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TimS comments on Open Thread, February 15-29, 2012 - Less Wrong
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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 other words, I think that the answer to your third question is no. But that depends on society's tolerance of cohabitation, which wasn't always society's attitude.
I can think this is because it is an act that is supposed to entail the following:
To me, those things are implied by the "non-betrayal" stance. Agreement on childbearing, shared financial interest, and pair bonding (i.e. shared emotional interest) are consequences of the fundamental agreement not to betray. As you note, each of those could be achieved without marriage - but most people act as if this were not possible. I'm just as confused as you.
That is different from noting the incidental benefits of legal marriage - if I die without a will, my wife gets my property. To achieve the same effect without marriage, I'd have to actually create a will. And so on for all the legal rights I want my wife to have (e.g. de facto legal guardian if I am incapacitated). But I want my wife to have those rights because of the non-betrayal stance, and if that wasn't our relationship, I wouldn't want her to have those rights.