Benefits of State Marriage

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moda0306
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Benefits of State Marriage

Post by moda0306 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 4:33 pm

I've been doing an analysis lately on the benefits/costs of being married in the eyes of the state. Before I produce some of my "findings," I'd love to hear what people have to say here. A few notes:

1) For now, let's keep the topic cleared of the complications of an eventual divorce. That's an interesting additional rabbit-hole to be sure, but could go one of a billion ways (including some nasty debates or diatribes). I'd like to start out with just the marriage piece. Pretend we know the couple will live happily-ever-after. :)

2) Obviously we all live in different states, but there is a ton of overlap. Let's focus on the biggest and most important aspects first... the financial & legal-rights implications of state marriage.

3) I'm NOT talking about questioning marriage in the eyes of God or even really holding yourself out as married to your friends and family. I'm SPECIFICALLY talking about the state contract. If you believe they're all one in the same, or it's a fraud to try to peel that aspect out, I'd say "humor me please?" and not get into a debate of whether God approves of marriages without the state or whether you are lying to your family if you say you are married when you are "not" in a state marriage contract.

4) I am NOT talking about a debate about polygamy, monogomy, polyamory, etc. I'm talking about if someone finds the person they want to spend forever with, what are the benefits of simply getting that on paper with the state. No need to make this a debate about HOW you engage in your relationships or whether to have them or whatever. SIMPLY... the benefits of state-marriage.


I've come to the conclusion is that for at least 30%-40% of people who do want to "marry" someone, state-marriage is probably a bad idea (as in, worse than not getting married, but taking relatively easy steps to mitigate risks that you usually want to do anyway to some degree or another).

I'd love to hear what people think here first, but I'll return later with my "analysis."
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Kriegsspiel » Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:36 pm

Your spouse can't be forced to testify against you, right?
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by farjean2 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:40 pm

I've been in two state-sanctioned marriages under the conditions you described, i.e., reasonably happily married with divorce not really being in the equation. My first marriage only ended with the death of my spouse.

So I'll be interested to see your cost/benefit analysis when you share it with us. As for now, I can't see what the disadvantages would be.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by farjean2 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:42 pm

Kriegsspiel wrote:Your spouse can't be forced to testify against you, right?
Okay, that's one I never thought of. I'm sure there are more. But how many people who enter into state sanctioned marriage really think about that benefit? Maybe if you are involved in organized crime or something.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by stuper1 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:08 pm

Here's the main benefit that comes to my mind: stability of the marriage, because both parties are assured that the other party is willing to enter into the contract with all the rights and obligations thereto pertaining, and with all the penalties involved should one party decide to terminate the agreement.

Not sure if my response meets all of the criteria you stipulated, but that's what springs to my mind.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Hal » Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:11 pm

This link is from an Ex- Marine detailing the Marriage Contract and its issues

DO NOT listen if you cannot tolerate bad/rough language, however his description of a "State Marriage Contract" is very concise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pCHZuErZCM

Is it true what he states about Marriage Laws in the U.S.A. ?
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Kriegsspiel » Tue Oct 24, 2017 8:00 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Hal wrote:This link is from an Ex- Marine detailing the Marriage Contract and its issues

DO NOT listen if you cannot tolerate bad/rough language, however his description of a "State Marriage Contract" is very concise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pCHZuErZCM

Is it true what he states about Marriage Laws in the U.S.A. ?
Yep.

All of the laws regarding marriage and kids are heavily skewed to the benefit of women.
Except that testifying one, since us men do all the criming.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Libertarian666 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:21 pm

MangoMan wrote:Warning: This post is a bit cynical and probably counter to the beliefs of most of you, but needs to be said, IMHO.

I think I am one of the few divorced regular posters here with the possible exception of Libertarian666, who IIRC, has happily remarried.
Correct.
MangoMan wrote: So I will ask you why you feel you need the sanction of the state of MN to make your love official? You can live together, have children together, pretty much do anything married people do with a few exceptions: you can't file a joint tax return [which as an accountant, you know may or may not be a good thing depending on the disparities of your individual incomes] and you may not be able to go on your partner's health insurance if their employer requires marriage instead of cohabitation. Big deal.

