I don't actually know what changes LEGALLY when you become married.

I know that in Canada, if I file my taxes in conjunction with my boyfriend as common law or marriage dictates, we get less in our returns and don't qualify for the GST credit because our income is seen as one income, so that's a definite pitfall as we already don't make a lot of money.

I've heard (but haven't been able to find it written anywhere) that once married you can not be forced to testify against your spouse in court, which will probably never apply to us.

I think that if a spouse dies, the surviving partner is the beneficiary of things like RRSPs and pensions, but all of this could be arranged outside of marriage through a legal will, so I don't really see that as a valid reason to get married.

The fact that I could, at that time, choose to change my last name is of no consequence, aside from having to get all new identification and call numerous agencies and companies to change this information, which is annoying.

So I get to wear a pretty ring and introduce him as my husband. Other than that, I don't see that anything would change between us, really. Marriage for me is a social contract more than anything - making promises to each other with your community as witness, and then living so as to uphold those promises. It's about devotion. But do I really need it to be legally binding?

I can't think of anything else that changes legally once you are married. Does anyone know what good legal reasons there are to get married?