Marriage Is A Contract

We all know that couple. Maybe you are that couple. They’ve been together for seven years, they share a golden retriever, and they roll their eyes whenever someone asks about a wedding date. "We don't need a piece of paper to prove we love each other," they say, usually over a third glass of wine. "Marriage is an archaic institution. Why bring the government into our bedroom?"

It’s a cool, modern stance. It suggests that their commitment is so transcendent it doesn't require validation from the state or a generic ceremony in a hotel ballroom. And emotionally, they are absolutely right. Love doesn't sit in a courthouse file.

But here is the cynical, unromantic truth that no one brings up during the toast: The government isn't trying to get into your bedroom. It’s trying to figure out who gets your stuff when you die and who makes the call when you’re on a ventilator. That "piece of paper" isn't a valentine; it’s a security clearance.

The "Next of Kin" Nightmare

Let’s skip the tax breaks for a second — everyone knows about filing jointly. The real weight of that certificate hits when things go wrong.

If you are unmarried and get hit by a bus tomorrow, your partner of ten years is, legally speaking, a stranger. In the eyes of the hospital administration, they are a roommate. The doctors will look past your weeping partner and turn to your next of kin. That might be your parents, whom you haven't spoken to since 2018, or a sibling who hates your partner.

While your partner knows you’d never want to be kept on life support, your estranged father might decide otherwise because of his religious beliefs. Without marriage, your partner has no voice. They can be barred from the ICU while your "real family" makes the decisions. The marriage license is the only thing that legally creates a new family unit that supersedes the one you were born into.

The DIY Marriage Workaround

The skeptics — and the lawyers — will immediately jump in here. "You don't need marriage for that! You just need a Power of Attorney, a Living Will, and a solid estate plan."

They aren’t wrong. You can absolutely replicate the legal protections of marriage without the wedding. You can pay an attorney a few thousand dollars to draft a medical proxy, a durable power of attorney, and a rock-solid will. You can carry these documents in your glovebox or keep digital copies on your phone, ready to present them to skeptical administrators like a warrant.

But let’s be honest about human nature: You probably won’t.

Most people don't get around to comprehensive estate planning until they are old or rich. Young, healthy couples rarely spend their Saturday afternoons notarizing documents about incapacitation. Marriage is the government’s "default settings" package. It bundles thousands of legal rights — inheritance, Social Security benefits, wrongful death standing, hospital access — into one $50 license. Trying to hack the system with a stack of individual contracts is possible, but it requires a level of administrative discipline most couples simply don't possess.

The Breakup Economics

There is a grim irony in the fact that people avoid marriage to protect their freedom, yet often end up more financially vulnerable because of it.

If you marry and one of you sacrifices a career to raise kids or support the other’s business, divorce law has mechanisms to balance the scales. Alimony and asset division are messy, but they acknowledge that the partnership was an economic merger.

If you just "live together" for twenty years and then split? The lower earner often walks away with nothing but their personal belongings. There is no "common law marriage" in most states anymore. You can play house for decades, acting as a wife or husband in every way that benefits your partner, but the moment the relationship fractures, the law treats you like two individuals who just happened to share a lease. The "piece of paper" is actually a safety net for the financially weaker partner.

The Performance of Legitimacy

So why do we resist looking at it this way? Because admitting marriage is a business contract feels cold. Instead, we treat it as a social pageant.

For many, the resistance to marriage comes from a desire to avoid the "performance" of it all — the bridal shower games, the registry, the expectations of in-laws who suddenly feel they have a stake in your life. We confuse the wedding with the marriage.

We get married because we want our grandmother to stop asking when we’re settling down. We get married because we want the social clout that comes with saying "my husband" instead of "my boyfriend" at a work function. We get married to legitimize the relationship to an audience.

This is where the skeptics have a point. If you are signing that paper solely to make your relationship feel "real" or to satisfy your parents, you are doing it for the wrong reasons. The emotional validation of marriage is often a mirage; a license doesn't make a cheater faithful or a bore interesting.

The Cold Reality of the Contract

If you strip away the white dress, the DJ, and the "soulmate" rhetoric, you are left with a binding legal agreement. It is the only contract you will ever sign where the terms are undefined until you try to break it.

Viewing marriage as "just a piece of paper" is a luxury for people who have never had to navigate a crisis. It’s easy to dismiss the institution when you’re healthy, happy, and young. But the legal system is built on binaries: you are either married, or you are single. There is no box for "we love each other very much."

When the crisis comes — and it always does, eventually — that piece of paper stops being a symbol of patriarchy or social conformity. It becomes the only thing standing between your partner and a system designed to shut them out.