Beyond the social convention that "it's the thing to do" at a certain point in a relationship, some reasons are:

- Marriage provides financial assurance for a spouse who will defer their career to raise children.

- Some friends and family (particularly those of the spouse) will absolutely treat you differently when you're married to someone versus in a long-term unmarried relationship.

- Depending on the jurisdiction, spouses have certain rights that unmarried partners do not, e.g. with regards to the legal system and hospital visitation. I know a couple that got married because one of them was an activist/journalist and frequently attended protests in which he was at risk of arrest.

- In some circumstances, it makes it easier to purchase a home together and make other large joint financial investments.

- Under some tax regimes, you pay lower taxes when married.

- U.S. citizens living abroad in a low-tax country with a foreign spouse can engage in advantageous tax planning.

- I believe in the UK (where I live) one has all of the legal and financial implications automatically when a relationship reaches a certain age (3 years I believe). Legally you would be treated the same way as if you were married.

- Friends and family; My family certainly feel this way, my wife's I'm not sure. I'm "mixed"-culture/race/etc so some of my family have different cultural views. My wife and I don't feel strongly either way about how our children deal with this when they grow up, so perhaps our (millenial) generation is changing the "social" side of it already?

- Legally I believe you have all of the rights you describe, however, it may be more difficult to prove the relationship without a piece of paper. We've had to present our marriage certificate for various things relating to our child(ren) for example.

- It _should_ have no effect on your ability to purchase a home in the UK

- There is a tax benefit for low income couples in the UK, but I believe our law doesn't specify "married".

- I don't know how any of this affects UK citizens abroad as I've never looked into it.

That's not true

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/how-to-sor...

The sibling comment mentions family visas, and indeed those are not restricted to your married partner, but separation is completely different matter

There's a myth about such a thing as a "common law marriage" existing, but that's just that: a myth

https://theconversation.com/common-law-marriage-a-myth-neari...

property on dissolving: https://www.ontario.ca/page/dividing-property-when-marriage-...

employment benefits must extend to common law partners: https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standa...

The myth aside, I don't think you have "no" rights, the first link says "fewer". It's really hard to prove something without an "official" document though so I understand how it could be more complicated.

I think that in many (most?) countries nowadays, marriage is already no more than just a legal status that offers those practical points, so I am not sure if anything needs to change.

You don't have to get a ceremony/ring/party, go at the church or whatever your culture/religion associates with the act of getting married.

You can just sign the contract privately, which makes you legally married.

Same for divorce, I believe it only gets complicated when you fight about children, money and assets, otherwise you can both just decide to stop the contract.

For friends and family, the older relatives on both sides I believe just assume we're married.

There is one difference, and that is in default treatment. If I died/was rendered otherwise incapable of communicating my desires, there is now an onus on my partner to prove that we are in the relationship she claims we are. That exists with marriage too except it's "solved" by a marriage certificate.

They also apply the same treatment to foreigners coming to the UK.

So if you've been living with your boyfriend for long enough, the UK will extend him a spousal visa without you having to get married.

Can you please, please elaborate on this?

U.S. citizens must pay taxes on worldwide income, regardless of what country they live in. Citizens of almost all other countries are not required to do this (they pay income taxes to the country where they live and/or earn income). It's a remarkably raw deal for U.S. citizens abroad, considering that we don't get any services to go along with our tax obligations. You'd think we could at least pop into the consulate for one of those COVID vaccines that are now so plentiful stateside that they can hardly give 'em away, but no.

Now, if you're a U.S. citizen and you live abroad in a country with no income tax (e.g. Monaco) or low income tax (e.g. Bulgaria), and you earn more than the ~$100k limit of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), then you're going to be paying U.S. tax, because you won't have paid enough foreign tax to deduct it all under the Foreign Tax Credit. Also all of your non-"earned" income is going to be subject to U.S. tax - dividends, capital gains, etc.

But let's say you live in Monaco (0%), Bulgaria (10% flat), Dubai (0%), Panama (25% top bracket), or the Cayman Islands (0%) and your spouse is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (not a "U.S. person" for IRS purposes). If your excess (> $100k) family income is credited to your spouse (or a company owned by your spouse), and that income is not generated in the USA (e.g. not from a U.S.-based business, rental properties in the U.S., U.S. stocks, or business trips to the U.S.), and you file with status "Married Filing Separately" on your U.S. tax return, then your spouse's income is not included on your tax return.

