ne day, while idly contemplating the universe and my place in it, I suddenly I had the strangest compulsion--I wanted to get married. This was quite an unseemly thought for someone like myself, someone who is appalled when the political Right equates heterosexual marriage exclusively with traditional family values, someone who sees how marriage has been manipulated to oppress women, someone who feels marriage is symbol of intolerance of differing sexuality and personal spiritual beliefs. I shouldn't want to get married, but, no matter, I did.

But why? What was it that made the idea appealing to me? I quickly resolved to investigate my feelings by turning to others. I put together a short, non-scientific survey and distributed it to some of my friends, hoping to glean some advise from their vast repositories of experience.

I composed my survey of marriage with three basic questions. The first question acknowledged that many couples, both liberal and conservative, do get hitched, so there must be at least some legitimate reasons to become "married," legally or otherwise. Simply put, why do people marry?

The second question addressed the apparent need of the masses to have marriage be a part of the life equation, somewhere in between going to school, having kids (or pets), going to work, etc. Many people get married because it's the thing to do. They feel like they must. But why?

The final question on my survey about wedlock was the lingering doubts someone like myself might have about marriage taking into account the first two questions. The actual question from the survey was: "I would never get married because... or marriage could be considered politically uncool because..."

I was surprised to find a wide variety of opinions about the institution of marriage among my friends and some points of view that I had not yet considered.

QUESTION 1:
"I got married because...Or marriage is not totally out of the question because..."

Another friend also said that marriage is a "nice" symbol of commitment for those who need it, though I'm not exactly sure what he meant by "nice." He also feels that, taking into account our society, marriage provides a decent social base and legal marriage gets certain couples all sorts of nice tax breaks.

The one person who responded to my survey who actually had been married commented simply that she got hitched because she was in love and it made buying a house easier. She also said that her aunt and uncle wouldn't talk to her because she was living in sin.

For myself, I think that the idea of marriage really appealed to me for a couple reasons. First, I liked the idea of my partner being accepted by my parents and relatives as part of our family, and marriage would somehow make that acceptance concrete. I also wanted to be able believe that our mutual attraction would last "forever" and that marriage was the final acknowledgment of a lifetime commitment.

After I thought about these ideas and discussed them with my friends, I realized that marriage was neither necessary nor a guarantee of family acceptance, nor a guarantee of TLA. This may not seem like a big revelation to you, but I think popular culture indoctrinates all of us with those beliefs and that these notions of marriage were responsible for my initial inclination toward wedded bliss.

QUESTION 2:
"Non-critical thinkers get married because..."

One friend said that some get married because "they think it 'proves' something, and that the bond of marriage is protection against the forces that would work against a relationship. They see marriage as an ultimate goal to which a relationship necessarily moves, and at some critical point, a couple must marry or break up."

Another friend pointed out that marriage reflected a lack of individuality and that non-critical folk get hitched because they have nothing better to do with their lives--a little harsh, perhaps, but I understand the point.

"It's natural," was my married friend's response.

I think that for many heterosexual people, marriage is simply a fact of life, like death and taxes. Without it, couples are outcasts or labeled sinners and their relationship is seen as unstable and non-monogamous. Singles who let themselves buy into this mindset are even worse off for not being in a happily married couple.

QUESTION 3:
"I would never get married because... or marriage could be considered politically uncool because..."

• Our society uses marriage as a legal discriminatory tool against homosexuals and non-married heterosexual couples as well as non-sexual committed partnerships. As a gay man, one friend said he would rather not have anything to do with a system which is used to discriminate against him.

• Marriage implies the mutual ownership of the two partners.

• Marriage represents conformity and therefore opposes non-conformist relationships.

• Marriage is about the cultural disciplining of women--women as property. Such honored traditions as bride prices and dowries, still very much alive in many cultures, reinforce this notion.

• Marriage keeps divorce lawyers in business.

"Don't marry so you retain your independence--your birth name--a bit of freedom; but also don't marry and your legal rights to maintenance, debt repayment, joint property ownership are severely compromised."

Another friend said:

"My partner and I are grounded very much in the present, and try to take the future as it comes. Some people think my relationship shows a lack of commitment, but I don't recognize the magical properties of marriage that other people seem compelled to invest in (and I can't help but point out that my unofficial union has outlasted many, many more traditional attempts at staying together).

"I think of marriage as a placebo; it's fine if you can manage to believe in it, in which case it might do you some good. But for myself, I prefer to take the tedious, rational view of partnering, if we may call it that. It is enough just to love and respect each other. You do right by them and they do right by you. As a friend of mine would say, why bring the state into it?"

Of course all of these points of view do not take into account one of the most standard reasons for marriage--children. I once again must think that the same criticism above must apply to this train of thought. Are parents necessarily more committed to each other and devoted to their children just because they spent a lot of money on formal wear and dinner for their closest 250 friends?

And, of course, I haven't discussed the implications of holding religious beliefs which view marriage as a sacrament. But even if you hold these beliefs, I still ask myself how can persons sensitive to those who are discriminated against by our culture, in this case women, gays and lesbians, participate in good faith in a traditional religious marriage ceremony? Getting married in, say, a Catholic Church, is pretty much giving a stamp of approval to the Vatican's continued discrimination and subordination of women, its archaic and globally irresponsible birth control stance and its oppression of homosexuals. Many couples do the church thing just to please their parents, which makes the whole ceremony even more hypocritical.

You may now kiss the...