I mean... this is my issue. If there is truly a penalty to getting married as some have claimed on this board... then why would anyone do it? You can live together? The obvious answer has to be societal pressure and advantages economically and socially.

You can love someone without a marriage certificate, have children without a marriage certificate. The fact that anyone chooses the legal state of marriage when so many other "sacraments" are a total joke -- communion; last rights etc.. says all you need to know. You can argue the love argument all you want but love and marriage are mutually exclusive. The only reason anyone would support the legal state of marriage is that there is a societal advantage they want to get in on.

I take heart in that many of the millennials are not getting married. Frankly because they can't afford it but in light of that they are questioning the state at all.