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Originally Posted by Still Growing  I've noticed that the most vocal people on this thread happen to be from European countries where the gov't is more active in people's daily lives. The gov't has a huge safety net in Socialistic countries and they do a great job. |
I might be biased (honestly, I think I've lived around the world enough not to be that much), but you brought your fair share of ethnocentricism to this thread too. Unlike in the US where traditional family values are strong and the pressure to marry is widespread, people in Europe (France in particularly) aren't subject to that pressure. Actually, over 50% of long term couples here choose to remain unmarried, including when they have children. The ones who do get married do so deliberately, consciously and it is 100% their choice. And guess what? They do it because it benefits them. They do it because they want a legal frame to transmit inheritances, they want to empower their partner to take medical or financial decisions for them, they want equity on parental authority on the children, they want to have the same citizenship or be able to travel together on a spouse visa... All these instances and more are arbitrated by the State. Therefore, they will benefit from getting a State recognized union. Fitting them all in a single contract called marriage is by far the cheapest and most efficient way to do so (if you need convicing, take a look at the hardships gay couples who can't get married go through when they want to establish equivalent rights through contracts).