To me marriage is about the creation of a family. Not in the have-babies sense, but, you know, my husband is my family. And he's as close to and as bound to me as my mother or my twin sister. Marriage was a step I took to make that level of connectedness "realer" in both the legal and social sense. I don't consider it an outdated custom because to me it's a very accurate representation of my life and the choices I've made thus far. It's not about the ceremony of it (didn't have one) or the "benefits", really, I mean, I know it's nice that I could visit my husband if he fell into a coma or whatever, but I'm not counting on that actually happening. It's just about saying "this person is my family" and having everyone agree by default. But I understand the other perspective, because I definitely never thought I'd do it myself. It's just that after a certain point in my relationship it ended up being the only thing that made sense to do.
I totally appreciate the idea that anyone in a serious live-in LTR should receive the same benefits and privileges as married couples. But practically speaking I think that's sort of difficult to achieve. "Commited-ness" is pretty hard to quantify without some sort of active declaration becoming involved.
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