where I currently live, a lot of
people don't bother getting officially married. You can find people who have been living for decades with their "Partners" and nobody really cares. They have children together, buy houses, do everything, but didn't go to the church or registrar to sign the marriage certificate. that brings up a more basic question: what is marriage anyway? If you're religious then you "must" get married because God orders it. But if you're not, then marriage is something you do for convenience. In Israel there's a problem with the children's legal/religious status if they're born to unmarried parents, and there's sometimes social pressure to get it formally done. But since divorce is so common and living together is so common too, why should anyone get married anyway? It's not as if the certificate is going to present any barrier to your partner if he/she wants to end the relationship or cheat on you or whatever. Personally, I married my partner when I was 26. after one year of living together, and we've been married for over five years, happy as can be. why did I do that? No special reason. we did not plan on having children at that point, we had no mortgage papers to sign and our parents didn't put any pressure. We just felt "yeah, let's get married, it's the right thing to do right now" and we did. End of story. Actually, that's not the end of the story: when we reached our five-year point, I had to propose again. She said she'll consider it, and said "yes" a few days later. I'll do it all over again in five years' time, because that's how we like our relationship. If marriage is a contract, it should be a proper contract, with exit points and renew options and the possibility of negotiating terms according to changing circumstances. Signing your life away at 22 is dumb; signing a five-year contract is, I find, a very good idea.
