Ok fair enough, can you propose a better way to ask?
I was interested in the following:
Why do so few people who want to get married question the wisdom of such a step considering its high costs and dubious benefits (in comparison to say cohabitation)?
Why do people in general want to get married? (this is different from the question of whether it is rational to marry)
Is it rational for most people who marry to do so?
I was not specifically interested in why Alicorn wanted to get married. I did want to provoke, maybe even shock people into thinking about it beyond cached thoughts.
When I got married, I thought about this a little, and I concluded that marriage (but not cohabitation) would:
Create a partner with a non-betrayal stance towards me (i.e. would not defect against me in a one-shot Prisoner's dilemma game).
Signal to others that I and partner had a non-betrayal stance towards each other.
It's an interesting question why marriage is able to create that first effect, and I don't have a good answer. I do think that many people go into marriage without thinking of these considerations, and I think that is a mistake. In ot...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.