Why do many people still get married in 2025 ??

[joseline]

marriage is literally tying yourself to somebody else and signing a contract to live and share a bed with someone who is not guaranteed to have your back in any circumstances.

my parents have been married for decades before divorcing and she always expresses to me that she wished she divorced sooner.

here are some example of their interactions. Sometimes my mom would nag over nothing. About things that aren’t a big deal. Something stupid like not closing the toilet bowl, forgetting to then off the heater or the cars wheels slightly touching the grass and she would nag about it and it would cause my dad to fly off the handle. Whenever they could get into big arguments it would get Nasty. My dad would throw the most hurtful words at us and would even throw stuff. And then silent treatment for days. And afterwards there would be no apology.

they gradually go back to interacting normally as if nothing happened. This was a pattern. Not a rare occurrence.

they are now divorced. And in my family in general there is either been divorces or my aunt would talk about the times their husbands cheated or
even gave them STDs.

it baffles me that many women still chose to get married. And even more shocking. They choose to get married to the most jacked up dude possible that has the type of hands that could kill you if they smacked you. No weapons needed.

why do many of you still choose marriage ?

In my case -

I didn't want to have sex before marriage for religious and moral reasons.

I wanted children and didn't want to have them out of wedlock because of the same religious and moral reasons, plus the financial security as I gave up my job when I had them.

For fun and love.

We're still happy so far, after 7 years. I'm much happier than before I was married.

Ah op I’m sorry you’ve been let down. People get married because they want to be tied to someone for life- they want to chat to them nightly, have the other person’s back and the person have their back. They want to grow old with them x I think people now want a perfect existence and forget to think of each other, compromise, talk things out etc. I think a lot of it is men but not all

It gives you financial protection. It’s more than just a piece of paper. For example the scenario below:

Have a child with someone you're not married to.
Live together for 15 yr. You've sacrificed your career and he’s thriving in his because you’re looking after his kids.
Because he’s earning more, he stashed more into his pension pot and savings plan. So he’s doing very well for himself.
Because you’re not earning, or earning less, the house is in his name.

Then he decides he doesn’t want to be with you anymore because he fancies his new work colleague.

He tells you it’s over. He doesn’t have to share his assets with you and you’re stuffed. He keeps his house, pension and savings and you have to rent somewhere for you and the kids. He just has to pay child maintenance.

Marriage would mean you'd get at least half of the marginal assets … pension, savings, property and be in a better position to start again. Protection for you and the children.

Not all marriages are like that, nobody is the same and no two couples are alike.

This isn't a thread about condemning marriage to the history books, it's about hating men.

I'm sorry your view on marriage is so dark. Marriage is equal parts women and men, which is where equality between the sexes comes from, but don't think that every marriage is doomed to failure because a large portion of society appear to be unfit to match at least the first time round.

Yanbu OP. The daughter of a long abusive marriage, nothing would induce me to marry. I am capable of loving the very bones of a man without tying myself legally to him, because in the end you never really know a person or what they will do, no matter how much you think that you do. If he loved me he would stay without having a 50% claim on my child's home or my pension fund.

I have never and will never need a man as a meal ticket, so marriage has no relevance for me in the modern age.

For lower earning women who need to partner up to afford a home, perhaps it is more understandable, but not for me.

Strip all emotion out of it, OP - it's about legal and financial protection.

Im sorry that’s been your experience but it’s clearly coloured your view.

many people have very positive and happy experiences of marriage and your description of what marriage ‘literally is’ I don’t recognise at all in my experience

I love being married and many of my friends and relatives have happy and successful marriages too.

I love being married. I’ve been with my DH for nearly 3 decades. We married once we’d been together around 8 or 9 years. Got together in uni.

I married someone with the same values as me. So whilst we bicker and sometime drive each other up the wall with our irritating habits, we never have serious arguments. We have the same attitudes to money, parenting, kids, travel, lifestyle etc.

What I love most is having that partnership. Someone who knows me inside and out. Knows all my secrets, my quirks, what stressed me out, what calms me down, what I find fun, what I find dull. And vice versa.

We also have the same view about marriage and our vows. That it is till death us do part. I know that we will never divorce. He does too. So if we are ever struggling, we need to sort it out because we are not divorcing. There is a massive security in knowing that you have that.

In the situations you described OP, how would it have been different if your parents were just cohabiting together rather than being married?

if your father was so volatile and potentially dangerous, surely he would have been the same even if they were not married and she tried to leave?

Goodness me‼️ why do people NOT get married is a better question. Society was a lot better when people
got married and then had families and parents both had the same surname and the children.

There is a massive security in knowing that you have that.

