Twitter User Asks What Marriage Gives People That Live-In Doesn’t. The Answers Aren’t Very Reassuring
Committing to your partner who you love can be an amazing feeling. With marriage, we all begin a new chapter of our lives with our partners. And we all love a good big fat Indian wedding. They’re the most beautiful celebrations of love and union. I’ve been there. I’ve gotten married to someone who I believed to be my “the one” only to be disappointed and forced to walk away. While I hold no regrets for listening to my heart, it has made me now want to stay away from marriage. I’m more open to live-in relationships as opposed to marriage. More so because I don’t see how those two are any different except for the legalities that go into marriage. IMHO, marriage has little to offer but I still have some unanswered questions about how marriage and live-in relationships are different from each other and it looks like there’s a Twitter user who also has similar questions. While scrolling through Twitter I landed upon this interesting tweet from a user posing a question to people about marriage and live-in.
In the tweet, the user asked people what marriage gives to people that a fully committed live-in relationship doesn’t and questioned why people want to get married. She further pointed out that she has been asking people this question and the only answer she has received from them is that it’s a duty that they have towards their parents or society. And the answers given by Twitterati are a reality check that we all need.
https://twitter.com/missmehaksabat/status/1590004501255458816?s=20&t=hz6M139itOCxz3JYWeyCTg
Listing the reasons to get married, several users pointed out that it has a variety of financial benefits with joint wealth and makes it easier to obtain loans and whatnot. Some users shares how marriage can give a couple a sense of security and legal rights as well as allow them to live together and start a family without any judgement from society. Users also shared that marriage makes it easier for couples to emotionally invest in each other without fearing that the other person will walk out on them. Apart from legal and financial protection, users also shared that it makes it easier for a couple to get a house on rent. But let’s be honest, these reasons aren’t enough to marry someone, are they?
It offers some legal and financial protection to the lower earning party. Though not enough. Usually: women. Without that a man can take advantage of a woman's unpaid labour for yrs, then walk out.
— Kavitha Rao (@kavitharao) November 9, 2022
In the UK where I live, many women are conned into living in and then having kids wout marriage. A few years later man walks out. O legal protection for women and no rights to https://t.co/NUwRCyxfU7 in is not legally recognised
— Kavitha Rao (@kavitharao) November 9, 2022
More often than not, it's to not have to be answerable to the society & family members who may not have the same mindset as us. Coz let's be honest, even a legal paper can't keep you binded if you decide to separate. A bond is as secure as the efforts put in..legality no bar.
— Pradeepa Rao | ప్రదీపా రావు (@pradeepa181) November 9, 2022
Legal protections – not just in terms of violence but also in terms of rights towards and with each other for medical decision making, property, taxation etc.
— Vandita Morarka (@vanditamorarka) November 9, 2022
I feel in our country its mostly so that you can start livingin with your partner. But aftr being married for 7yrs i genuinely believe that the structure of loving each others culture and family and treating them like your own,really comes through marriage which may not otherwise
— A (@PureNautanki) November 9, 2022
Finding a house on rent is easy for married couples. That’s it. That’s the only benefit in my experience
— Priyanka Sahoo (@kalamwaliwhy) November 9, 2022
Marriage gives security.
You cant have a,kud in live in relation.
Live in is open relation, may leave,one end ruptured….Live in shouls end in marriage by 30 age.
Any way i want to send some personal message regarding script. Can i?— Sukanta Kumar Mishra (@Sukanta25031975) November 8, 2022
Makes it easier for loans, any other joint paperwork, finding places to rent, medical decision proxies, joint accounts for future investments and planning, more affordability – double income 2 cats and no kids.
— Dr. Radhika Tonsey (@radzzzzster) November 10, 2022
Convenience of the marriage certificate. Especially, in India. A friend in a & they have kids. The amount of paperwork & hassle they have to go through is insane. Insurance, nominations, power of attorney for all execution tasks & to give rights to the other partner in emergency+
— Priyanka M (@primurali) November 9, 2022
+Explanation to local authorities with a lawyer to get paperwork done. Even for the partner to be allowed in the hospital while she was admitted for delivery. To get the childrens birth certificates with both parents names. It's exhausting
— Priyanka M (@primurali) November 9, 2022
I was with my partner for 12 years before i reluctantly got married (given the historical subjugation of women within the institution and it’s exclusion of lgbqt couples at the time), but we were starting an adoption process and had to be married to apply to be colegal guardians
— Holly Kearl (@hkearl) November 9, 2022
Oldies in the family stop nagging you abt it like mosquitoes on a humid night. Paperwork becomes somewhat easier. It's marginally easier for a woman to get tourist visas with our weak-a** Indian passport.
