BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Why Get Married?

I totaly understand the benefits and reasons why someone would want to live a life free of children, especially in the USA today where if your not making 6 figures it will really change how you live after you have them, and affect how you can provide for them.
What I don't understand is why would you get married if you knew going into it that you weren't going to have children. The only reason I could think of would be religious or tradition, but then if you were religious or traditional one of you would want kids. The dozen or so married couples I personally know who did'nt want children are niether religious or traditional, which I would assume is the case with most, since it is an unconventional choice.
It seems it would make more sense to live together as a couple but not get married. That way you avoid the risk of divorce and losing half of your net worth. Extended family would'nt be hounding you about "when are you going to have kids" or speculating about if one of you is reproductively challenged. Most religions such as catholicism will annul a marriage if there were never any kids, that could be messy.
In fact it seems like it makes more sense to get married after you have a kid, which more and more people are also doing especially as couple get into theyre 30's.

I got married because my husband is in the military and he moves a lot. If we weren't married, I would always have to change jobs and move with him at my own expense (and right now, we live in Germany, which would also involve getting a visa, German driver's license, and work permit for me if we weren't married) and worry about finding a new job with benefits in every location. Now, the military pays for my move, and I get all the benefits that a military spouse is supposed to get. I even get tuition assistance and priority consideration for jobs.

So it's a practical issue for us. Plus, we wanted assurance that we could absolutely be together. If we hadn't gotten married, I have no doubt that we'd probably not be together now because I don't think we could have withstood several years of a trans-atlantic relationship, despite how much we love each other.

It was also nice to be able to make that commitment in front of friends and family and be able to show them how much we love each other.

Why people still assume that the sole purpose of marriage is procreation is beyond me. This isn't the Dark Ages, where people only married for that reason and not because of love.

I got married in march2006. i lived with my husband almost 2 years before we married. we got married because we wanted to be a family (my husband is 21yrs older then me and we dont want kids). even though i felt like in todays world a marrage is just a piece of paper, i didnt not feel like we were a family with out it. my husband is a great man and he loves me with or whithout the paper. but it showed are families that we are a family and were are going to stay together. I needed the commitment and sucurity even though i know he can still divoces me or cheat but i rarey think about that anymore because he is a GOOD MAN. my greatest fear is that he will die. im 26 and hes 47 and im the one in bad health!!! anyways thats my 2 cents

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marriage is about love. we love each other and are committed to each other. we didn't get married because we wanted to have kids (although we started trying most unsuccessfully in the mid-90s to bring children into our marriage). we got married because we love each other and wanted to. and we are religious. i'm not sure why that matters though.

anyway, without a wedding ceremony, i wouldn't have gotten all that cake.

Until the modern world shifts thinking and accepts domestic partnerships or civil unions as legally binding, marriage is the only route to shared benefits for the majority.

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"The only reason I could think of would be religious or tradition, but then if you were religious or traditional one of you would want kids."

To that I say: which religion or tradition do you mean?

It is true that many major religions encourage couples to marry and/or have kids. However, some spiritual paths -- my own included -- say that it is just wrong to bring another life into this overpopulated, scary world of ours. (Why subject yet another life to all that suffering?)

My husband and I married for spiritual, not religious, reasons. We believe there is a special bond in marriage, something beyond the limits of ordinary relationships. (This also has to do with our spiritual path.) It is actually the concept of two people becoming one (some people call it becoming "one flesh").

We do not believe in divorce. We're okay with other people doing it, and we'll never try to force our beliefs when it comes to someone else's life choices. However, we do not believe in divorce for us because spiritually, we are bound in a way that cannot be broken. So, avoiding marriage to avoid material losses from divorce is not an issue with us. Besides...I also believe if you do something big like marriage, you should be very careful and patient and get it right the first time, so you don't get yourself into a messy situation later. (Don't take this the wrong way. Sometimes things happen that are beyond your control. Let me be very clear that if there is an abuse situation, you should get out of the relationship.)

I suppose all of that aside, we really married because we wanted to, just as we don't have kids because we don't want to, and we follow our spiritual path because we want to. It is difficult to explain human decisions sometimes, aside from saying "this is what's right for me."

I still think it's fine for people to be together and not marry if that's what they want. I sure wish they would let same-sex couples marry, though (in most of America, this is not allowed). I feel very fortunate that I had a choice in the matter when it comes to being married; I feel bad for everyone out there who has no choice, from same-sex couples here to arranged/forced marriages across the world.

Anyway, interesting topic, and quite a lively conversation! I think it is good to look at our reasons for our lifestyles...it is interesting to find these things out, and at a personal level, I think it helps many of us to reaffirm our decisions about our lives.

One last thing -- if you live together as a couple for any length of time, whether you have kids or not, your extended family *will* hound you about when you're going to get married. I lived with my husband for quite a while before we got married.

I think extended family will just bug you about anything and everything. That's what they are there for <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

People who see themselves as potential in-laws will comment just as actual in-laws do. Mine did. Drove me nuts before we married. My own mother never said a word about children or any other issue--just left it up to us. Of course, she knew we were being hounded by the opposition and may have felt they were doing a good enough job for everyone.