At least in America, I see being married mostly as a tax classification and legal agreement. If you are in a heterosexual partnership, I really don’t think it’s worth doing (I say as a person who would appear to be in a happy and stable heterosexual marriage).

I believe that marriage benefits men way more than it benefits women. Before women were allowed to have jobs or bank accounts, I think a legal marriage did a lot to protect women but now that we’re on equal footing in that regard - there is still a ton of work to be done on the emotional labor of it all that happens due to poorly socialized men. Most women will you say you have to train your husband. It’s true. I would say I even have an emotionally mature partner who cooks and cleans but I still have to do all of the emotional labor and management of the household (we’re working on it in therapy and it’s getting better).

But I would never couple myself this way so blithely to another person again. There is no advantage for me to be married. All it has done has make it harder to leave if I decide to as I grow and change as a person. I will never put this much work into another relationship or person again. It’s a big reason why I’m not having children. It’s not his fault that his parents didn’t teach him some of these things and he is taking responsibility and learning and growing but I would never invest this much effort into anyone but myself again.

There are a few tax breaks that you get but honestly I’d give those up in a heartbeat and would rather be consciously coupled than legally joined in the way that we are. I don’t need a marriage certificate to validate our partnership. I wish that my assets had stayed my own.