Do you think that, in the future, marriage will be practically abolished as more couples choose to just live together?

Abolished may not be the word you are looking for. Perhaps fewer people will choose to get married and may just live together, but outlawing or abolishing marriage is probably not on the horizon (at least in the US) anytime soon.

….No, at least, not in the USA. You have too many tax and similar benefits for married couples rather than those who simply co-habitate.

For some people getting married is as much (or more) an economic decision as one of the desire to formally announce what they feel privately already….not in my case :) But for some people I know, I’m certain that it was more economic than emotional decision making.

There are certain legal and financial benefits to marriage but not necessarily in taxes. Many married couples find that filing as married they pay more combined taxes than they would each filing as single. This is called the “marriage penalty.” This doesn’t always occur, sometimes couples with greatly differing incomes find that filing married lowers the higher earning spouse’s tax bracket but then again the person making more money can just as easily bring the lesser earning spouse into their bracket. More people loose than gain though. Technically it is illegal to marry or divorce for financial or tax advantages; AFAIK this law isn’t enforced because couples marry and divorce every year to play the system to their advantage.

Marriage has both legal and religious or cultural significance.

Marriage can be seen as a merger between two people. After marriage the couple is seen as a single legal entity legally. There are advantages and disadvantages to this merger but when couples want to raise kids having a contract with their partner is advantageous. Most people do not wish to have kids if their partner can leave at will without consequences, you notice rich celebrities often do not marry; each has the resources to raise their kids so there is less incentive to marry. People with more modest resources usually depend on their partner for at least some support.

I have definitely noticed less legal marriages and more common law living. In my religious community, I am noticing a big increase in people getting “married”, but not bothering to make it legal. They are far more interested in simply proclaiming their love and commitment to each other and to the Gods, than having it legal. I have been with my mate 22 years and we were only married about 6 years ago because my father was dying and it was important to him (and I never did send in the paperwork). We would never have bothered otherwise. I believe that love keeps two people together not a piece of paper saying you are marred. I think legal marriages will continue to decrease, but will never stop or become less than those who choose to live common law. Marriage can be a wonderful thing, but so can living common law, its all about love. : )

Religiously, YES. But i think that the law will recondition the use of the name or maybe even change it to something else and it will still be a big part of life.

I don’t think marriage has anything to do with religion . Its more about security and tax credits! I think people will always marry for legal reasons but the focus will go off the church wedding

I hate to be the odd-one-out here, and the one who has no experience in marriage as he’s only 15, but please hear me out. I view marriage, as someone who is not religious (I’m not an atheist, I think I am what you call a “deist”) as a piece of paper and some words from a priest. Love isn’t needed to be married, and when people divorce it means they pretty much lied when they got married. Personally, I don’t even see its use in current society, and couples should just live together when they’re ready really. :/

And, there I went not even answering the question, but instead stating my opinion, forgive me. I don’t think marriage would ever be abolished as there are still many people that believe in it, religious or not, and there are a lot of people that would want to marry for money too sadly.

Nothing is impossible. Marriage may not be completely abolished. But we can see from the statistics how shocking divorce rate increases. Divorced people are usually a bit reluctant to get married again. 15 -10 years ago living together is something forbidden and cursed here in my country. Now you can find them living together without being disturbed.

it might also be possible that marrige will be abolished becuase times are changing and marrige is not that important like it was in the past personally i would never want to be married i think love should make people stay together not paper work

no.

as long as theres freedom of religion theres freedom to get married

It may decline some, especially once people discover the “new” tax laws. It’s more benificial now financially to live together with the exception of health insurance. But I think when people realize the relationship they are in is for keeps and forever, they will eventually just marry because there’s just something about that step that really proves they are willing to accept the responsibilities that go along with it. However, the meaning of marraige is certainly on the decline, especially every time another state passes…I’m shutting up now

I like your responses filetofspam. I have tons of W-2 and foreign tax credit questions I would like to run by you. I won’t do that of course. One minor point, however, is that there are multiple cases brought by the IRS where they take on couples who divorce and re-marry annually. Not sure this happens too much any more.