Love without marriage

The usual order of a relationship is as follows: Fall in love, get married, have kids and live happily ever after. But nowadays, more and more couples are opting out of the "get married" part of the equation.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are an example of two well-known people in a committed, yet non-marriage relationship, but the trend is not limited to celebrities.

Around 5 million U.S. households were occupied by unmarried couples of the opposite sex, according to a 2006 U.S. Census report. That's up from 3.4 million in 1999, according to another Census report.

So why are some people opting out of marriage? There are social, political and romantic reasons.

Actor Brad Pitt told Esquire magazine in October 2006 that he and actress Angelina Jolie -- with whom he is raising four children -- have declined to consider marriage until same-sex couples have the right to wed.

Partners choose not to marry for other reasons. (Alison) Hatch, whose dissertation examined 48 committed heterosexual couples choosing to not pursue legal marriage, has spoken to people who feel marriage is a patriarchal institution. Some are against the intertwining of church and state in marriage. There also are emotional reasons why committed couples choose to stay unwed.

"I think that a lot of people like the kind of organic nature that your relationship takes on when you decide not to marry," says Julie Bluhm, 31, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based clinical social worker and a board member of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, a national nonprofit organization advocating equality for unmarried people. "It's almost a deeper appreciation of their relationship and the privacy of it."

What do you think about long-term relationships without marriage? Are you or anyone you know in such a relationship? Why might it work? Why might it not work? Is a committed, marriage-less relationship something you would consider? What if your partner wanted to wed and you didn't? Or, what if you wanted to wed and your partner didn't? What would you do?