Why Marriage Benefits No One But the System
Follow the incentives. Who profits when you sign?
Institutions persist because they serve someone. It is worth asking who marriage serves, and in what order.
The State
Marriage is administratively convenient. It creates a default legal unit for taxation, inheritance, immigration, medical decision-making and benefit entitlement. Without it, each of those relationships would have to be established individually — which is precisely what unmarried couples do, at some cost and effort.
That convenience is real, and it is mutual. But note the direction: the state built a container, and made the container the path of least resistance.
The Wedding Industry
Over $100 billion annually in the US alone, against an average spend of $34,000 per couple. This industry does not merely serve demand for weddings; it manufactures the standard against which weddings are judged, then sells compliance with it.
The Legal Industry
The same institution generates a second market on the way out. Family law attorneys average around $343 an hour. Roughly 41% of first marriages, 60–67% of second marriages and up to 73% of third marriages end in divorce. Every one of those is billable.
One transaction, two industries, and a state that gets a tidy legal unit either way.
Where That Leaves the Couple
The couple receives a bundle: legal defaults, social approval, and a ceremony. Some of the bundle is genuinely valuable. The problem is that it is sold as indivisible, when almost every component can be obtained separately:
- Next-of-kin and medical decisions: healthcare proxy and power of attorney.
- Inheritance: a will, and beneficiary designations.
- Property: joint ownership with an agreed structure.
- Children: parental rights established directly.
- Commitment: not a legal product at all.
Assemble those deliberately and you get most of what marriage provides, with terms you chose and an exit that does not require a judge. Some benefits — certain tax treatments, immigration status, some survivor benefits — genuinely require the licence. Those are real, and they are the honest case for signing.
The Point
Not that marriage is a conspiracy. That it is a product, with a price, sold by parties with an interest in the sale. Treat it accordingly: read the terms, price the downside, and buy it only if the specific benefits apply to you.
Anything you would not sign without reading, do not sign because everyone is watching.