Hi holmes,
That's helpful.
There's one point that you kind of addressed, but I'd be interested for you to address more:
Do those benefits outweigh the problems that might arise in trying to get out of that legal arrangement later?
See, now maybe this is my "idealistic" side, but to me the big difference between a commitment and "civil union" or "marriage" is that you
don't think about this kind of thing. A choice to enter one of these is supposed to mean "for life." Commitment to me means, "we stick together until we really both feel it would be better for us to be apart than together."
And don't get me wrong--I know there's times that you feel you'd be better off apart than together. I'm all about having buffer periods, extended periods over which you have to think so (on the order of months).
So... to me, the big difference between a committed relationship and some kind of civil union is that the marriage says, "we're so confident about this thing, we commit to being together for the rest of our lives... now." wheras in a committed relationship, there's always the choice to end it if it turns out you didn't forsee something, and it turns out the two of you would be better off going separate ways.
But I guess as a scientific thinker, I am well aware of the limits of my own knowledge and am always trying to make only "tentative conclusions." So it seems strange to me to... in my eyes, overstate knowledge. But maybe that's just because I've become less emotional with age and experience.
Anyway, thanks for the thoughts.
Ben