If you are referring to tax incentives, then in the US it depends on the variance in income and children:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/16/upshot/marria...

High income couples are actually penalized, and even worse off once they have a child!

Does it? I'm about to get married in the UK and I cannot name a single break that we will get while married. I think you can transfer some of your tax-free allowance to your spouse, but only if one of you makes less than 10k/year, so with both of us working there is no benefit here.

It's slightly easier to get a large loan or mortgage as a married couple, but it's not exactly impossible if you just live together as partners.

The way I see it, it's an absolutely enormous expense with almost zero financial/economical benefit for us. I love my partner and want to get married because I think that's the right thing to do, but if I looked at it outside of the "romantic/traditional" angle, there is absolutely no reason to get married.

In the UK, the most important benefits are - sadly - to do with death. If you die intestate, then the presumption is that everything is left to your spouse. Similarly with your pension, a premature death would see the pension transfer automatically to the person you married. That's not always the case with partners.

You also benefit from spousal privilege, meaning you can't be compelled to testify against the other. Although, depending on your criminal inclinations, that may not be a strong reason to get married!

Wait a few more generations for Western birth rates to plummet and you'll start seeing more breaks. It feels good to know that even the most intimate aspects of your life are actually controlled by society through elected/selected governments.

Until the divorce, then men get wrecked financially most of the time, losing houses, half the money, forced to pay alimony.

Adding to that, the new generation more often than not grew up with divorced parents. This kind of sets the precedent in the young males mind that marriage is not good if it turns sour, and that the "in good as in bad times until death do us part" is just completely meaningless babble.

Looking at my friends there's a pattern, a man who loses his job long term becomes divorced quite quickly. So there's no added safety for the man and no economic incentive (or even a disincentive, not sure how bad it really looks for men losing everything in court).

You pay alimony only if you expected women to give up work for marriage.

In practice it's very difficult to prove you didn't. So even if she lost her job for unrelated causes or simply quit against your wishes, juries tend to concede alimony unless you make disproportionate efforts to produce proof.

You also pay off she says, "I don't want to work." Considering that it's illegal (as it should be) to force your spouse to work (or stay at home), your point is irrelevant.

It is relevant, because in majority of marriages in USA both partners work. Stay at home women, especially stay at home women without small child at home are minority among married women.

You all make it sound as if stay at home women was the norm, but it is not the case.

with enormous liabilities - http://www.realworlddivorce.com/

No tax breaks in the UK, haven’t been in a looooong time, with the sole exception of inheritance

Yep - if one of you doesn't work(or earns less than about 11k/year) - and only if the other partner earns less than 45k/year! - you get to take 230 quid off your tax bill. I wouldn't call it an "enormous significant break".

It might in the US. I haven't noticed any difference here in Sweden. The only practical differences involve inheritance and child custody in the event of my wife dying.