To channel Sheldon Cooper, a [preferably written] 'roommate agreement' would be helpful whether or not you make it legal. Include a parenting agreement if you want to have kids, specifying who will do what, and in the event of divorce [yeah, yeah, happily ever after], what happens to your assets and your kids.

All but the most cynical go into their marriage believing in happily ever after, but with divorce rates approaching 70%, large unhappiness rates in the remaining 30%, and infidelity pandemic in the western world, if you get married without an ironclad enforceable pre-nup you are being naive at best, and dangerously foolish at worst. Ask me how I know. And if you don't believe me, consult a good family-law attorney and ask their opinion.
A pre-nup will do you absolutely no good in cases of child support, which is the biggest racket outside of war.

See http://realworlddivorce.com/ for plenty of detail.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by eufo » Tue Oct 24, 2017 9:47 pm

Hal wrote:This link is from an Ex- Marine detailing the Marriage Contract and its issues

DO NOT listen if you cannot tolerate bad/rough language, however his description of a "State Marriage Contract" is very concise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pCHZuErZCM

Is it true what he states about Marriage Laws in the U.S.A. ?
I kind of hate how this resonates with me, but it's interesting... and some good points made.
Don't agree with me too strongly or I'm going to change my mind
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by europeanwizard » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:49 am

I'm from Europe (The Netherlands), and the culture around marriage is definitely different. About half of my friends and acquaintances get married, the other half lives together. Of those who married, they often took their time; half of those married after their first or second child.

There are financial benefits here. You don't need to have a will, all stuff automatically goes to the surviving partner. For a couple of hundred euros, that can be taken care of. If you have a pension, it will be left to the surviving partner as well. There is currently no way to get that advantage outside of marriage for Dutch people. There are no other benefits here, that I know of. We don't have a "marriage tax" nor any specific advantages (outside of alimony, which in more than 90% of all cases goes to women).

If you add everything up, there is not a lot of financial reason to marry and for a man, it's a very bad idea -- you would never invest against such odds.

But then again, there are intangible benefits. And I fully respect people making that choice consciously. I don't have any respect for suckers who get pushed into marriage by society, though. But I was young once too, and made idiot decisions as well, so there :)
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Hal » Thu Oct 26, 2017 5:17 am

moda0306 wrote:I've been doing an analysis lately on the benefits/costs of being married in the eyes of the state. Before I produce some of my "findings," I'd love to hear what people have to say here.
Hi Moda,

Don't forget to come back and enlighten us on your findings! Maybe some others have some more input as well.

I was actually surprised the "state" deems you to be married if you live with someone for two years in Australia.
So depending on where you reside, you may not have a choice of being married or not. Live with someone and you are "married".
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Maddy » Thu Oct 26, 2017 7:55 am

MangoMan wrote: All of the laws regarding marriage and kids are heavily skewed to the benefit of women.
Absolutely true. So here's the $500 question. Knowing this (and what man could possibly NOT know this by now), why do men so willingly enter into this situation?
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by europeanwizard » Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:00 am

Maddy wrote: Absolutely true. So here's the $500 question. Knowing this (and what man could possibly NOT know this by now), why do men so willingly enter into this situation?
I think it's because changing this requires a prenup. This is not the default situation. People are often unwilling to change the default. This has been a huge area of research:
https://qz.com/1098078/behavioral-econo ... -yourself/
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by moda0306 » Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:17 am

Hal wrote:
moda0306 wrote:I've been doing an analysis lately on the benefits/costs of being married in the eyes of the state. Before I produce some of my "findings," I'd love to hear what people have to say here.
Hi Moda,

Don't forget to come back and enlighten us on your findings! Maybe some others have some more input as well.

