Marriage – What is it and what’s the point?

Not true: Marriage - Wikipedia

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

It's not messy because they're married. It's messy because they have all those issues to resolve. In today's legal climate, it would be more messy because there isn't a well-settled body of law to help decide all those things. Now, there's no real reason why divorce laws can't be modified to deal with break up issues of people who never got married, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see that in the future. But regardless, it's a mess to divide up the lives of two people who've been together for a number of years no matter what the nature of that union is.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Not so! There is much more to it than that.She wants you to listen and empathise with her every problem, big or small. She wants you to give her your paycheck while somehow paying all the bills. She wants you to do the dishes without being asked. She wants you to take out the trash, build the closet shelves she's always wanted, buy her a car, fix the car, carry her purse in the mall, never look at another woman ever again, give her flowers and candy without any expectations in return, read her every mood without asking and don't even think about that ever until she wants you to.The balls part is right, though.

I like the fact that if I ever get sick and cannot make medical decisions for me that my wife will be the one responsible.I like the fact that we share our estate, she is the person I would want to have control over our children's savings and future if something happened to me.I like the fact that we can generally share fiscal and legal responsibilities for things.It just just part of our culture. So what if some of the more melodramatic aspects of it aren't to your liking? They are to other people's liking and that is reason enough. We threw a bitchin' party to celebrate our commitment to one another. Took a nice vacation together. The most important thing about that day though wasn't the approval of a God, or a State, or other people, it was the promise we made to each other to stay together until the end.Some people decide to not make that commitment or to break it at some point. I hope that doesn't happen to us because I am happy.SO how about you have your NOT-Marriage and I have my Marriage, and we all just celebrate having freedom and choices in this life and time.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Most states already have these on the books, if you qualify under their statutes as Married by Common Law. One party can file for divorce by attesting to the qualifications of the Common Law Marriage. The action then enters into standard divorce proceedings.Short term relationships do not qualify nor does cohabitation unless it has gone on for some period of years.Regardless, if you were the man going in you will most probably be a whimp comming out since you will have lost your balls. See Onifre above.

I feel kind of the minority here. I like my marriage. I would always make the decision to marry my wife.I cannot tell anyone what the "point" is to it in there lives, but I know there are many valid "points" for it in my life.If any of you got married because you felt social pressure to do it, maybe you need to reexamine your life.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

No, actually only 11 states plus D.C. recognize common law marriages. 26 states have repealed their common law statutes and 13 never had it. In those states that have it, all require either an expressed intent to marry, an agreement to marry, or a holding out of one another as spouses to the community. Thus, as long as someone makes it clear that they have no intent to marry and doesn't refer to the other person as their spouse, there will be no common law marriage in any state in the U.S.{AbE} In addition, length of cohabitation is a factor in only one state, New Hampshire. The length of cohabitation required is only 3 years.Edited by subbie, : As noted

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

You mean to tell me 11 is not most of 50?I'll have to check but I'm thinking your math may be correct.This is what I get for missing my Sesame Street tapes.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. Here is my general response.Of course, I recognise everyone on this site is intelligent enough not to get into marriage for the wrong reasons! If it makes 2 people (or more ) happy to be classified as married, that should ultimately be their free choice.But I think it is wrong for any individual or society to push people into getting married, or to in any way symbolise it as some kind of ultimate personal attainment.And people definitely do get pressurised into getting married. Being pressurised into getting married does not necessarily mean being told directly that you must marry your girlfriend/boyfriend. It is an intrinsic part of our society. Marriage is usually a pre-fabricated, one-size-fits-all legal agreement. It is not something each couple has devised on their own initiative.Where does the pressure come from? Are not most little girls are brought up to dream of their wedding day? Are not most young women made by their mother or their friends to fear being left on the shelf? Are not most single adults at some point made to feel that they are incomplete as a person unless they have someone hanging on their arm? (Ever been told you’ve been invited to a dinner party because they’ve managed to match you up with someone else? Gee, thanks!)Like religion, it’s just one generation mindlessly indoctrinating the next.There is something fundamentally wrong with the way so many young adults (some of them not even deemed old enough to vote) are herded into signing a legal agreement that will affect them for the rest of their lives, often without any proper explanation of what it means. At the moment, it is just far too easy to get married.There has to be something wrong with the fact that people usually only get professional advice on marriage, whether it is from counsellors or lawyers, after they have got married and when they are unhappy. That’s too late. If society considers marriage so important, they should give them all the advice they might ever need before they sign up to it. I would even go as far as to suggest prospective married couples should really have to prove they understand what they’re getting into before they’re allowed to get married.

