What do you think is the purpose of marriage ?

[JennyTals]

Just saw this on a bbc archives and thought I’d ask for some modern upto date ideas ?

But your marriage isn't mine, your purpose in life isn't mine

Likewise, BaronessEllarawrosaurus.

For us it was to show commitment to each other and to provide a secure foundation for each other and our children.

I don't really think that standing before God nor all your friends and family is really important at all to be honest. It wasn't for us. We'd have been just as happy going to a registry office with a couple of witnesses just to get the legal side of it. We only had a traditional marriage to please our families! It meant nothing to us. For us it was ALL about the legalities and protections.

To create a family that can legally stay together in the same country.

There is no one, single purpose.

For me, it’s simply a symbol of our commitment to each other.

The purpose of marriage for me was make a public commitment to my (then boyfriend, now husband) that would be legitimised and recognised by our family and society. It was only after all the excitement had died down that I realised the importance and solemnity of the actual marriage vows. Which we have happily tried to live up to for the past 30 years. You can, of course, do it all via a solicitor, but that’s a lot less fun!

That’s likely to be due to the expectation that weddings need to cost £££££. In reality they don’t (ours was around £700 all in but it didn’t even need to be that much) but there is such a societal, and family expectation that everyone need to invite 100 guests and have a big dress etc. It’s depressing.

For DH and I marriage wasn’t about the wedding it was about the commitment to one another, the legal protection and creating a family unit.

We decided we loved each other enough to spend the rest of our lives together and we wanted to do that within a legal framework so we were both protected - far easier doing it through marriage. We also believed it was the most stable way to to bring up a family. We didn’t have a big wedding and we’ve just celebrated our 30 year anniversary by going back to the wee church we were married in and having lunch at the hotel together up the road by the loch - very low key again, but a lovely day. A lot of a marriage is down to luck - you change so much over the years and life can throw you some real curveballs.

I'm not married, though I've been with my partner for 21 years, we have one child together and I've just found out I'm pregnant with our second.

For me, marriage is a legal contract. It gives financial protection, means that the state recognises your partnership in a way it otherwise wouldn't, and it sets out the responsibilities of the couple to support each other. Like any other legal contract, it can be broken. It isn't any more or less special than any other legal contract.

Since having a child, we are now thinking of getting married/getting a civil partnership, purely so that our relationship is legally recognised if one of us were to die. We don't have a huge amount of assets but we own a house together and have some joint savings, and we also each have a small pension. I think being married would make things simpler if we died (neither of us are particularly legally/financially savvy, so getting legally married/partnered seems the easiest way to sort things).

I think historically it was steeped in patriarchy (being 'given away' by your father, for example, rape within marriage being legal, etc), but I think this is lessening as time goes on - at least in some cultures. I'm still more drawn to a civil partnership for this reason though; I can't separate marriage with the historical practice/application of it in my head, and the idea of being a 'wife' makes me feel uneasy.

For me personally it's a bureaucratic process to make life easier for me and DP in certain situations.

Beyond that it means absolutely nothing to me. If there was a similarly easy, one-stop way to ensure the same protections, I'd take that.

I'm a little embarrassed about being married because I see it as a very regressive, patriarchal institution that I'd rather not engage with. But it does makes life easier.

“It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.”

From the Book of Common prayer marriage service. Sums it up perfectly.

I was quite anti-marriage until I came here, and saw so many women explaining that without it. having children with a partner and compromising your career to do that makes you very vulnerable.

When children are involved, marriage gives women protection and you should be suspicious of any man who doesn’t want to offer that protection.

Indeed. I know a couple who were together forty years but never married. The man has just died and the woman has to pay inheritance tax!