My girlfriend and I have been together for several years. We're happy. We're not religious at all. I don't see why we have to declare our relationship commitment to the government. Beyond that, our incomes are similar and after some research it looks as if we would pay more in taxes if we were married. Plus, my girlfriend has substantial student loan debt and is on the public service loan forgiveness track. Her monthly payments are based on her income. If we were married my income would be considered and her payments would go up significantly. So... marriage?
The concept isn't hard to get your head around. Businesses draw up similar contracts all the time. You're just expressing a formal mutual accountability. It enables one partner to "safely" make sacrifices (or exploit time preference).
If you don't want to be accountable to each other in a formal way, by all means, keep your relationship informal.
Marriage has privledges it grants that you may find necessary when you least expect. Medical responsibility is one of them. You don't have a say in their medical treatment if they are unconscious or otherwise unable to make judgements.
I understand not wanting the religious part, and I understand reviewing the cons of marriage and rejecting it, but making it about the 'government knowing' is the least of the problem really.
> but making it about the 'government knowing' is the least of the problem really.
In the case of divorce that actually becomes very important. You now have a judge from the government who is making life decisions for you and your family. Source: grew up in a divorced household.
As long as you file your taxes separately, you can get married and still have the public service loan payments be based only on her income. (though I think it depends on what kind of payment plan you're on)
As someone who lived abroad for 6+ years then returned to my home country happily married I want to give out this advice: if living/working abroad from your home country and having your partner with you is an important part of your life plan - get married now. This includes couples who have the same citizenship but might go abroad for work/travel for an extensive period of time. While many countries have domestic partnerships, and other forms of legal "pair-hood" you could also theoretically use, it's often not recognized across country lines and many times can slow down and really complicate paperwork because foreign jurisdictions don't understand the law in other countries. Without it your ability to get travel/resident/work documents in foreign countries together can spiral out of control or not happen at all. Then you would have to choose between your life goal, dream job, or significant other.
This is one of those things many people I've spoken with never considered or knew about (why would you!) until it was too late and -- had they been "married" for 2/3/5 years or some threshold, everything would've been a cakewalk.
Canadian immigration gave us hell because we could only prove the relationship existed for 11 months and 3 weeks (gotta be able to prove 1 year).
In the end we were saved by online pizza receipts and amazon orders that proved we were living in the same place at the same time for a while. Delayed the application for months though. Should have just put a ring on it earlier, even if a pro-forma sign-at-the-courthouse thing.
As an unmarried Young Adult (in the Netherlands) myself I can give my 2 cents about why I wouldn't get married; I've simply taken to heart the advice nearly every senior developer would give me; Don't EVER get married.
That is very weird advice. I've been a software developer since the mid-1990s, when I was a teenager, got married at 21, had two kids, started several companies, sold some of them, and getting married is easily the single best decision I ever made.
I would like to gingerly suggest that this is a subject for which you might not want to sole-source your advice from software developers. We are an odd lot.
Perhaps software developers in the Netherlands have geographically-clustered attitudes about marriage that more closely resemble those of Dutch adults generally (or maybe Dutch academics or trades-workers specifically), than software developers generally.
This is actually a topic that has received a lot of investigation. It's true that men who marry differ, before marriage, from men who don't. But it also seems to be true that marriage has a strong causal effect on male behavior.
There are a lot of instances where long married men lose their wives then die very soon afterwards. When there's a correlation of something with longevity and removing the something is soon followed by death, then there's good reason to believe the causation theory.
True for both partners -- usually after one dies the elderly widow/widower tend to have ~5 years or less.
Some of that is just timing, like if the average age of death per the actuary tables is like 79, and your spouse dies at 80, you're statistically going fairly soon as well.
As far as I recall, there were studies showing some causal effect in the behavioral difference of how early things like cancer were diagnosed.
In essence, the average man living with a female partner would get a "nuisance" investigated, diagnosed with cancer, and (sometimes) treated; while the average single man sought treatment only when the condition was truly disturbing, and by that time it's too late to treat the cancer.