I was actually surprised the "state" deems you to be married if you live with someone for two years in Australia.
So depending on where you reside, you may not have a choice of being married or not. Live with someone and you are "married".
Oh I will... I'm just swamped a bit. Probably hit you guys up tonight or tomorrow night. Although with Stranger Things Season 2 coming onto Netflix tomorrow night, no promises. :)
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Libertarian666 » Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:46 am

Maddy wrote:
MangoMan wrote: All of the laws regarding marriage and kids are heavily skewed to the benefit of women.
Absolutely true. So here's the $500 question. Knowing this (and what man could possibly NOT know this by now), why do men so willingly enter into this situation?
Most men don't believe it until it happens to them.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by moda0306 » Thu Oct 26, 2017 9:07 am

Libertarian666 wrote:
Maddy wrote:
MangoMan wrote: All of the laws regarding marriage and kids are heavily skewed to the benefit of women.
Absolutely true. So here's the $500 question. Knowing this (and what man could possibly NOT know this by now), why do men so willingly enter into this situation?
Most men don't believe it until it happens to them.
People go through the motions and do what people around them do, especially where legal/tax/financial insecurities meet social expectations. It's as simple as that. Shouldn't be a surprise at all at this point. We're like that flock of birds that oddly moves in random unison. We are not nearly as free-thinking as we would like to think. What I don't like (exemplified by that video that was posted) is the rampant MRA insecurity and conspiracy theorism that goes along with questioning the institution of state marriage. The only sources I've been able to find online on this topic are interesting to list as there is simply a DEARTH of analysis on this stuff:

1) Insecure MRA blowhard victimologists who sound like Alex Jones (not useful to me in the least unless I divorce a battle-axe, and even then it's not analysis... usually just complaining)
2) Religious folks who resent the government getting into their business (modestly useful)
3) Pre-gay-marriage analysis on how to recreate the most important aspects of the legal structure of marriage on your own. (Boom)
4) Tax Foundation calculator that helps me see when people who are married benefit from taxes being MFJ vs Single or HoH/Single (if you have kids).
5) Some self0analysis of phase-outs and tax-tactics and other tactics that can limit tax costs, stack deductions, firewall assets, establish cheap legal solutions, optimize SS income, etc.

My "conclusion" on marriage contracts is that people take the handful of potential benefits (often not that great as I'll show), and blow them way out of proportion, yet forego huge opportunities at much more cheaply and more reliably securing similar or better benefits by simply doing a few simple things intentionally in an organized manner on your own.

But usually it's not even that intentional. It's people wanting to respect the social and other personal aspects of a promise to share your life with another person, and simply seeing the state as an absolutely legitimate and inseparable part of that. It's simply PART of being married. Anything else is analogous trying to own a home without recording it with the county!!
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Michellebell » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:33 pm

I think that the benefits are more about life satisfaction than financial benefits. I found this link though which shows the overall financial benefit to society (rather than the individual) when more people get married before having children. http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-ine ... ld-poverty

I know that if my husband were unwilling to marry me, I probably would have moved onto someone else who was willing to commit. I imagine that my husband is better off because of that. We have a nice family now and although we have our ups and downs, we are committed to each other. Sometimes he drives me crazy (seriously!) but we both honor our promise and won't tear apart our family over our troubles that come and go. I think that couples who don't marry have a much easier time splitting. As bad as this sounds, sometimes I really want to leave my husband but then I think, "Do I really want to go through the hassle of hiring a lawyer?" and I decide that I should try to work out our problems. Of course there's other factors too, like our well-being of our children if we divorced and if I would truly be happier single or with someone else, but in those moments, the lawyer thought is one of the first things that pops in my mind.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Mountaineer » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:56 pm

Michellebell wrote:I think that the benefits are more about life satisfaction than financial benefits. I found this link though which shows the overall financial benefit to society (rather than the individual) when more people get married before having children. http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-ine ... ld-poverty

I know that if my husband were unwilling to marry me, I probably would have moved onto someone else who was willing to commit. I imagine that my husband is better off because of that. We have a nice family now and although we have our ups and downs, we are committed to each other. Sometimes he drives me crazy (seriously!) but we both honor our promise and won't tear apart our family over our troubles that come and go. I think that couples who don't marry have a much easier time splitting. As bad as this sounds, sometimes I really want to leave my husband but then I think, "Do I really want to go through the hassle of hiring a lawyer?" and I decide that I should try to work out our problems. Of course there's other factors too, like our well-being of our children if we divorced and if I would truly be happier single or with someone else, but in those moments, the lawyer thought is one of the first things that pops in my mind.
In my opinion, you nailed it. The key word is commitment - to God (if Christian or members of other religious groups who highly value the marriage commitment), to each other, to your children and their future, to your families, and to the laws in place wherever you reside. The financial aspects are, in my opinion, trivial in comparison to the above factors.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Hal » Fri Oct 27, 2017 4:15 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Michellebell wrote:I think that the benefits are more about life satisfaction than financial benefits. I found this link though which shows the overall financial benefit to society (rather than the individual) when more people get married before having children. http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-ine ... ld-poverty

