Why is marriage financially smart?

Answer 1

I don't know if it actually is. You do have two incomes, but you can have that in a regular committed relationship. You have job benefits, in this case one can supplement the other and that does save you money, that you can't do unless your married. When a married couple has kids, the kids become dependents on taxes and can increase your claim but that is only once a year and the cost of raising children is outrageous. If a person marries into money that could be the only reason I see for it being financially smart. A married person doesn't have any more benefits than unmarried. Both can purchase items, large and small. Both can have credit, good and bad. The marriage usually starts out as two incomes, then when babies come along, and a parent stays home then one income is lost. How smart is that? For years it actually was a tax liability to get married, but the IRS has slowly eliminated that difference. Married couples have a different relationship legally than unmarried couples. This is one of the factors behind all the hoopla about gay marriages. For inheritence purposes, there are no estate taxes, and for intestate cases, the spouse inherits everything (unless there are children, but even that is better than being unmarried). Property can be held differently and the wife, and in some states the husband, have rights in property owned by the spouse. And in the eyes of the church, still a major consideration in society, marriage is the institution for having and raising kids. It also protects the children in a number of ways socially and legally, even if it is later dissolved by divorce.