EDIT: Thanks for taking the time to give thoughtful responses, btw.
I found some common ground...
Quote:
Marriage is a religious institution, it always has been. I don't understand and will never understand why non-religious people get married. It's a meaningless term to you that is nothing but a government document.
Maybe we can somewhat agree on part of this. I don't understand why the government is involved in marriage
at all. For me, marriage is between the two individuals, and (if applicable) their god/religion/etc. Not sure why our government needs to document it, or regulate it, or be involved in any way.
I have a hard time understanding why you can't understand why non-religious people get married. If you listed out all the reasons you chose to marry your spouse, I can only assume that many of those reasons have nothing to do with religion, and have a lot to do with who you are, what you enjoy about each other, compatibility, sexual stuff, what you think you can accomplish together versus apart, etc.
You're correct to point out that marriage is historically a religious arrangement/ceremony/etc. For us, the ceremony itself was just a formality based on tradition. It was as simple as that. We got together with all our closest friends and family, got all fancy, made public promises to each other, and threw the most expensive 'party' we'll ever throw, because that's just what people do when they get married.
I am physically attracted to my wife. I am intellectually attracted to my wife. I am emotionally attracted to my wife. I enjoy sex with my wife. I enjoy spending time with my wife. I enjoy working as a team with my wife. I enjoy problem solving with my wife. I enjoy helping other people with my wife. I have compatibility in all of these ways with her, that I didn't have with any other potential mates. Together, our "team" is a bigger and better thing than the sum of our individual parts. We love each other, and saw immense value in combining our lives rather than the alternative.
THAT is why us non-religious people got married.
The idea that you are trying to impress that the *only* reason to get married is because your religion said so is either absolute insanity, or you actually shared a lot of the same reasons we did, you just added religious reasons to that list, but for the purposes of this debate, you just leave all the other non-religious reasons out.
I'm not saying nobody has ever gotten married for tax purposes, but when I even try to fathom that concept, all I can come up with would be uber wealthy people, or people trying to exploit a loophole in some immigration policy. The non-religious 'normal' people you see out in public at the grocery store, and the water park, and restaurants, and football games, etc. put zero thought into taxation when they decided to get married. None of us could tell you how our tax liabilities changed when we got married if our lives depended on it. No freaking clue. Because it wasn't a factor.