I know that if my husband were unwilling to marry me, I probably would have moved onto someone else who was willing to commit. I imagine that my husband is better off because of that. We have a nice family now and although we have our ups and downs, we are committed to each other. Sometimes he drives me crazy (seriously!) but we both honor our promise and won't tear apart our family over our troubles that come and go. I think that couples who don't marry have a much easier time splitting. As bad as this sounds, sometimes I really want to leave my husband but then I think, "Do I really want to go through the hassle of hiring a lawyer?" and I decide that I should try to work out our problems. Of course there's other factors too, like our well-being of our children if we divorced and if I would truly be happier single or with someone else, but in those moments, the lawyer thought is one of the first things that pops in my mind.
In my opinion, you nailed it. The key word is commitment - to God (if Christian or members of other religious groups who highly value the marriage commitment), to each other, to your children and their future, to your families, and to the laws in place wherever you reside. The financial aspects are, in my opinion, trivial in comparison to the above factors.
+1

In my opinion, you are correct. Every "Truly" religious family I have known has had a happy marriage. (with the normal ups and downs). The values and commitment outweigh the material belongings.

When I was a child, some actions I saw in elderly couples leave me amazed in today's world.
A lady, shortly after getting married, had her husband get crippled. Looked after him for years until he died. And ran a farm by herself - this was using draft horses, not tractors. She died childless in her 90's rather than abandon her husband.
And when I asked her about this, the answer was simply "I made an oath for better or worse, sickness or health......."

So, in summing up, yes I believe Michellebelle and Mountaineer are correct, but so is the Marine who did that video mentioned earlier.
The state has no place in Marriage, it is a contract between husband and wife (and God if religious).

And if they have different values, it is better not to get married.

King James Bible
It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman

I believe that Marine thinks that honourable people are so rare, its not worth looking anymore, so just go your own way

King James Bible
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

And I am not even super religious, just remember what my mother taught me as a child!!
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by moda0306 » Fri Oct 27, 2017 4:21 pm

Not to be a stickler, but if one were to believe one could have a fully committed and religiously recognized marriage without the state contract being involved, then I see no reason why your statements (Mountaineer and Hal) has to have anything to do with the state.

Of course, if you thought a healthy, committed marriage and the state contract were inseparable, I guess your points would be valid.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Michellebell » Fri Oct 27, 2017 6:46 pm

The legal involvement is a part of the symbolism of getting married. A name is changed. You are legally part of the same family now. Even amongst the religious, people vary in how God-centered they are. Society views marriage as a commitment that at the very least is very difficult and painful to end. I do agree that religion helps married couples stay together, definitely. In my case though, my husband and I were both atheists when we got married. I ended up years later doing a bunch of soul-searching and eventually, quite recently, became a Christian. My husband is still a nonbeliever.

Regardless of my atheism though at the time, getting married was a tradition that was very important to me when I was twenty-one. I did not want to date a man who wasn't looking to get married. And for both of us still, the commitment we made for each other was one we didn't want to break.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Michellebell » Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:13 pm

I will say though that I agree that there is a big problem with society's views today on marriage. When a lot of people get married, I don't think they really mean, "In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health." Rather they mean, they'll stay together for as long as it's fun or fulfilling for them. I also agree that in general, the courts favor the women, and statistics show that women file for divorce much more than men.

For me at this moment in time, it's been pretty tough for me to get along with my husband this past year. It's like I do a 180 with regards to my feelings every few days. We are both exhausted with four little ones and jobs. Very often, at least one of us is really crabby, our house is always messy, and our children demand so much right now that we have very little time for each other. But we also understand that this is temporary, and we are both very forgiving of one another, so I feel confident that we will be fine.

