Marriage is a legal kludge to give legal consequences to societal norms of partnership. It also excludes non-married-couples from beneficial legal consequences so as to provide additional incentive to make it clear what status people are in. It encourages and is intended to create stability and predictability.

Modern life, however, has come to a point where half of marriages are divorced later down the road. The societal norms have diverged and continue to diverge from the model envisioned in the model of marriage. I think the idea of marriage is important and in itself worthwhile to entertain. People are often quick to complain about marriage being too restrictive/impractical, but then frequently fail to realize the practical problems and intensity of consequences that legislators face. Marriage is deeply entrenched in all manners of laws. Fundamentally changing it would require an abhorrent amount of effort only to result in significant oversights being found soon thereafter. I am not saying marriage as it is is perfect, correct or ideal.

I understand many have grievances with their local laws enforcing only one marriage at a time, with restrictions regarding gender or sex, with specific legal consequences, but I consider these to be out of scope for this question.

However, marriage has both benefits and adverse consequences. I believe that it is worthy of observation that the amount of people living in sometimes very long-lived relationships without marriage. I do wonder about the origins of this transformation (it certainly has created some challenges for the courts), but not enough to actually go get into the weeds and basically study sociology.

Ultimately, however, I personally don't give a single remote shit because I have no intention of getting into any kind of relationship in the first place.