What are some tangible benefits of getting married?

[dragonrage]

For those of you that are married or planning to sometime in your life time, I was wondering if you could help me out with this.

Friday at work an interesting debate took place. Is there any real tangible benefit of getting married? There are emotional and well at a certain point in any relationship it comes to that set at one point in time.

But is there anything you can physically gain from getting married under normal circumstances ( excluding marriage for status and so on....)

Some of the reasons that came up were, taxes, property claim, insurances, health benefits and a few others. But all of them were easily shot down.

In the U.S.

Taxes: If you share bank accounts, interlinking credit lines and so forth you could file anyways.

Claim of property: If you are living together for more that seven years or so you can claim the right to each other's property.

Insurances and Health Benefits can be explained under similar reasoning.

So once again can you tell me are there any tangible reasons for someone to get married?

Edit: this debate was conducted by financial analysts and their peers.... Both married and unmarried. It was just something to kill time and well it was interesting as well.

[Death BOO Z]

adopting each other's kids, in case of accident..
for all that counts.

[dragonrage]

the other person could be declared legal guardian before hand.

edit: and well even if they were married but had kids by different parental partners, the biological parents have legal right in almost all cases.

[Assassin]

im gonna say no. people dont get married for purely physical reasons, cuz marriage doesn't offer anything that you can't get otherwise in a relationship. Its purely an emotional/philosohpical/mental thing.

[dragonrage]

Well it was obvious that that is mainly the reason why get married. But the discussion was about the tangible benefits of getting married. I mean what is the differences between living together and being married.

What are the tangible things that you gain from being married that you don't have when you're living together?

edit: This discussion was debated by both married and unmarried people and well the discussion ending/ faded out, without a reason being clearly pointed out.

[el_boss]

I would say no.

[DB_Hunter]

Marriage is a societal institution that's been around for ages. Its purpose is to be a component in regulating relationships between men and women. In Islam, it's just a legal contract that outlines the responsibilities the people in the relationship have to one another plus a few other bits. That said, I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that's what marriage for all faiths is supposed to be like.

Is there a benefit to getting married? I think they question should be, "Is there a benefit to getting married in this day and age?"

Well in the Western world not really. You can have the discussions like ones above about tax benefits etc but I don't think one of these arguments really outweighs the other. Since cohabiting without being married is an accepted norm there is no need for marriage.

It is interesting though how, in the UK anyway, there are some bits of legislation that were (maybe are, I'm not sure) being discussed as to how unmarried couples should have things such as inheritence rights and the custody of children defined under law.

Kind of ironic in my opinion that people are even considering regulating unmarried relationships after rebelling against the concept of marriage. You already have the concept of pre nuptials. Seems to be that people have simply changed religions.... That which we call a rose would by any other name still smell as sweet?

[dragonrage]

Well so far there haven't been any definitive point. But I guess there isn't any.

DB_hunter. Interesting statements. Also you should note that prenuptial agreements have expiry dates on them as well.

[gr3atfull]

Well....

Let say that there is this unmarried couple and they have a child. If the man leaves, he does not have to pay any child support. But, if they were married, he has to pay child support.

In conclusion : marriage forces the couple to be loyal to each other in a way (in my opinion). If one of the partner is disloyal and they weren't married, what can the other one do? Nothing. Marriage is a way to play it fair.

Hope that helps you.

[dragonrage]

nope, even if you aren't married you can make the other person pay child support, granted it might be harder but it is possible. Also faithfulness, loyalty, monogamy and other things like these aren't tangible nor are the guaranteed by marriage.

[Assassin]

which is exactly why i said no. There are many things that are harder to do if you're not married, but none that are completely impossible. Ofcourse, you could consider the ease with which such things can be accomplished a tangible benifit, but its kinda borderline.

[itadakimasu]

aside from secks everyday... and not having to cook for yourself everyday...tangible... is happiness tangible? oh.. i have it, she can buy me anime