Hahaha me too! Since getting married and because of the kind of mental support I got, I quadrupeled my income, travelled the world, got two kids, got boat licensed (together with wife), got ham radio licensed, got a degree, taking flying lessons now (together with wife), start Krav Maga soon (together with wife), start riding motorcycles (together, of course), train playing the piano again, lost 15 kilos (despite the cooking we do), learned a new language (fluent now).
And it is really attributable to this strong relationship. Because I get an A/B-test once a year, when my wife visits her home country for some weeks: I get the lazy guy I was before, not achieving much, despite having lots of time.
What marriage brings to me is the very long-term view. As far as I can see, I know with whom I will be together and we make plans. I meam, how can you raise even kids without being quite sure that you stick together? Marriage is the very official promise that you try your really best. It is not needed if you feel uncomfortable with it. But for me, very personally, I feel it really helps.
Well, it was Persian, the language of my wife. I learned it from books and by talking to her and the family. It is my fourth language. But we are also learning spanish now (courses in form of books), but it is too early to really mention it now.
Whoah, hold on. This is very relevant to my interests. I'm in Chicago and the next big thing I want to do is learn Farsi (my wife is taking Japanese classes, which is not very relevant to my interests, so I can't really do it with her). Is there a particular set of books you'd recommend?
I'm actually hoping to find some place to take classes.
Your plan is awesome! The language is pure logic and terseness (all those who want „gender neutral“ language, here you are, there is no article at all, you really have to ask „is this person male or female“).
I am a German native and there are some good books for Germans that I studied with.
Yet, there are some excellent English resources! First, in order to learn to write (and much more if you want to), there is the excellent site www.easypersian.com. which offers 180+ lessons for free I learned to write there (took me two days). Then, there is „Complete Persian“ as a good textbook in English. I remember my first private language teacher I hired used this and it was really good.
I'm not sure how much of it is _because_ of my marriage, but I definitely don't have a ton of free time. Those have been pretty well spread over the whole adventure and we were actually on WIC/foodstamps when we had our first kid.
Keep in mind that unhappily married or divorced people are the ones who are more likely to say something about it. I'm happily married. I don't really mention it, and I'm sure others in a similar situation do the same.
Marriage is hard, so is starting a company. But both are worth it and incredibly rewarding; you learn a lot and you experience things in married life that you can't in any other way. There is something about the lifelong commitment which changes things, and that is amazing to me.
If I knew what I knew now, from my own relationship after being married for 20 years, and observation of friends, I would not have got married. People can drift apart. Situations change. Health problems get between you. What can remain is obligation and legal difficulty for a lot of people and nothing more. And in some countries, such as the UK where I live, this is a massive problem because the law is predatory and unfair towards one or both parties. This is an inescapable risk as well.
I am extremely lucky with the respect that we are extremely good friends, but we go our own ways now and cross paths to look after our children together and share our advantage of working together to go forwards in life.
We are still bound by law however which makes it difficult to be independent once tied if you need to be and is also a situation which is expensive and difficult to change.
And the only reason we got married was it was seen as the done thing and a lot of peer pressure from the last generation. I've learned to think about things as calculated risks and not take advice from my parents now.
> the law is predatory and unfair towards one or both parties.
When I got divorced 20 years ago some of my friends thought it was unfair that my ex took $20k (of $40k) out of savings, packed her stuff and left. When I tell that to men my age they're like HFS!!! fist bump
Another fiend got divorces, wife got full custody, child support and alimony. The take was so much he and his two kids had to move back into his mom's two bedroom house.
Friend of mines after she married her husband quit his job and started playing video games full time. Spoonged off her for ten years till she divorce him. And so now he's legally sponging off her using his partial custody as a lever.
Currently I have a GF who's been unemployed for a year. Sort of typical in her industry. If we were married we'd be hosed because health insurance would cost me another $800/month.
That aside, problem with the law is the law can't cover the myriad of ways people can get screwed over in relationships. My take is don't get married it either allows the other person to screw you or gives others the ability to screw you.
I am 27 and I've been with my current partner for almost 3 years and we've semi-lived together most of that time. She's currently still at university so we spend weekends and holidays together. Her parents are divorced and mine are married but miserable, also neither of us has any religious drive to get married (I'm pagan and shes agnostic). We agreed early on that neither of us wants to get married or have kids but we plan on spending our lives together.
