The following link may be of interest:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-17/marriage-in-australia-how-love-and-law-have-changed-in-130-years/8430254

leoj:

It’s very easy to romanticise about the good old days when everyone got married and stayed together for life but that does not necessarily mean they loved each other and love is the only logical reason to stay together.

They stayed together because of the social stigma attached to separation. They stayed together because women did not work and were unable to be independent financially. They stayed together because sexual freedom was not as prevalent as it was after artificial contraception became available. They stayed together for their kids. None of these are good reasons to be together.

Now if someone stays with you it is much more likely to be because they want to be with you – because they love you. In that sense relationships are much more honest and have more integrity than in the past. Just because they do not go through the rather pointless exercise of getting their certificate stamped by the government does not mean their relationships are worthless. It doesn’t matter what you call it. The only thing that matters is the genuine substance and emotional value of the relationship.

When men hear that women want commitment they are apt to be very cautious not because they are afraid of it but rather because they are afraid of a person who wants it. It is much more of a sign of insecurity in a woman than it has ever been. No one wants to settle down with someone who is that insecure.

Perhaps if love was the priority for women men might be more willing to partner such a person. As it stands it appears that women want security more than genuine love and no matter how you rationalise it it is not a very good foundation for any kind of relationship.

phanto,

You are right to say that memory can paint a more rosy picture of the past. Also, some things have improved and needed to.

Where I may disagree, because research indicates otherwise, is that living together produces longer lasting coupling than marriage. Not for the cynical reasons one might put forward that are the basis of many jokes but simply because we are more inclined to pause and try harder where there is a greater investment. The suggestion is that couples see marriage as involving a greater investment. So they are inclined to put some more effort in and they are inclined to accept greater difference between what they want their partner to be and the reality of the human condition.

100% of people must wake one day to find that the person next to them in bed has faults. Homosexuals fare no better. Lesbians suffering 7yr 'bed death' and other problems that necessitate another night out in a bar and that U-Haul trailer again.

Joking to one side, my concern is the casual, anti-democratic, contemptuous and arrogant way that recent Labor governments have treated citizens by making very significant changes to the longstanding institution (of marriage) without a mandate, and with no, or inadequate, direct consultation.

The government of Australia's first woman PM, Julia Gillard, would have to be the most deceitful, uncaring, ideologically-driven and undemocratic in Australia's history to date. The only possible defence for them could be that they were incompetent and their hubris at being in control didn't assist.

Although, based on his record and that of some of his colleagues, some from the Gillard government, Bill Shorten's government if he ever got in would likely be worse.

It is outrageous that one can meet so many able, skilled, competent and very nice people, men and women, who now distrust one another so thoroughly as a direct consequence of the Progressives' dabbling in personal, private relationships that men and women are more inhibited and untrusting towards the opposite sex.

It is Governments who should be undertaking to first do no harm.

“Where I may disagree, because research indicates otherwise, is that living together produces longer lasting coupling than marriage.”

There is no good reason why this should be the case and I would be wary of research that flies in the face of reason. If a couple is making more ‘effort’ in their relationship simply because they are married then they are doing so for the wrong reasons. Your level of effort and you willingness to compromise should be determined by your love for the particular person you are with and not out of respect for any man-made institution. People who are not married are just as able to make effort as those who are not simply because they are human beings and human beings can love each other without society’s affirmation.

Marriage is not proof of love and it is wrong to denigrate the love between two people simply because they have not gone through a wedding ceremony.

The government recognises this and that is why they are prepared to treat couples who live together in the same way as they treat married couples. They have changed a lot of legislation to correct the imbalance between the two to such an extent that no couple is actually being disadvantaged by not marrying. This is how governments should treat their citizens.

The question that should be asked is why they recognise two types of relationship which for their purposes are exactly the same. It is a complete waste of taxpayer resources to have two systems and one of them should be deleted. Since you cannot force people to marry then it is the registration of marriages which should be stopped.

If you want marriage you can still have it but there is no good reason why governments need to be involved in your marriage and governments should do nothing that is not backed by good reasons.

AJ, I would have more respect for you if you could just have the balls to admit you don't approve of adult incest and polygamy, however you are the worst type of bigot, one who pretends to be accepting whilst continually bringing up arguments why it shouldn't be accepted.
And by dragging in the " harm to community" argument you are destroying the strongest argument used by supporters of ssm. The theory that what happens in someone else's home does not affect anyone else and that gay marriage will not affect anyone else's marriage.
And you apparently are oblivious to the commonwealth Sexual Conduct Act 1994 which was used to abolish the anti sodomy laws in Tasmania and also decriminalises adult incest in private. So the law that finally fully legalised homosexuality across Australia did the same for adult incest and polygamy.
Yet you only accept marriage rights for one of those groups.
It's called bigotry.

"In response to the Tasmanian Parliament's refusal to repeal the offending laws, the Federal government passed the Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act 1994 - Section 4,[9] legalising sexual activity between consenting adults throughout Australia and prohibiting the making of laws that arbitrarily interfere with the sexual conduct of adults in private. In 1997 in the case of Croome v Tasmania, Croome applied to the High Court of Australia for a ruling as to whether the Tasmanian laws were inconsistent with the Federal Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act."

phanto,

Gillard's feminist ideologies broadened the description of de facto because it suited them to weaken and hopefully finally discard their despised marriage (and so-called 'traditional' family and fatherhood) and because so many of them were in federal and other public employment where the employment conditions gave additional entitlements to married, such as accompanied spousal travel and superannuation entitlements.

No-one has ever reckoned and publicised the additional costs to the taxpayer of that, or the following addition of homosexuals to the de facto group, but it would be considerable. Not bad if you can get it. and never you mind!

On the other hand, those who were not working and were on social security were disadvantaged through claimed economies of living arrangement and resultant lower payments. Again, that did not affect the educated middle class bureaucrats and politicians who were laughing all of the way to the bank and could smile too through reverse envy as the poorer on fixed incomes and social security were kept in their place and worse.

The largest group disadvantaged are employed singles and especially so in public service employment where they do not qualify for those extra 'married' benefits, but they pay for them indirectly because their employment package overall is reduced relatively specking to subsidise their fellows. There is only so much in the salary budgets.

You say that government should not register marriage. However those politicians and bureaucrats claiming 'married' benefits would disagree with you. Gays on Centrelink would disagree as an example of the opposite. I wonder how their dob-ins are going. Still, being regarded as 'married' has its downsides if one is not up there with those on guvvy sinecures.

However, the criticism remains where the Gillard government is concerned and to repeat, governments and the federal parliament particularly should be adminishing themselves to 'first do no harm'.