If you want to take all the romance out of it, you can look at marriage as a well-understood standard contract for forming a legal partnership with oodles of ca

If you want to take all the romance out of it, you can look at marriage as a well-understood standard contract for forming a legal partnership with oodles of case law and precedent. It's like how nearly everything is a Delaware corporation, or how nearly every lease you sign is one of three or four templates downloaded off the internet with the names and addresses filled in.