Are there any of your criticisms that wouldn't equally apply to driving a car?1. Implicit pressure from society to drive
2. Intrinsic part of our society
3. One size fits all agreement/certification
4. Little kids dreaming of the day they will grow up to drive
5. Adults who don't drive made to feel like they are incompletePerhaps not an exact fit but my point is that you are targetting a cultural phenomenon just for being a cultural phenomenon without too much meat as to why it is necessarily a negative thing. This is a totally fallacious comparison when creationists accuse evolution of being a religion as it is now that you are doing it to accuse marriage of being a religion. Its bogus.Why can't you just be content with saying, "I don't like marriage because..." rather than your broad generalizations and mischaracterizations?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Learning how to resist peer pressure should be part of growing up.Marriage should be a rational decision, not an emotional decision. Of course there are emotional issues involved. But the decision to marry should be made based on reason, and not made as a spur of the moment thing based on emotions. Good point. Buying and driving a car should also be rational decisions, not emotional decisions.

If you added "...into a river with the doors locked" then I might agree with your analogy.To be fair, I guess in many parts of America there may be more a social and economic pressure on people to drive cars than here in Europe. But getting a driving licence does not legally and emotionally bind you up anything like a marriage licence/certificate does. I am talking from personal experience of friends and aquaintances who have got married at a young age and it has later become apparent that they made a bad decision and really hadn't even considered that they had an option not to get married. It was just considered the "done thing" after you left school. The "negative" consequences are depression, anxiety, virtual bankrupcy and even violence. I don't really understand what you mean here. I didn't say marriage was a religion. I was comparing the way people are indoctrinated into accepting marriage in a similar way to being indoctrinated into accepting religion (i.e. without having the freedom to apply objective thinking to what it is all about). It's not so much that I don't like marriage. It's that I don't like the way people are expected to get married, the way they are pressed into it with little or no advice or discussion about what it really means. I think I've made that quite clear.The comments I made in my OP about not wanting to join in the celebrations of someone else's wedding were somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But there was a serious point that the ceremony itself tends to put added pressure on others to get married. Just as one obvious example, there is the tradition of the bride throwing her bouquet to be caught by one of the bridesmaids. The "lucky" one who catches it is then supposed to be the next one to get married. That's supposed to be something every bridesmaid hopes for. But hang on. Has she even met anyone with whom she wishes to share her life? Will she ever do so? That may be a frivolous example, but it is just one of many added pressures on people to get married, to set marriage as a target, without even considering the consequences.It seems to me that "marriage" is heralded the most important thing, and the person to whom you get married is a secondary consideration. That is arse-about-face in my book. Marriage shouldn't even be contemplated unless you have met someone with whom you wish to devote your life. Sadly, I don't think that's the way it's usually regarded.

So people where ignorant and made bad choices that turned out to have consequences is who's fault now? The "potentially negative" consequences are those things. They just so happen to be the exact same potential consequences of being in a whole host of other relationships apart from marriage. These also happen to be the same potential consquences of having a crappy job at a prison, or any infinite number of things you could imagine that are either bad personal choices for a particular individual. And it is still just as fallacious no matter how much you reword it. There is no religion of Marriage is a Good Thing, there is only an established cultural phenomenon. By your definition of religion, driving a car in the US would be a religion. Participating in a democracy would be a religion. So why don't you retarget your criticism to point at the fact that people generally don't think for themselves? There I think you will find much more agreement. Why is it significant when people choose not to assert their individuality with respect to the organization of their personal relationships versus anything else that people do ignorantly every day? Frivolous is right! I have been to a number of weddings where a great many single maids asserted their independence by not participating in that little tradition. At my sisters wedding, She had to throw the dang thing 3 times before anyone would even try to catch it. Your criticism continues to be over generalizing and shall I say, frivolous.And the worst part is: This is just about the most rediculous thing I have heard you say so far. The person to whom you get married is a primary consideration or WTF do you think they would be doing getting married? Just because bad things happen later is of no importance to the in-the-moment decisions that people make to get married. I am sure you can find some cases where someone would be willing to get married just for the sake of it but to claim that this is any way measurable against the vast majority of cases that do take WHO they marry into consideration is total crap.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

One place, and one place only: Say Yes to the Dress on TLC.

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"My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J.B.S Haldane 1892-1964