Apart from these, there's zero reason to prefer marriage over a live-in— 🍉tapioca full of moxie (@TapiocaChip) November 9, 2022
Marriage is literally the only way out for a lot of women from a toxic parental home. Unless the marriage is also toxic. Then there's no escape. https://t.co/xbS36piOZR
— हवलदार शिंदे 🇮🇳 (@Havaldarshinde) November 9, 2022
ik I can’t do a live in without hiding it from my parents so it’s pretty simple…I’ll get married. I wanna stay with my dumbass boyfriend all the time. I’m needy and clingy and need constant physical touch👍🏻 https://t.co/dhDPbAUfTs
— kabhi usse noor noor kehta hu (@icedoutbabyyy) November 9, 2022
Also Read: Live-In Relationships Are Legal. Our Society Needs To Stop Acting Like It’s A Crime
On the other hand, speaking of live-in relationships, users shared that while it does not offer anything apart from partnership and companionship, marriage is simply something people do to avoid judgement and having to answer questions posed by society. Many users pointed out that society has conditioned us and shaped our perspective that marriage is the only secure and socially acceptable form of companionship that is recognised by the law as well. There were users who shared that in today’s time, people don’t get married for companionship but rather for the “wedding” meaning that it’s something people have been doing for aesthetics as opposed to companionship.
Answer: Conditioning which shapes our perspective that marriage is the only secure form of companionship recognised by state and society.
— rohanbabu (@rohanbabu) November 8, 2022
Casteist respect, joy of compulsory cishetermonogamy, continuation of generational wealth (Land and Money), free pass at ridiculing your spouse as a joke, merging finances for no particular reason, extreme hoop jumping if you decide to end it, what's not to love
— Mx. Nix (They/Them) 🏳️⚧️ (@pnickeetah) November 9, 2022
Reading the replies and wondering how come nobody is mentioning pure illogical sentimentality – the songs, the movies, the associated dopamine rush. I believe that a lot of people end up getting ‘married’ because they want a ‘wedding’.
— Riya Mukherjee (@MsRiyaMukherjee) November 9, 2022
So that you can waste a lot of money on an elaborate wedding which everyone will find fault with, where all you care about is what you'll wear and how the photos turn out so that you can post them on Instagram. Oh wait, also hoping your pair name trends like virushka etc 🙄😂
— Malathi Srinivasan (@smalathi) November 9, 2022
As a married person, I know I would have a hard time convincing parents to agree to a live-in. I like peace. So I got married.
And yes, it is not easy for live-in couples to enjoy the same privileges that married couple do, thanks to societal conditioning. That sucks. But I— Shay 🌻💙🐾 (@Shayoneespeaks) November 9, 2022
I have been thinking about it a lot lately and to me, it doesn't necessarily give any perks except from the validation that you get from your family, friends, and society. Not that it matters but that doesn't seem to be a valid argument for me to get married.
— sugam (@TheHanumanKind) November 9, 2022
A fully committed live in relationship is a marriage minus the legal paperwork required to assign family name to the offspring (if any) of that relationship. Also it lacks a formal start date & so avoids the ceremonial #launch_party aka marriage ceremony.
— Bikram Vaskar (@bikramvaskar) November 9, 2022
There is no basis to believe that a “fully committed relationship” of today will remain so tomorrow. You assume it as a static, which it Isn’t
With marriage there is a pressure to make it work. With live in walking off is easy and breakup easier than commitment.— Antaratma (@_atma) November 9, 2022
A slew of rental properties open up to married couples that live-in partners just can't enjoy. And you can finally introduce your partner to relatives. I think it's only the preferential treatment you get after marriage that gives it any allure
— Anjali Jain (@AnjaliJain97) November 9, 2022
https://twitter.com/SreeramDeepti/status/1590412398858768385?s=20&t=hz6M139itOCxz3JYWeyCTg
Also Read: Allahabad High Court Says Anti-Dowry Law Misuse And Live-In Relationships Are Spoiling The Constitution Of Marriage
Well, that’s very reassuring (note the sarcasm). After scrolling through all the replies and quoted tweets, I’ve come to realise that we’ve been told to believe that marriage is important but in all honesty, we’re a generation of insecure people who have married or wish to marry more for legal and financial security and less for love. Because live-in may not be very acceptable to society but it has everything that marriage has sans the legalities. Speaking of India, our laws actually give a couple in a live-in relationship all the legal security that one has in a marriage including the legitimacy of a child and it comes with no strings. When I say no strings I mean that walking out of a live-in relationship does not involve the paperwork that marriage does and in some situations that can be a major relief. On the other hand, live-in is still something that is looked down upon and we desi people know that our brown parents would never agree to let us be in a live-in relationship and neither will society. Despite live-in being legal in India, finding a flat on rent for unmarried couples has been made an impossible task by society in a bid to prevent this “western” concept.
So many responses to this question, 'why get married' evoke convenience. But as the discussion reveals (and for someone who has been both married and lived in), convenience is also overstated. And once you have kids, it matters little – married, unmarried, divorced! https://t.co/OvjaY1OFa9
— Srila Roy (@ProfSrilaRoy) November 9, 2022
NGL but this conversation on Twitter is a much-needed reality check that we all need. Is it just a relationship of convenience to shut society up? Maybe it’s time we sit and rethink why marriage is so important for all of us.
First Published: November 10, 2022 1:18 PM
