A big part is diminishing religiosity. There is little point in getting married if you aren’t religious. Thanks to progress made by LGBT couples, most of the legal benefits of marriage are shared by domestic partnerships. Traditionalists on the left and the right make a big deal of this, but it is of negligible factual importance.
I don’t think most people who get married do it for religious reasons or even to start a family in the US anymore. People do it since they see it a formal a commitment and want to announce their love in public.
That only covers one angle, if people do it for religious reasons, not if they don’t do it because of religion. I’m not getting married, and the religious connotations of even a secular wedding is a significant chunk of why.
There’s also a million legal reasons to get married… If there weren’t, same sex marriage would probably have never made it to the Supreme Court. Everything from insurance coverage, employment benefits, credit rating, child custody, transfer of property following death, medical decisions, and a bunch of other very secular, very important benefits are conferred via legal marriage.
Is there any way to adapt this better for polyamorous people? I have poly friends that got around it by choosing a primary partner and marrying them, but that seems like a bad solution in the long term.
I don’t think that is going to be happening for a long time. It took decades for gays and lesbians. The marrying of a primary partner is the best solution so far.
A big part is diminishing religiosity. There is little point in getting married if you aren’t religious. Thanks to progress made by LGBT couples, most of the legal benefits of marriage are shared by domestic partnerships. Traditionalists on the left and the right make a big deal of this, but it is of negligible factual importance.
I don’t think most people who get married do it for religious reasons or even to start a family in the US anymore. People do it since they see it a formal a commitment and want to announce their love in public.
That only covers one angle, if people do it for religious reasons, not if they don’t do it because of religion. I’m not getting married, and the religious connotations of even a secular wedding is a significant chunk of why.
There’s also a million legal reasons to get married… If there weren’t, same sex marriage would probably have never made it to the Supreme Court. Everything from insurance coverage, employment benefits, credit rating, child custody, transfer of property following death, medical decisions, and a bunch of other very secular, very important benefits are conferred via legal marriage.
Is there any way to adapt this better for polyamorous people? I have poly friends that got around it by choosing a primary partner and marrying them, but that seems like a bad solution in the long term.
I don’t think that is going to be happening for a long time. It took decades for gays and lesbians. The marrying of a primary partner is the best solution so far.
I’m pretty sure it’s pretty clear that the slight increase in domestic partnerships over marriage does not shore up the declining marriage rates.