Statistics indicate the 3 of 5 children are being raised in single parent housholds while the American divorce rate is now around 64%. There are 12 couples living on my block, none are married and only one couple has a child.

Wilhelm Reich observed that in a market economy, all human interactions aquire the attributes of a market-place and the nuclear family becomes its assembly line for the manufacture of human beings.

I get the impression for these and other reasons that Capitalism is finally beginning to loose its grip on the social imagination. The coercive powers of fear and shame engendered by both religion and secular law still work as social leavers but they require increasingly enormous resource outlays to maintain control. Even the most vociferous culture warriors on the right tend to support the deconstruction of our traditionaly 1950s era black and white television sitcom idea of family by simply behaving contrarily to it.

The declining state of marrige today was anticipated in the 1960's by people attempting to experiment with family structures and I would not be surprised if we do not see a movement toward communal living arrangements again in the future. This decline of our economic system could prove to be terminal and it very well might. The nostalgic almost anachronistic quality of failed institutions like "career" and "marrige" could easily be seen as harbingers of the future and a more sane and humane society to come.

With all due respect, I really cannot believe that this issue is still being debated. Personally, I am more concerned with genetically engineered food and carcinogens in my drinking water.

Bear in mind that if for some reason you get into the news, Salon will call the woman in the deal a "mistress." And you thought you were just somebody shacking up with a pal and having some sex, too. Nah! You're his mistress! Or so Salon says, if you hit the headlines.

Well, for one thing, those who shack up should rent, since buying property with an unmarried partner is in every aspect a marriage, just without the benefits of a marriage, only the financial ties. And, it's very heavy if one partner owns a place to which the other financially contributes; once the break comes, there's no payback.

For another thing, the marital cross: it's not all a drag if people take marriage seriously, and not just advanced dating until they hate one another. There are pros to making and honoring lifelong committments and shared property with another human being.

Moral decline is certainly nothing new. It's encouraging to watch the new reality wedding programming on TV.

I don't think this is a new trend. It started over 40 years ago and has snowballed until today. One of the posters suggested - wittily - about a marriage-industrial complex and I think they were partly right. It's been made such a big deal with so many expenses that many are saying why bother. (Personally I think overpriced marriages started around the time Prince Charles married Lady Di).

It's interesting how this article clashes with a previous article by Amy Benfer called "May you marry long and suffer". In it Benfer criticizes Caitlin Flanagan (broadsheets deserved whipping post) but cites the silver lining that The divorce rate for college-educated women has been declining since 1980. I figured that college-educated women simply weren't getting married as often and I think the TCF article here is only supporting my view.

I like Broadsheet because it gathers information from a variety of sources. My problem with it is that quite often there is alot of contradiction among the source material. That in itself isn't unusual but at times Salon writers also contradict each other. This is one of those times.

That was quite nicely put.

I think it does make sense to live together during engagement as a trial period, but that should not be the long term plan, especially if starting a family is in the cards. The morals per se don't concern me so much, but I think the commitment should be legally recognized. It doesn't require either religion or money to be married by a JP.

which, in my view, is an excellent use of progressive civilization.

Codification for centuries has been used to maintain social conformity at the behest of personal independence; people or partners forming very specific decisions that involve twisting basic relating structure into a shape that best fits THEIR distinct purposes- not the surrounding clacking classes.

This is the igeneration, after all, where malleability has become a feature of living.

Marriage is a legal contract. As such, your credit scores, assets, property, etc., can get mixed together. You can tap into your spouse's social security, share health insurance, tax returns, child custody. These are the benefits domestic partners would like (although some, such as shared credit scores and comingling assets, maybe not so much).

Marriage is a religious contract. Various churches have their own ideas about how it should go down. Catholic church doesn't acknowledge divorce, in others women are advised to obey, adultery is usually considered a sin, as is living together w/out the clergy's blessing.

Marriage is a personal expression. Of love, commitment to each other. A way of saying, "I've found The One. You're it."

Some people have found The One, and decided that there are great ways to show it--like sticking around--that don't involve dragging Government and Religion into it. Or maybe, they aren't religious, and all the government downsides to marriage--taxes, complicated personal finances--don't make any sense. The social stigma of having kids out of wedlock, or "living in sin," is gone. Society is changing. I wish broadsheet would address the new reality, instead of taking a snarky opposition to the traditionalists.

A legalistic anachronism. Here's reality:

If you have the relationship, the piece of paper is meaningless except to prove the legalism of marriage every now and again.

If the relationship breaks down, the piece of paper won't help you save it and, if you're male, will probably dump you into a legal snake pit (regardless of how "gender neutral" these laws are supposed to be, in practice they're usually used to screw the male).

For a very long time I've advised guys to not even think about considering conspiring to marry their girlfriends. So I see this as good news. People need to look life in the eye and recognize that they're not being offered any guarantees. Marriage certainly doesn't.

Under the heading of full disclosure, I, myself, am married but not because I particularly want to be. After 11 years of non-connubial bliss, it became very apparent that the lack of nuptials was causing my POSSLQ intense distress. Since that was definitely on my list of the last things I wanted happening, I relented (to the delight of our collective 6 daughters). That was three and a half years ago. Everything so far is still fine. We even packed up the house that I'd lived in for 22 years and moved across country and everything was still outstanding ... but you never know what tomorrow will bring. I'm just waiting....