three4jump

While it is possible that marriage predates religion, I doubt you would have any way of knowing that, since religion goes back to the beginning of recorded history. If I'm wrong on this, please let me know. Regardless, what does that have to do with marriages today?

three4jump

Michael and cheetah, thanks for the information. I'll check out the link.

seebs

The claim that marriage is purely an outgrowth of some particular religion is clearly false; just about everyone invents this, although the details vary.

three4jump

Who claimed that marriage is purely an outgrowth of religion?

If I understand you correctly, it would seem that you have nothing to contribute to this particular thread except to point out that a certain claim is wrong even though no one made that claim? What do you want?

Bright Life

Another reason for marriage is to keep those outside the unit (family, gov't) from taking everything away when one of the two dies.

This is a serious problem in the GLBT community. There are a couple of sites out there to help with these sorts of problems, including:

http://familypact.com/

This is a site created by some friends of mine (including several bright attorneys) designed to provide marriage-like rights to those who have no legal right to marry. Of course, the legal documents could be used by hetero couples who simply choose not to marry

I have no financial interest in the site, BTW. Just a desire to see people treated fairly.

P.S. My hubby drew the picture!

PopeInTheWoods

I can think of some legal and tax purposes, not to mention the trivialities of loving someone and wanting to commit to sharing lives with them.

Andy

Claudia

Why do you need to marry to commit to share lives with them?

The reason I did marry was the huge difference in inheritance taxes (in France at least) when people are married or not. But I have around me plenty of examples of unmarried people with stable an happy families (wit up to 4 kids), strong commitment, and which are not married.

And before getting married, the commitment to sharing lifes was as strong as before. Marriage was a way to protect our beloved one, not a way to increase commitment. We decided to get a child before deciding to get married.

cheetah

Yeah, I think marriage as a romantic notion is pretty much just a product of advertising and marketing by the wedding business. It is purely symbolic, and if that symbolism means nothing to you (which, if you ignore the marketing, it probably will), there's no reason to marry.

Obviously, marriage as a legal institution is wholly different and has many differences from non-marriage.

Richard1366

I can't imagine what it would be like not being married.

43 years so far, my wife is both my lover and best friend, I'm anxiously looking forward to the next 43.

Borrowing a phrase, I can truly say that I love my wife now, more than yesterday, but certainly less than tomorrow.

cheetah

But would your relationship be different if you did not have that piece of paper? if you had never gone through that ceremony? I would hope that your relationship would be just as good, even if you never signed that piece of paper.