I'm 22, not religious (escaped religion, actually), and I live with my partner. We're a bit over one year having lived together and I would say we're very happy.
We have both decided to not discuss marriage until we're 26. We both know that people change and we want to make sure we both have our independence and our early 20s.
I don’t think it would really make sense. Marriage places obligations on partners that should make it “safe” for the other partner (and children) to depend on them financially if necessary. Many people don’t want to take on those legal and financial obligations. You can remove the obligations, but then why bother with the whole marriage thing at all?
Women make more money and effective birth control has reduced the financial risks of sex. Women have less reason to demand the financial protection of marriage and so men don’t have to supply it.
It would need to be as easy as starting or quitting a job. There also couldn't be pre-conditions around it such as a limit of two people, prohibitions on same-sex marriage, and bans on "adultery."
You are describing an arrangement totally unlike marriage. If you want termination-at-will, don't get married! If there is some social pressure to get married when you don't want to, that pressure is wrong; you should only get married when you're sure it's the right thing to do.
On the other hand, at least in the US, there are huge numbers of people who fought for decades just to have the right to enter into the arrangement we're pretending needs to be fundamentally re-thought.
The idea is to get some of the government benefits of marriage without the overhead, i.e. the ability to make medical decisions and potentially lower tax rates depending on income situations.
Past generations of my family were prohibited from marriage because of race. It took a lot of rethinking of what marriage was for them to be granted those rights, ditto for LGBT people who just got those rights a few years ago in the US. There's still no reason why the current definition of marriage is the right definition.
Can't you arrange to make medical decisions for each other without being married? Isn't that what an MPOA does? I'm not sure what tax benefits you're looking at but I believe we pay for the right to be married.
From a formal perspective, considering marriage as a (very old) legal and economic arrangement, and stripping it down to its essence (without any of the bullshit about it being a means to bring children into the world or express Judeo-Christian values), marriage is about durable interdependency. You agree to combine assets and opportunities, in order to maximize those opportunities jointly and to bear the costs of misfortune together.
Define marriage as an "at-will" arrangement dispenses with durability. A person in a transient marriage can't reasonably put their spouse through medical school, or help them start a company --- or, for that matter, raise children --- without an onerous set of additional contractual arrangements that would asymptotically approach what marriage already is.
Again: it's totally reasonable to want a long-term at-will relationship, and to seek one out. You don't have to get married.
Men and women would have to actually need each other for the contract to make sense.
But, the toothpaste is out of the tube. I don't feel the need to get married because anything a wife can do, I can do with appliances and without breaking a sweat. Anything else can be supplemented by services. House dirty? My robot vacuum picks up a lot of the slack, and if I don't want to do the rest on my own, I can schedule a maid service. If I don't cook my own meals, GrubHub can be my personal chef. Something broken? Need some tough work done? There's apps that will hail handy-people for you. It doesn't end there; there's a plethora of engaging entertainment you can engage with and you don't even have to leave your home. This situation is salient to both men and women.
I think marriage will continue to decline no matter what, but one thing that might make it somewhat more appealing is if western culture could do away with the needless expenses around the tradition and the ceremony. The amount spent on a mere ring is absurd(honestly wtf is going on here), but people want these crazy weddings where 3 parties, the couple, the wife's parents, and the husband's parents have to chip in. The dress has to be expensive, the venue has to be expensive and booked way in advance, the catering is expensive, etc. And I'm supposed to want all of this? Good grief.
If it was not a disappointment that people have modest weddings, perhaps a few more people might get married? Eh, I don't really know about that.
By the way, I'm in no way complaining. There was a time not that long ago when even men who weren't married by a certain age had a stigma against them. In some ways that stigma still exists, but it's largely been defanged as companies today are perfectly willing to hire men who don't have families.
I don't feel the need to get married because anything a wife can do, I can do with appliances and without breaking a sweat.