When my son grows up, I think he would be happiest if he takes the risk and gets married. He's only two years old right now so of course I'm just hoping.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by moda0306 » Mon Oct 30, 2017 8:49 am

I will put up my "analysis" tonight, but for now I'd like to quick hit on the "forced commitment" aspect of the marriage contract. I find this "burning the ships" effect to be an interesting one of human-nature... that is, that there is some benefit to giving yourself no easy outs for the purposes of increasing commitment to the shared outcome.

I find this to be a questionable analysis (I think it would be similarly easy to argue that the "rigidity" of a marriage contract can have equally damaging effects to how some engage in their relationship (similar to how Harry Browne discussed the topic (interestingly, he did eventually get married, so perhaps that isn't the best examble)).

But even if I accepted that there's certain benefits to putting some "commitment rigidity" around one's shared life with another, I guess I'd have to say I think it would be healthiest to do it in the most intentional and simultaneously beneficial way possible, and if a state marriage is anywhere near the top of that list. For instance, I don't know how many people I meet who are grossly under-insured, lie to their spouse, have little/no financial accountability mechanisms between them and their spouse, don't reconcile their priorities well, and don't have any of the actual GOOD legal documents (PoA, medical directive, living trust (possibly), ToD deed on home, etc) that involve MORE intentionalism than a marriage contract, but the upside/downside is significantly better.

Simply put, state marriage contracts are a random "commitment-ensuring" rigidity that people seem to want to use as an excuse to not do any sort of intentional risk-management planning that offer far better "ROI" in terms of the actual benefits. And really, how much commitment do they really ensure? They don't prevent a spouse from cheating. They don't prevent financial or emotional abuse. They don't ensure respect in a relationship (in-fact they allow abuse (emotional or physical) to have much more delayed and difficult response mechanisms. They don't ensure financial security, and in some ways make it more difficult to accomplish.

It just seems to me until people actually get intentional about the rest of this stuff, they have NO business creating an artificial loyalty mechanism via rigid contracts that become an expensive nightmare to detangle. If your relationship needs the latter and doesn't receive the former, it's a sloppy one. If it has the former, IMO, it doesn't need the latter. You've already set the table for a healthy relationship. It would be like starting a business with a partner you have a decent level of respect for, but getting a complex and incredibly difficult to disengage from partnership contract when you barely understand business fundamentals.

But I haven't really explored the "cost/benefit" analysis yet (not trying to be lazy), nor the "alternatives" that one can engage in planning-wise to ensure a far-more secure scenario than being married (unless, of course, you find yourself in a position where your spouse is being asked to testify against you in a criminal matter). :)

But seriously, if people have other examples of situations where the legal status of being married comes with some stark financial/legal/lifestyle benefits over simply being committed spouses in every other way minus the contract, I'd love to find more. I've tried to find them online, but I've found that the arguments are very, very weak when I scratch the surface a bit. The "tax" benefit alone, I would guess, applies to at-most 50% of the population, just as an example... and often it is a cost, not a benefit... and large-ones at that.

The biggest one I can think of is the ability to have visitation and family leave rights during a health crisis... God-forbid you actually see the wrong side of that. But I'm half-confident that one could simply have a medical directive and a very solid life/disability insurance safety-net (two things you should have anyway)to get you out of that one. If some of the healthcare or legal professionals here could lend their insight on the visitation/medical-directive piece, that would be great, because that alone could tip the scales for a lot of people who've been through a nasty family health event.
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by Mountaineer » Mon Oct 30, 2017 9:23 am

moda0306 wrote:I will put up my "analysis" tonight, but for now I'd like to quick hit on the "forced commitment" aspect of the marriage contract. I find this "burning the ships" effect to be an interesting one of human-nature... that is, that there is some benefit to giving yourself no easy outs for the purposes of increasing commitment to the shared outcome.

I find this to be a questionable analysis (I think it would be similarly easy to argue that the "rigidity" of a marriage contract can have equally damaging effects to how some engage in their relationship (similar to how Harry Browne discussed the topic (interestingly, he did eventually get married, so perhaps that isn't the best examble)).

