Reasons for marriage

[mental_traveller]

Ok, this is a general question about the reasons to get married. Personally, I can see that having a family, and financial security, are two good reasons to get married.

 

However, if you aren't intending to have a family, and both partners are working and can take care of themselves financially, I'd like to know if you think there is any good reason to get married. By good reason, I mean one based on facts, not stuff like "I just *want* to be married", or "I like the idea of having a wedding" etc. I.e. to someone like me who doesn't feel the need to get married just for the sake of it, is there actually any good reason to do so other than having a family?

[TUDOR]

Depending on your state after living together for X amount of time you become common law married. If not what might be important or not to you is the fact that legally you have no say so in medical matters. Say she is in a commo and needs a surgery of some kind, as her husband you could authorize or decline it but as just a live in boy friend the matter goes to her next of kin the righ pecking order. Just one thing but there are more.

[Skeered]

I personally feel that the reason to get married is the commitment of the relationship. It's the statement of giving your whole self to the other person. I don't look at it soley for financial reasons or for the reason of having a family because lets face it many prove that you can have a totally fulfilling life and family without the ring and certificate. However to get married is to give yourself to that other person for life showing that everything is shared, physically, mentally, spiritually and financially.

 

It used to be a "had to" thing to do, now it's really a matter of choice, IMO.

[billybadass36]

Lots of reasons: dower and other inheritance rights; medical decision making; various property rights, etc.

 

Common law marriage in most jurisdictions, however, requires that the couple cohabitate for the requisite time period continuously and continuously hold themselves out to the public as husband and wife. If you just cohabitate but don't hold yourselves out as H & W, then in most jurisdictions you're okay if you really don't want to be considered "married".

[Cecelius]

Common law marriage has also been specifically elminated in most jurisdictions in the US.

 

There are economic advantages that are not as readily available to unmarried couples (health benefits from employers, insurance discounts, etc.)

 

I agree with the post above about various legal positions that a spouse gets that an unmarried SO does not, those are decent factual reasons.

 

I still believe that marriage tends primarily to be an economic detriment to a man, and unless HE desires to have children, if he is with a confident, low maintence woman, there is no reason on the planet to get married.

[alphamale]

there are only two good reasons to get married:

 

1) in youth to have kids and raise them in the "proper" setting

2) in old age to have companionship

 

this "institution" is something dreamed up by the female mind so they have hubby by the nut-sack.

[JPMorgan]

Religion

 

A formal and official vow to each other does alter how a couple feels and responds within a relationship. Many claim it makes no difference and many more say that it does.

 

Wanting to proclaim in front of family and friends that you are in love, you are loved, and you have made a commitment to this other person because of that love.

 

Known & defined boundaries (no sense reinventing the wheel)

 

Economic and legal reasons as stated by others

[Groovy]

There are some posts here about women just wanting to take men by the balls and rob them for what they have. My girlfriend is paying off her ex's debt with 2 jobs over the period of 8 years later. I see plenty of men sitting around on their butts while the women handles everything. It happens both ways.

 

I don't want kids and I am fully independent. I'd marry someone with less money than I make. I want someone who makes me a better person and provides balance to my life each passing day. Someone who gives me strength and works with my weaknesses. And someone who can offer a helping hand when I need it but putting in their share 50-50. It's just a special relationship that can be enjoyed as you grow older.

[alphamale]

Originally posted by Groovy

It happens both ways.

It does but most agree that the man loses more in a marriage than the woman.

 

I want someone who makes me a better person

Sorry GROOVY, but only you can make yourself a better person.

 

 

And someone who can offer a helping hand when I need it but putting in their share 50-50.

I have yet to see any relationship that was 50-50.

[hotgurl]

to solidify your commitment to each other. To state you intent in the relationship and follow through with action (the marriage).

 

As well as economic and legal reason other people have stated.

[Groovy]

A relationship can be 40-60, 49-51. The point is that both people are giving. If not, I am not interested in a lifetime committed, none the less any type of contact. I agree only YOU can make yourself a better person. But there are people who will inspire and others who will piss all over the goal of making you a better person and making themselves better. I want to grow old with someone who inspires and we both give, you gotta have that1

[Woggle]

There is no good reason for a man to mary.

[AliceW]

Well, I think it comes down to whether you want to view yourself and your significant other as two separate entities who happen to live together, or whether you want to be a team.

 

Very often people who are in relationships end up making personal sacrifices for the relationship...for example, maybe one person will give up their job because the other got a better job somewhere across the country...and both epopel feel that it is better for them AS A UNIT for the second person to take the job. Or, as a more subtle example, maybe one person in a couple will devote more energy to creating a comfortable home and social life, while the other will work harder at their job...that could be seen as simply being personal choices that each person makes, but it could also be seens as division of labor: the person who's more financially ambitious provides more financially (thus making both people more financially secure) and the person who's more nuturing could enrich both people's lives by cooking good meals, arranging social events, making the home clean and well-arranged, or whatever. The point is that if the couple is married, they can each feel that they are contributing to bettering both people's lives in the way thta they best can do so.

 

I think both approaches (the allied separate entities approach and the team approach) can be valid...it's just a question of what works best for the two people in question. However, I do think that the teamwork approach is probably likely to work better and to lead to fewer conflicts if you're serious about making the relationship a life partnership.

[lindya]

Originally posted by alphamale

 

this "institution" is something dreamed up by the female mind so they have hubby by the nut-sack.

 

I understand that the institution of marriage was actually started by men - the aim being that by becoming his wife, a woman became a man's property. He could then be reasonably certain that he was the biological father of any resulting "issue".

[Cecelius]

Originally posted by lindya

I understand that the institution of marriage was actually started by men - the aim being that by becoming his wife, a woman became a man's property. He could then be reasonably certain that he was the biological father of any resulting "issue".

 

yeah, and somehow we lost sight of the original purpose... Besides, with that statistic out there that 1 in 10 children in America today being raised by their fathers are not actually their children...

[RecordProducer]

Marriage is a social community recognized not only by the law, but also by the society. We all know its characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. If you don't feel the urge to be married then don't marry. Kids and finances make sense as motives, the rest is unimportant.

Marriage definitely changes your life. You have a status of a married person and you do different things, live a different life, and even associate with different people. It should be everyone's personal choice, not a prejudice you have to experience. It can be suffocating for one person as much as it can be beneficiary for another.

[Iluvsiamese]

Just to muddy the water a bit, what makes you want to marry a particular person?

 

I married my ex, because I wanted someone to share my life with--all of it. He married because he wanted to be able to have a wife and kids, but not because he wanted to share his life with us. In truth, he couldn't have cared less about us. We were just fixtures to him. I am also one of those people who walked away with much, much less than when I got married. I lost my car, my job, much of my furniture, my inheritance ($85,000) and I was left with "my share" of a mountain of debt that he created with his "business." He took out credit cards using false informatin without my knowledge, consent or signature, and maxxed them out.

 

My current partner is a whole other situation. (I have another thread going under cheating as he seems to be still hanging on to his ex.) I have thought many times about asking him why he married his wife. What was it about her that, in spite of all the negatives (and there were plenty,) made him want to marry her? Why didn't he chose to live with her common-law as he has chosen in every relationship since then?

 

Common law marriages do not carry the same legalities as marriage does. You are never considered to be married and you will not have the same rights or responsibilities. Depending on your viewpoint, this can be either an advantage or disadvantage.