 25, either to others or to themselves.
Seriously, this is not a new idea. It’s probably painted on a cave wall someplace.
I married Left Hand of Dorkness because I love him and plan to spend the rest of my life with him. It’s been six years, and I haven’t regretted it for a second. Marrying him was the smartest thing I ever did.
Life can be hard. It’s easier when you have someone you have someone to tough it out with. And life can be sweet. It’s even sweeter when you share it with someone else.
As to why get married as opposed to living together, emmaliminal describes my feelings well. It was very important to me to stand up in front of the people I love best and say, “This is the man I’m choosing to cleave to above all others. This is our family,” and to have not only their support, but the support of the wider world as well.
I’m not sure what think it is that you can’t do at 35 or 45 that you can do at 25. You want to be a 45 year old player, there’s plenty of guys who do that. They might not go to the same bars the college kids go to, but given the number of unmarried and divorced people in this country, there is no guarantee that marriage will save you from being single later in life.
And quite frankly, I’m much rather be single in my 40s hoping to find someone than married at any age wishing I were single.
This is awesome, and impressively succinct. It may become my signature. dangermom and I routinely look at each other and sigh in gratitude that we’re together facing the challenges of the day rather than facing them separately. The joys in life are doubled, the challenges you face as a team.
Excellent point. Historically it’s been a benefit for women because women weren’t allowed assets. Since that’s not the case anymore (at least in the civilized world) the historical argument is academic at best.
I was lucky to find the right person (who could resist someone with a moniker of dangermom? – okay, she didn’t have that when we met) when we were both still starving students, each of us with college loans, etc. We built our assets together, and if the unthinkable divorce happened, dangermom would deserve half the assets even though I’ve been the primary breadwinner in the marriage. She’s managed the home, done the homeschooling, etc. and given me the emotional support I’ve needed to be that primary breadwinner.
We were also young enough to bend a bit to become a better team. I think as we get older, habits become more ingrained and it becomes harder to file off the rough edges.
The first decade was the hardest, but after a dozen years together, I wouldn’t trade this for anything.
Date hot 25 year olds? I know a lot of single guys in their late 30s and early 40s. Some of them think they should be able to date hot young girls, but they just can’t anymore. Then they wonder why they’re still single, when it’s obvious to any objective observer why. Dating is a roller coaster. It takes a lot of effort, time and money, and is rife with confusion and disappointment. I think a lot of people get married because they are tired of the game. I know that was part of my reasoning. The allure of dating lots of different people really loses its sparkle after a while.
As I said, I have lots of male friends who are in this position who very much wish it were not so. They bitch a lot about dating and being single, and all of them wish they were in a position to be married to a loving partner.
Your “advantages”:
Religious – I’m not religious. Most of my friends aren’t, and they’re still married.
Taxes – Don’t make me laugh.
Gold diggers – For me and my family and friends, I can’t think of anyone who married above their own tax bracket. Maybe one person, but they split their finances in such a way that she spends what she makes and doesn’t get much benefit from his money.
Your “disadvantages”:
Not pair maters – I am and so are my parents, and my friends. Perhaps some people aren’t, like one ex-friend who says she’s a swinger, but she’s still only sleeping with her husband so far as I know. Kind of an aspirational swinger.
Expensive weddings – I eloped. My mom got married in a church basement. My sister got married in the JOP’s office. You don’t have to have an expensive wedding.
Lose privacy – That’s a POSITIVE thing for me.
Commitment – Very much a positive for me.
Cost of divorce – People can be as sensible about divorce as they are about weddings.
Sex disappears – Not in all cases. Not in mine, or my parents’.
**Obligation to put up with partner **-- Also a positive.
So…given that marriage and divorce doesn’t have to be expensive, that the majority of us are pair maters, that we don’t care about losing privacy and actually like the people we marry, and still have sex…what’s wrong with getting married? Just because some marriage turn out rotten doesn’t make the concept of marriage entirely negative.
Marriages give you legal protection, financial protection and social protection. You become a family, but you ALSO become part of your partner’s family as well. You can raise a family in a more stable environment and feel secure in your relationship. You have also affirmed your love and commitment to another human being.
I think you gave a really unfortunate impression in the OP, with many sweeping assertions and no cites to back them up.
My parents married because:
- they loved each other
- they wanted to express their joy in each other to the World
- they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together
- they wanted a mutual commitment to support each other
- they wanted to have a family (and not raise them out of wedlock)
If it appears they were ‘poster children’ for marriage, that’s because they were.
On their 60th wedding anniversary (they both only had a few years to live at that point), there was a truly memorable occasion.
Childhood friends, elderly relatives, four generations of family and newly-made friends all attended. There were messages from distant cousins, friends who had emigrated and even the Queen.
When Dad (who hated public speaking) got up (only with the aid of a stick) and spoke from memory about Mum (I know he spent a week learning his lines), finishing with the heartfelt words “She is my rock”, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
That is the value of marriage.
Just answering for me, married 31 years next month.
Religion - nope. Our ceremony was at the Ethical Culture Society, with no mention of any gods.
Neither of us had enough money to make this an advantage. Try making a committment.
Not all are. I’m pretty monogamous by nature.
They don’t have to be. We had 25 people at ours, which was the biggest wedding in both our families for 3 generations.
More than living together?
Not a negative for lots of people.
Not a problem if you don’t get divorced.
