Nobody said there was a magic wall between marriage and domestic partnership. After all, gay people have managed to build committed relationships without marriage. But there is a correlation. Marriage is a rite of passage in virtually every modern culture as well as the Stone Age cultures that have survived to be studied. There are exceptions like the polygamy in the Mideast, but the people I've asked say it was encouraged during Mohammed's time because there had been so much war that the civilization was top-heavy with widows. Marriage is an archetype, that is, a motif, custom, legend, etc. that keeps popping up in every culture in every era. An element of the collective unconscious as Jung called it. Human beings seem to have an instinctive need to ritualize and formalize their commitment to each other and to their bond. I think that instinct is the reason that there is so much controversy over unmarried partnerships. Since to one degree or another most people seem to feel a need to make a formal, ceremonial commitment to illustrate their emotional commitment, perhaps at some level we're suspicious of whether people who don't go through that rite of passage really don't feel the same commitment. Yes Max, spare me the statistical lecture about how half of those commitments end in the breach. Feelings change. That doesn't make them any less real.
