If you truly love your partner, does a ring and a ceremony really do anything?

I know there are certain legal situations where an official marriage changes who has certain rights, but aren’t those same rights available if you make other legally-official decisions E.G. a will or trusts, etc?

I’m generally curious why people get married beyond the “because I love them” when it costs so much money.

    • Ricky Rigatoni@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      Marriage makes it easier for your spouse to get their due when you pass. If you were never married it doesn’t matter how long you were together your estranged family can still relatively easily pick your corpse clean and leave nothing for the person you actually loved.

    • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Marriage isn’t necessary for a lot of those. A domestic partnership is a lot easier and can get you couples rights, health insurance, life insurance, and visa. Country dependent of course.

      I personally don’t intend on getting married since I hate that it’s a religious practice enshrined in law. But between common law/domestic partnership, we don’t need to.

      • brewbart@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        Actually, marriage is one of the founding circumstances why we actually have laws. Although it is reasonable to assume that every marriage ritual in early societies had some kind of ‘blessed be this couple’ aspect, it originated out of civil necessity (structuring inheritance) before the Jesus Club took over and changed the meaning

        • mbtrhcs@feddit.org
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          14 hours ago

          (structuring inheritance) before the Jesus Club took over

          and then it took humanity another 2000 years to move away from inheritance in favor of composition. you’d think someone would’ve realized sooner that it’s not always the right abstraction…

      • vzq@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        That really depends on your jurisdiction. There are places where domestic partners have a different status. Mostly because of the long arm of the Catholic Church.