Why Get Married?

A few months ago I wrote about reasons that couples have for not getting married.  Sine then, I have received so many comments from people asking why anyone would want to get married that I figured it was time to delve into this question.  Many of these people cited the high divorce rate and the large number of couples they know who live together as a reason why they want nothing to do with marriage, so I knew that I had to gather some information beyond my own positive view of marriage to find out why people still get married these days.  I spoke to people of all ages who are married about why they decided to get married.  I also spoke to many singles who are open to marriage even though they have not yet found that special person yet.  I’ve made a list of the most common answers that I received to the question of “why get married?”

Religion & Expectations from Family-  These two reasons were so intertwined that I really didn’t think that I could separate them.  Some of the respondents felt that for their own religious beliefs that they needed to be married rather than living together.  There were at least as many responses that referred to the disapproval that would come from their family if they lived with someone and didn’t get married.  These people often referred to the religious beliefs of their parents and the strain that living with someone would put on their relationship between them and their parents.

Kids- A large number of respondents told me that they got married or plan on marrying because they want to have children.  I think that it’s great that people want to be married before having children, because having kids is an enormous responsibility that should not be taken lightly.  On the flip side, it did make me a little sad to hear that many of these same people seemed to feel that there wasn’t much reason to be married for couples that didn’t plan on having children.

Making the Commitment “Official”- Many of the women that responded felt that the love and commitment that were promised to them were just words if their man wasn’t willing to make it “official” by marrying them.  I found this one very interesting because not needing “a piece of paper” to make their relationship “official” was a big reason sited by many (mostly men) when I wrote about why long term couples weren’t considering marriage.  There definitely seems to be a gap between how men and women view the importance of making the “official commitment” of marriage.  In defense of the men, there were many who realized just how important the commitment of marriage is to most women and that they would be jeopardizing their relationship if they weren’t willing to marry their partner.

Legal Reasons- This is the least romantic of the reasons, but it was always mentioned along with at least one of the other reasons in the list.  Whether the mention was to have a financial claim or to be included in health benefits, if it involved paperwork the answers were lumped into this broad “legal” category.  With the way the economy is, it is not surprising that financial issues are so prominent in the thoughts of our respondents.

What Role Does Love Play?

As I started compiling this list, I realized how unromantic it all looked.  Even in the case a commitment, this word can easily be interpreted as negative as much as it can be viewed as positive.  Never fear, romance is not dead when it came to our respondents.  It seems that they were assuming that love was already part of the equation in why anyone would want to marry and they focused on reasons that went beyond love.  This attitude was clear in many of the responses that included wording like: “no matter how much love there is, marriage is important to me because…”

Actually, role of love in marriage was mentioned in reasons for not getting married as often as it was mentioned in reasons for getting married.  The main difference between the two groups was that those who wanted to marry felt that there needed to be reasons in addition to love and those that didn’t want to marry cited the fact that roughly half of all marriages fail despite the couples having been very much in love at the start.  As much as I love all things romantic, I do think that it is a positive step for people to look beyond love when it comes to reasons to get married.  While I think that it’s sad for anyone to feel discouraged about marriage because of the high divorce rate, I do think that it is important that couples don’t rush into marriage for the sole reason of love.

LuvemOrLeavem Advice Panel Video Series

Click on the videos below to view the panel’s answers to “Why Marriage?”