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What is the difference between marital relationship and a committed relationship in all aspects, except the legal bond?..is there really a difference?
Accepted:
March 25, 2017

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The difference is exactly

Jonathan Westphal
April 6, 2017 (changed April 6, 2017) Permalink

The difference is exactly that marriage is a legal bond, and it involves certain obligations and requirements (for example those having to do with property) that may not be implied by the "committed relationship". It is as a result a more serious affair. There is also the historically related fact that marriage is often taken to have a religious dimension, which the committed relationship may or may not. What some people dislike about marriage is that in the past it has existed in a hierarchical setting, so that a priest or other official, at a particular moment, says the words, 'I pronounce you man and wife.' It may be that in a particular committed relationship there is such a moment, but it may also not be the case.

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