To repeat what others have said, bullshit. Practice makes perfect, and lots of practices has made sex even perfecter. 
I suspect this thing comes from bitter people of either sex who are in bad relationships, and who would rather complain than do anything about it.
Balanced by your partner putting up with you.
Seeing kids grow up into great adults and incorporating our values into their relationships is one advantage. Knowing someone is there for you when you are sick, and being there when your spouse is sick is another. Having almost 40 years of shared memories is pretty nice also.
I got married because I was in it for the long haul. We never lived closer than 600 miles from each other, and when after 6 years of a very on and off again relationship I decided we always came back to each other, it seemed silly to ask her to move to be with me without getting married. Not every minute is idyllic - it never is, but I’ve never regretted it.
I’m enjoying my marriage immensely. Perhaps the benefits are more obvious to men who aren’t bitter, I don’t know.
We’re not religious. We eloped and did our wedding on the super cheap. And believe me, my wife did NOT marry me for the money.
I assume you mean my comments–why should divorce be prohibited if it’s family. I’ve known many people who have permanently cut ties with members of their “real” family, and some of them would have liked a way to formally declare to the world “this person is not my family anymore”.
Now then, it’s true that there are other ways to make it clear that the person you are in a LTR is your main family member now, and some people make that work. But I think marriage is simpler–for one thing, not all couples in LTR are “family” to each other–my brother’s been with a woman in a very distant sort of way for 20 years, but they really aren’t family–good friends and they love each other, but not family and they clearly don’t want to be. When I moved in with my now-husband, he was my boyfriend, and nothing more–I loved him, I wanted to be with him, but if, at that point, I’d been in a coma, I’d have wanted my mom calling the shots, not him. If my dad and he both had a heart attack the same day, I’d have been really worried for him, but I would have been on the first plane out to my parents. If he had told me he wanted to go to grad school in Alaska, I’d have decided whether or not I wanted to go with him, but it would have been an independent decision from his. But then one day I realized he was the one I wanted making the decisions for me when I couldn’t, that he was the one I’d go to first, that any life choice would be about what was best for us, not for me. I realized he was family, so I married him (in a courthouse, for $30) so that everyone else would know it too, and honor that relationship. He is my main family for all those reasons, and the fact that that could be change–and that change recognized through the divorce–doesn’t mean anything about who is my family right now.
My point is that if I hadn’t married him, how would people know that? Not from the fact that we were in a long-term relationship or the fact that we were living together–lots of people in LTR or living together aren’t family, and assuming they are is as presumetous as assuming that they are not–after all, neither state is “better” or “more”, they are just different. So marriage made that clear.
There are many reasons I would marry my partner if it were legal but the one that has most recently been on my mind is hospital visitation and who would make decisions for me (or her) if the worst were to happen. One of the major local hospitals recently denied visitation and even information to a same sex couple in a LTR (18 yrs). They refused to allow the partner and their 3 children to visit a DYING patient. Even though the partner held a durable healthcare power of attorney!!
That scares the crap outta me since it’s THE major trauma center for my area and where either of us would be taken after a serious accident.
There’s the thing. I don’t want to have to “put up” with someone. Put up with someone long enough, all you will see in that person is the crap you have to put up with.
I think it’s great when two people find that someone they both want to spend the rest of their lives together with. Even better when they continue to want that over the years. I think it’s the exception rather than the rule though.
I wonder, statistically speaking, out of all the people on the planet, how many potential mariable partners are out there. Everyone says “oh he/she is ‘the one’” or “I knew it as soon as I met him/her.” That’s amazing that everyone’s “one” happens to be within a 100 mile radius when you are in your mid to late twenties or early thirties.
A 35-45 year old man is 25 in woman years. If your 30-something friends are having trouble dating women in their mid 20s, it may be because they are still acting like guys in their mid twenties (who are really acting like college sophomores with money) instead of mature men women would be attracted to.
This is ridiculous, msmith. I hope you don’t actually believe this.
My wife and I have been married for 17 years this summer.
Topic came up because it felt like certain parts of the family would be unwelcoming to living in sin.
I got married because I found someone who “got” me and would put up w/ me and vice versa. I found that early in my adult life, but instead of bailing on the relationship because I wanted to see the world, we decided to see the world together. It hasn’t always been a bowl of cherries but good stretches far outweigh the bad.
The answer “why” get married is different for everyone and I know that we are fortunate to still enjoy each others company and yet allow each other their own pursuits. Maybe because it’s been so long and I married so young, I don’t really see a downside to marriage.
I think if are questioning the institution, then you really haven’t found a person to commit to yet.
I meant two things by that. First, if you expect to find someone perfect, you’re going to be looking for a long time. The trick is to find someone where the pluses far outweigh the minuses even after 10 years. Second, the person expecting perfection is probably far from perfect himself.
I know of plenty of happy long term marriages, including my parents’ and my in-laws. I think lots of unhappy people assume that a “happy” marriage is usually a charade - in my experience, it isn’t.
That’s an interesting question. However, I never lived anywhere that close to my wife before we got married. You can put a bound on this if you compute the number of people of the opposite sex you more or less meet, and multiply by two to account for the unhappy marriages. I know there are some hormonal cues (I think at least one around Rh blood types) that make certain potential partners uninteresting, and I suspect there is a genetic predisposition for those outside the tribe.
I believe it’s a lot more common for an older man to date a younger woman than the other way around.
The divorce rate would seem to disagree with you.