I mean I know this is a Western peculiarity but it always strikes me as essentially crazy how people in other such discussion I have consistently seem to mix up, conflate and implicitly equate the following: * traditional marriage * legal concept of marriage * religious marriage * cohabitation with children So easily! In Slovenia someone getting married at a Church has ZERO legal consequences. Why would it? It is ridiculous to claim religious ceremonies and legal categories should have anything to do with each other. Why should priest have the right to make legally binding arrangements? When someone decides to get a civil marriage they go to a magistrate and basically sign a contract, this carries legal consequences. Living with someone for some time has some legal consequences and the rights and responsibilities come pretty close to civil marriage. All of these are also different from the implicit traditional responsibilities and privileges people assume exist in a "marriage". And if religious people get to call their rituals marriage, why can't I as a secular person have a community of people call something marriage? As long as we are clear this isn't civil marriage, the kind the state recognizes, there is no possible harm in this, nor is it illegal in my country. I don't see a good reason why societies want to forcibly (from what I understand in the US they actually mess with people's private lives by persecuting people who live with kids with more than one person and all marriages are a state affair) conflate these separate things.

Why do you need to marry someone to live with them for decades and raise children? Are millions of people living happily in such arrangements doing something wrong or sub-optimally? If you think different arrangements are better for different people, why do you think you are a particular kind of person? [...] Can we taboo the word "marriage"? [...] No. But neither do married men have much better chances of such an outcome.