There is an equal security in knowing no husband will sleep with a colleague, suddenly demand we sell our home so he can take half, and decimate the money saved over a decade for ds' university fees.

The same surname but some people (male and female) were ground down by decades of misery and abuse.

You have extremely odd values if you think a shared surname is more important.

I think it should be just one lifestyle choice among many, as should having kids. There are happy marriages, and there are happy families, but I would guess it’s roughly a third happy, two-thirds unhappy. 44% of marriages end in divorce, and of the remaining 56% probably half are miserable but sticking it out for financial reasons, or because of the children. A few of my own experiences:

• Mum and dad. Relatively happy, but that’s because my mother was a people pleaser and put up with dad’s negativity, anger issues, anti-social behaviour, controlling behaviour, etc.
• Paternal grandparents. Hellish marriage, screamed at one another for hours on end. She was a miserable, selfish little woman who should never have married, and neither of them should have had kids. They seemed to get no pleasure from their children at all.
• Maternal grandparents. Also hellish marriage. Grandfather angry and controlling. He broke my grandmother’s mind and she ended up on pills.
• Sister. Happily married, but that’s because they don’t have kids.
• Best friend. Unhappily married but loves being a mum. They are sticking it out for the kids and get along OK.
• Cousin. Married for 30 years with two sons. Seemed happy but the marriage just collapsed. Lots of bitterness. (Big shock that one.)
• Other cousin. Married twice, both times a disaster. Swears he will never live with a partner again.
• Uncle. Married 40 years, but a very bad husband - lazy and selfish, often cheated on his wife. She stayed because she had zero self-esteem and felt she deserved no better.

We weren't going to bother but DH was given a terminal diagnosis and being married made everything easier both during and after his death.

But that’s just your opinion. The fact that you haven’t experienced true love doesn’t mean others haven’t or never will.

What I’ve noticed is that many people are in love with the idea of a wedding, but not with the reality of what marriage actually requires. You know, the whole “for better or worse, through thick and thin” part? A lot of people simply won’t stick around, married or not. These days it often comes down to a lack of morals, commitment, and respect more than anything else - that goes to both man and women.

Your question is more about relationships than marriage OP. It's not easy to untie yourself from cohabitation either, and that's what most of us would be doing if we didn't marry.

A partner can be violent if you want to end the relationship whether married or not. And they can use the legal system to get at you if you have joint property or children- it's not the divorce part that's legally difficult in a messy divorce. There are also legal and financial implications to marriage that many of us find preferable to those of cohabiting.

What do you think women should do instead?

That's a pretty spiteful and unnecessary comment.

Of all the things that are actually important about marriage, you pick a surname tradition that's relatively new in the history of the institution, and that many of the societies where marriage is most important don't even engage in!

The same surname was just a part of what I said. And not all marriages are plagued with decades of abuse, just some. The same happens in families where no one is married, in fact, I’d guess it’s more common. Abuse isn’t tied to wedding rings. But I appreciate your comment x

I love DH to bits and him, me. We’re in our mid 50’s and have taken early retirement and are enjoying spending much more time together. My parents and DH’s parents are in their 80’s and still happily married. Life is good

My marriage is happy and I have no regrets after 30 year together, no desire to get out of it, marriage was the best thing I could have done across a range of metrics although ultimately I did for love. I don't know anyone who is divorced either, I know people who know people who are divorced but I don't know anyone personally who is divorced.

Oh you dear sweet summer child @joseline.

I have lost count of how many OPs there are bewailing their fate because they didn't get married, had 2 kids, reduced their hours for childcare, and are now up shit creek because their relationship has ended, it turns out they were never on the house deeds, they are entitled to nothing and have no prospect of being able to restart their career having been part time with minimal complex profession responsibilities for the last 10 years (due to complex domestic responsibilities), plus they have hardly any pension due to the reduced hours so will be in poverty in retirement too.

Marriage ties together two people's financial prosperity - if one thrives both thrive, if one is sunk both are sunk. This creates stability and confidence within which it is safe to downshift your career for childrearing. It is frankly idiotic to downshift your career for childrearing without a marriage certificate and a lot of people do want to procreate so there is definitely still a role for marriage. It's totally fine not to marry if you're going to remain in full time employment and will never take more of the flack for childhood illnesses and family emergencies than your DP does, and all costs are completely fairly apportioned, but that's not how most couples do it. Marriage is also a quite convenient way to declare your partner to be your legal next-of-kin for various purposes as well as the default inheritor if you suddenly drop dead so if you trust them to be the right decisions for you in the event that you are incapacitated more than you trust your parents it's a lot easier to sort that out with a £100 registry office marriage certificate than it is to create the same legal benefits through other means.