All the single gamers, all the single gamers.

[Bradtemple87]

You have to be careful if you get married in California, the woman gets half your shit if you break it off!

[Gamerforlife]

You have to be careful if you get married in California, the woman gets half your shit if you break it off!

I have to say though, I am much less cynical about marriage now than I once was. I believe those posters who have posted saying marriage can be a wonderful thing, but it certainly isn't for everyone. Based on my own personal observations over the years, marriage can either be the most wonderful thing in your life or the most horrible thing that will ever happen to you

I've never seen anything in between

[J T]

Inazuma, I agree with much of the logic of your views on marriage, but I believe you give too little credit to marriage as a cultural phenomenon. It's nothing magical, but it is a bit more than a piece of paper with legal obligations. Marriage has a long history behind it. It means something to the culture around you when you say you are married-- it presumes a degree of seriousness about your relationship, aside from the legal rights to hospital visitations, joint tax filing, etc. Your relationship gets treated more seriously by others when you say you're married. I agree that it shouldn't be that way, but it is that way.

Marriage also means something within the relationship. Now, of course, it is possible for two people to be in a seriously committed relationship where neither believes marriage is necessary. However, plenty of people grow up with the idea of marriage being the ultimate expression of commitment. Many girls, and to a probably lesser extent boys, grow up imagining what their wedding will be like, what their spouse will be like, and imagine how they will fit into that cultural archetype of the married couple. If one of the people in the relationship has spent a significant amount of time in their life planning for that moment, it doesn't really matter to them that it's just a piece of paper. They still want to carry on that tradition. Their friends and family probably push for it too. And all of those negative consequences of divorce serve a function of showing faith in your commitment to the marriage that you would wager half of what you own.

Whether it should be this way or not, the fact is that marriage is a much cherished social construction and it gives your relationship a fair amount of cultural clout that you would have to work harder to achieve without a ring on your finger. This is why many queer people are not willing to settle for civil unions over same sex marriage. Marriage is cultural currency, for better or worse (no pun intended).

[Hatta]

Given the divorce rates, it would be irresponsible to enter a marriage without planning for an exit. Even if you're absolutely certain that "it could never happen to me."

There are some real tangible legal benefits to getting married, but there really shouldn't be. People's personal relationships are none of the governments business. If people really want to enter into some sort of binding legal agreement, we have contract law for that. As a bonus, it's entirely faith/gender/age neutral, so no one has to recognize (e.g) a gay marriage if they don't want to. They'd just have to recognize valid contracts.

[Bradtemple87]

You have to be careful if you get married in California, the woman gets half your shit if you break it off!

"sign your W-2 and it says you fuck your husband"

[irixith]

This is why many queer people are not willing to settle for civil unions over same sex marriage.

Yes, you mentioned one of the absolute biggest issues already -- hospital visitation rights. If you're gay, your partner could die in the hospital while you scream in the waiting room to be let in to see them. Not up here in the great white north of course, where people (for the most part) have come to their senses, but god forbid you travel and be smacked with the backwards policy of a different country.

There are obviously two solutions to that problem -- legalize gay marriage across the board (hah! I know, right?), or strike down silly policies that hold marriage as the barrier to entry.

[MrPopo]

Given the divorce rates, it would be irresponsible to enter a marriage without planning for an exit. Even if you're absolutely certain that "it could never happen to me."

The overall divorce rate is a bit misleading. It's very skewed towards young people getting divorced at a very high rate compared to those who marry a bit later in life.

http://www.divorcerate.org/

An interesting statistic is how your chance of divorce shoots up with each successive marriage.

[Limewater]

Given the divorce rates, it would be irresponsible to enter a marriage without planning for an exit. Even if you're absolutely certain that "it could never happen to me."

Many would argue that there is a causal relationship between expecting an exit or having an exit strategy and the occurrence of divorce.

There are some real tangible legal benefits to getting married, but there really shouldn't be. People's personal relationships are none of the governments business. If people really want to enter into some sort of binding legal agreement, we have contract law for that. As a bonus, it's entirely faith/gender/age neutral, so no one has to recognize (e.g) a gay marriage if they don't want to. They'd just have to recognize valid contracts.

I was about to write something similar. It's nice to agree, occasionally.

[Inazuma]

Inazuma, I agree with much of the logic of your views on marriage, but I believe you give too little credit to marriage as a cultural phenomenon. It's nothing magical, but it is a bit more than a piece of paper with legal obligations. Marriage has a long history behind it. It means something to the culture around you when you say you are married-- it presumes a degree of seriousness about your relationship, aside from the legal rights to hospital visitations, joint tax filing, etc. Your relationship gets treated more seriously by others when you say you're married. I agree that it shouldn't be that way, but it is that way.

Marriage also means something within the relationship. Now, of course, it is possible for two people to be in a seriously committed relationship where neither believes marriage is necessary. However, plenty of people grow up with the idea of marriage being the ultimate expression of commitment. Many girls, and to a probably lesser extent boys, grow up imagining what their wedding will be like, what their spouse will be like, and imagine how they will fit into that cultural archetype of the married couple. If one of the people in the relationship has spent a significant amount of time in their life planning for that moment, it doesn't really matter to them that it's just a piece of paper. They still want to carry on that tradition. Their friends and family probably push for it too. And all of those negative consequences of divorce serve a function of showing faith in your commitment to the marriage that you would wager half of what you own.

Whether it should be this way or not, the fact is that marriage is a much cherished social construction and it gives your relationship a fair amount of cultural clout that you would have to work harder to achieve without a ring on your finger. This is why many queer people are not willing to settle for civil unions over same sex marriage. Marriage is cultural currency, for better or worse (no pun intended).

Shoulda Coulda Woulda.

I agree that marriage shouldn't exist and people shouldn't try to fuck each other over and take half their money. People should be able to have great relationships without being married and have society approve of them. Boys and girls should be raised to make smart decisions.

I'm talking about our current reality. You are living in a fantasy land. If you want to make important life changing decisions based on how things should be, or could be, instead of how they actually are, then by all means be my guest. Here is an open toilet for you to flush half your money down. You seriously think it's worth losing half your money in order to get foolish people to think better of you? I think that's fucking pathetic, to be completely honest. You care more about what idiots think of you than your own happiness. (>_<)

[Limewater]

Here is an open toilet for you to flush half your money down. You seriously think it's worth losing half your money in order to get foolish people to think better of you?

There is a pretty glaring error in your argument here.