It's more about sharing your life with someone than getting chores done.
one thing that might make it somewhat more appealing is if western culture could do away with the needless expenses around the tradition and the ceremony...If it was not a disappointment that people have modest weddings, perhaps a few more people might get married?
It used to be that only rich people spent $8k-$80k on a wedding. Most of the time in the US, it happened in the living room or in the local church, and the reception was in the backyard. Today's weddings are a fabrication of the wedding industrial complex. They're rich people's affairs sold to the common person as a necessity, much like the diamond engagement ring. Spending the equivalent of today's $300 all told on a wedding used to be the norm. The ceremony and the gathering of friends and community can be wonderful, even magic. I think the money and glitz get in the way.
I've been in some bands that would get hired for weddings, and the most beautiful weddings I've been at were DIY affairs done at home on the cheap, but with sincere feelings and meaning. My own wedding was pulled off on the low end of the price scale. We hired a waterside Chinese restaurant, got good fuss-free catering, and got the day-of coordinator and linens for free. I hired musicians I knew and we went and got orchids from a nursery and bought our own drinks from Costco.
The most beautiful wedding I've been to was a quaker wedding held in the back yard, completely DIY. Barely nothing more than a circle of chairs and home made decorations.
> It's more about sharing your life with someone than getting chores done.
I agree, but it's also about those things as well and has been since time immemorial. When those things go away, is it surprising when people settle for relationships over the complexities of marriage?
> I've been in some bands that would get hired for weddings, and the most beautiful weddings I've been at were DIY affairs done at home on the cheap, but with sincere feelings and meaning. My own wedding was pulled off on the low end of the price scale. We hired a waterside Chinese restaurant, got good fuss-free catering, and got the day-of coordinator and linens for free. I hired musicians I knew and we went and got orchids from a nursery and bought our own drinks from Costco.
I think you're arguing in your first and second paragraphs against relationships, not marriage. The question is why marriage is declining within relationships.
Your third paragraph partially addresses that, but I disagree: effectively nobody is having weddings beyond their means, or feeling required by society to do so. Plenty of people have modest weddings, you just don't hear about them, because fewer people are invited to a small wedding than a big one, so there are fewer people who have been to a small wedding than a big one.
There are just some really rich people (or averagely-rich people with really rich extended families) who pay to have fancy weddings because they can.
Yes, my arguments can apply to relationships, but they especially apply to marriage as the contract, both socially and legally, implies set of expectations. When those roles have been removed, why go through all the trouble? Relationships can still make sense in the face of role-obsolescence as people who don't need each other can still "Netflix n' chill." People can even cohabitate and serve no other purpose to each other besides non-platonic companionship. So at that point, why potentially ruin an already good thing?
> effectively nobody is having weddings beyond their means, or feeling required by society to do so
Our experiences differ significantly in that area. Even when it's within their means, it takes them a considerable amount of work to get there. For many, the outcome isn't worth the amount of effort.
Society isn't requiring people to get married, but that doesn't mean that people aren't subject to cultural expectations and peer pressure. As a perpetually single person, I am regularly asked by people whether I've "met that special woman yet." A person who gives more shits than I do would likely feel that they really ought to find that other person and "settle down", if you will. Society doesn't need requirements for people to do things in order to conform.
> There are just some really rich people (or averagely-rich people with really rich extended families) who pay to have fancy weddings because they can.
If there are no children involved, none of the current onerous obligations and financial ruin should apply.
The government should not be able to intervene and ruin one persons life by making one party an economic slave to the other.
The gov't should not be able to be so asinine as to say something like "ability to pay does not affect obligation to pay" -- in other words when a (typically father) gets laid off or makes much less money, they will not lower his support payments to be in line with his new pay. This is how we get working, homeless men living in vans -- some of whom later kill themselves.
(People have always had sex outside of marriage. If anything, the current generation is doing it with honest communication, rather than going behind their partner's back.)
this is horrible...the eroding of the morals/values of America...jk I'm an ex-mormon now agnostic... who cares if two people live together, who cares if lgbt's get married...live and let love...
To paraphrase someone else, marriage has, historically, been a pretty atrocious institution for women. Maybe as women as a class become educated and conscious of history, there is now an ambient awareness of this.