Say you do consulting out there on your little island in the Bahamas, and your foreign spouse sets up a consulting company and hires you as an employee. You get paid a salary by the company that is conveniently under the FEIE limit and thus pay no U.S. tax. Your spouse gets the dividends and pays no tax on them. So long as this isn't entirely a paper fiction arrangement wherein you do 100% of the work but your spouse gets basically all of the money, for U.S. tax purposes it ought to be kosher. (Again disclaimer: not a tax lawyer, this could be wildly incorrect, consult your own advisor about your specific situation)

Your family company's profits get invested into real estate (again in low-tax / no-tax jurisdictions) in your spouse's name. The passive income from that again flows to your spouse for tax purposes, and as long as you keep filing "Married Filing Separately", your spouse is invisible for U.S. tax purposes and no U.S. tax is due.

This is the only way that I know of, short of renouncing citizenship, for a high-earning U.S. citizen expat to avoid taxation of their worldwide income. You still have to file a bunch of paperwork, though. Also, due to a stupid quirk of IRS policy, because your spouse doesn't have a SSN/ITIN, you can't complete a 1040 in the e-file system and you have to file a paper return. Hope you FedEx'd it to the right address, because only a few IRS offices will accept courier deliveries.

You must also be careful about how you set things up for estate planning purposes. If you both live in the U.S. then there is in general no estate tax due when one spouse dies and bequeaths their assets to the other spouse. If you live in a different country, then it can get very complicated! Depending on who owns the assets, what country they're located in, who owned them before marriage, whether they were "gifted" to the other spouse over time or not, etc., the surviving spouse may owe substantial taxes in one country or the other.

I know it took you a while to type that out but it will make a big difference in my life.

Some good reasons I've heard.

1. Legally it's a lot simpler if you're married, if one partner dies for the other partner to get control over assets/legacy.

2. For many couples it's a ceremonious way of making a commitment that is recognised and understood between cultures.

3. In some cases, it allows for certain benefits/perks to be shared (tax, healthcare).

4. It's fun to have a party and get family together.

I personally don't see Hacker News as one homogenous culture with a distinct opinion on what "hacking" is. Being curious, rational and experimental, I still think getting married can fit into that.

If you were truly trying to optimise every aspect of life to be some sort of objective best option, I think getting married may or may not be the right option. I do think generally we give too much power to "the culture" over how we live our lives though and so I do think being sceptical of the rituals/ceremonies we're born into is a positive thing.

I was with computers and sometime electronics for like 40 years already. That alone supplies me with enough "interesting ways". I do not have to have every other aspect of my life to be "interesting". I do not sleep on a stool either.

There are also many convenient practical aspects of registering marriage that are mentioned in other replies.

So, I didn't marry out of infosec concerns.

While I personally would find this very weird, from an infosec perspective, having a relatable backstory should make it easier for you in regards of infosec.

With married status you can conceal things probably better than not.

If your threat model includes crazy people stalking you, my decision is justified.

At least in germany you can go to the Einwohnermeldeamt (citizen Report office) and can request a blockage into your data. This should be enough for a stalker.

Are you allowed to decide what happens to your partner in case of an emergency? Or to decide for her if she is unable to decide anymore?

Also would you save taxes? Here our income is combined and divided 50/50. When I earn 100k and she 20k, we both pay taxes for 60k which comes to something like 100-200$ per month or 2-4% in savings.

If it is similar your stalker already hurts you on a daily basis.

Look up 'marriage tax penalty', if you want to know more.

From a practical point of view, once kids where involved and we started looking at things like inheritance, it turns out that many things would be much quicker and easier, legally, if we where married if one of us got very sick or died (in our particular jurisdiction).

For me it was a great way to reproduce an image I liked very much, an old image of my baptism/christianing (I'm no longer part of that Organisation) where all my family was together.

We invited them all and we're planning things to make sure it is a great experience for our guests and based on the feedback it worked out.

It should be possible to do this without a crazy event but it is easier with something people know.

Also I was sick to my stomach for a while week and very nervous on the wedding day. I do assume that this experience is unique in itself but I'm not sure how significant this is in a relationship.

For example, if you haven't lived together for over 3 years and aren't married, then unless there's a will the partner won't inherit anything. If you have a kid, the kid will get most of the inheritance but can't manage the money until they're 18.

Been a few cases in the media here where the kid inherits lots of money on a locked account while the partner that's left struggles to make ends meet.

Currently my wife is humming the first 4 bars of The Star Spangled Banner over and over and over.

The best answer I can come up with is that marriage is a constant battle of wills. A never ending struggle for absolute supremacy over the will of another person. To take an independent human and bend them to your desire or at least drive them crazy.

What's more thrilling than that? Also how can you be more crushed when that's done to you.

In short marriage is 100% pure adrenaline. Now that bloodsports have been abolished it's the purest most glorious release for any sadist out there ... also any masochist because one way or the other you're gonna get a big swig from both cups.