I didn’t ever marry my ex, was irritated at how discriminatory legal marriage was back then, and we had kids so were a family anyway.

My husband now? He really wanted to be married, and “stepdad” is a different legal status than “mom’s boyfriend”, it smooths things when he had to do school pickup or doctor visit. So since he pushed and I did see an upside we did.

Also you can’t foster or adopt here unless you are married - unmarried man in the household is a known risk to the kids he’s not related to. Statistically, it raises the risk of the kid getting hurt so single people can, or married couples but not unmarried hetero couples.

I am with you logically, I don’t need it, and don’t feel different and it’s weird for the state to license families. I understand religious marriage but am not religious.