But even if I accepted that there's certain benefits to putting some "commitment rigidity" around one's shared life with another, I guess I'd have to say I think it would be healthiest to do it in the most intentional and simultaneously beneficial way possible, and if a state marriage is anywhere near the top of that list. For instance, I don't know how many people I meet who are grossly under-insured, lie to their spouse, have little/no financial accountability mechanisms between them and their spouse, don't reconcile their priorities well, and don't have any of the actual GOOD legal documents (PoA, medical directive, living trust (possibly), ToD deed on home, etc) that involve MORE intentionalism than a marriage contract, but the upside/downside is significantly better.

Simply put, state marriage contracts are a random "commitment-ensuring" rigidity that people seem to want to use as an excuse to not do any sort of intentional risk-management planning that offer far better "ROI" in terms of the actual benefits. And really, how much commitment do they really ensure? They don't prevent a spouse from cheating. They don't prevent financial or emotional abuse. They don't ensure respect in a relationship (in-fact they allow abuse (emotional or physical) to have much more delayed and difficult response mechanisms. They don't ensure financial security, and in some ways make it more difficult to accomplish.

It just seems to me until people actually get intentional about the rest of this stuff, they have NO business creating an artificial loyalty mechanism via rigid contracts that become an expensive nightmare to detangle. If your relationship needs the latter and doesn't receive the former, it's a sloppy one. If it has the former, IMO, it doesn't need the latter. You've already set the table for a healthy relationship. It would be like starting a business with a partner you have a decent level of respect for, but getting a complex and incredibly difficult to disengage from partnership contract when you barely understand business fundamentals.

But I haven't really explored the "cost/benefit" analysis yet (not trying to be lazy), nor the "alternatives" that one can engage in planning-wise to ensure a far-more secure scenario than being married (unless, of course, you find yourself in a position where your spouse is being asked to testify against you in a criminal matter). :)

But seriously, if people have other examples of situations where the legal status of being married comes with some stark financial/legal/lifestyle benefits over simply being committed spouses in every other way minus the contract, I'd love to find more. I've tried to find them online, but I've found that the arguments are very, very weak when I scratch the surface a bit. The "tax" benefit alone, I would guess, applies to at-most 50% of the population, just as an example... and often it is a cost, not a benefit... and large-ones at that.

The biggest one I can think of is the ability to have visitation and family leave rights during a health crisis... God-forbid you actually see the wrong side of that. But I'm half-confident that one could simply have a medical directive and a very solid life/disability insurance safety-net (two things you should have anyway)to get you out of that one. If some of the healthcare or legal professionals here could lend their insight on the visitation/medical-directive piece, that would be great, because that alone could tip the scales for a lot of people who've been through a nasty family health event.
Re. "forced committment". This is only me and my wife, but we have never viewed marriage as a forced committment. We would use the adjective 'voluntary' to modify committment and not 'forced'. Another way of saying that is we run 'to' our committment as opposed to 'away from' committment during the rocky times. We would further say that marriage is not a 50%-50% deal, it is a 100%-100% lifetime of being willing to see the others' point of view and talk about it until acceptable solutions are reached. It is caring more about the other than ourself. We also have The external source of truth to guide us; when one bases a marriage on only internal feelings ...... well, that is why society in my opinion is so screwed up (as measured by divorce rates, cohabitation rates, and a vicious cycle of breeding the next generation with little long-lasting stability and love of the other to learn from). YMMV
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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moda0306
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Re: Benefits of State Marriage

Post by moda0306 » Mon Oct 30, 2017 10:42 am

I think we should be clear on what is symbolic of commitment vs what is actual commitment. Also, can many of those symbols exist without the actual legal marriage contract.

I think most of the symbols are non-legal (ceremony, rings, even name-changes are mostly symbolic and can be done outside of the marriage contract), and most of the best legal commitments (in terms of their actual affect on your spouse's security at cost to you as an individual) aren't achieved by the contract itself, but getting yourself legally and financially squared away via insurance and legal planning, as well as proper tax and lifestyle planning and reconciling priorities with one another in a healthy way.

I think legal marriage is just a social conformity thing and not wanting to be viewed as an "other." I know people wouldn't describe their motivations that way, but we humans are pretty useless at identifying our true motivations for action. Hell I'm probably rationalizing my analysis and am really motivated by the "gotcha" aspect of proving "society" wrong about how we go about doing certain things.
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