Family and children / Chapter 10
This section splits "is marriage worth it" into separate accounts for money, time, health, legal risk, and relationship quality, and counts them apart. Each account uses only figures whose source can be checked. Sources are limited to official statistics, or to meta-analyses (pooling data from many studies and recalculating them). There is no moral judgment here, and no conclusion is made for you. The health accounts are counted as death risk, the time accounts as how many minutes a day, and the legal accounts as what the articles say. These three ways of counting are not converted into each other. The method for splitting the accounts, a fill-in checklist, and common mistakes are in chapter 10 “Is dating and marriage worth it”.
Items in this section are grouped by topic below, with item numbers in parentheses.
Finding someone and dating: meet more people (item 1), stop after the other person clearly refuses (item 2), judge interest from behaviour (item 3), take turns answering questions that go from light to deep (item 5), a long-distance relationship is not worse than one in the same city (item 6).
Whether the relationship is good: look at how you feel inside it (item 4), argue about the matter not the person (item 17), go to couples therapy together (item 20).
The accounts of whether marriage is worth it: look at the registration figures first (item 7), discount the health benefit because the data are observational (item 8), count the time account as unpaid labour (item 9), count the cost of leaving (item 15), keep a separate account of marrying for your elders (item 16), when divorcing write child support and visitation clearly (item 23).
Registering and the premarital check: registering needs only an identity card (item 13), have one premarital medical check (item 14), go and get the marriage certificate even after the banquet (item 21).
Money and debt: look first at the law's default rules for the money account (item 10), when parents pay for a home write down whether it is a loan or a gift (item 11), a large sum borrowed by one spouse (item 12), a spouse using joint money to tip streamers or transfer to someone outside the marriage (item 22).
Same-sex partners and sexual orientation: same-sex partners should put voluntary guardianship and a will in place (item 18), do not marry by hiding sexual orientation (item 19).
Two speed-dating studies had people fill out more than 100 partner-preference questionnaires before any meeting. The questionnaires could only show who tends to like others in general and who tends to be popular. …
If the other person has clearly refused and you still send messages repeatedly or wait for them, and you interfere with their normal life, from January (1) 2026 that is a public-order offence. …
When strangers of opposite sex talk for about ten minutes and then judge each other, “the other person was not flirting” is judged fairly accurately, while “the other person was flirting” is hard to see. …
What best shows whether a relationship is good is how you feel, not the other person’s attributes. For example, whether you feel the other person is serious and appreciates you, and how much you argue. …
Two strangers who take turns answering 36 questions that go from light to deep feel closer after 45 minutes than people who only make small talk for the same time. …
While apart, long-distance relationships are actually more stable; research attributes this to idealizing the other person more than reality, and the less you meet the more idealized they become. …
In 2024 there were 6106000 marriage registrations nationwide, down about one fifth from the year before, and 3513000 divorces. Online claims that the divorce rate is over half take these two numbers and divide them, about 57.5%. …
Among older adults, married people’s probability of dying in the same period is about 12% lower than non-married people’s, and never-married people’s is about 24% higher than married people’s. …
The national time-use survey measured unpaid work such as housework and accompanying or caring for family. Among people who did such work that day, men averaged 1 hour and 52 minutes a day, and women 3 hours and 29 minutes. …
Without a written agreement, the law’s default is that wages and bonuses earned after marriage, business and investment returns, and inherited or gifted property are jointly owned. …
Money parents put toward a home before marriage is, by default, only for their own child. Money put in after marriage with no agreement is treated as joint marital property. …
Money a spouse borrowed behind your back is not automatically your debt if it clearly exceeds ordinary household spending and you did not sign and did not later acknowledge it. …
From May (5) 2025, registering needs two things: your own identity card, plus a signed statement. …
If you have a serious disease and did not truthfully tell the other person before registration, the other person can ask a court to revoke the marriage. The request must be made within one year of knowing. …
Negotiated divorce is not finished when you sign. Within 30 days after filing the application, either side can withdraw. …
The elders’ share of benefit — peace of mind, face, and an end to pressure — is real. But it does not automatically become your health benefit or relationship quality. …
Couples with a better relationship tend to have somewhat better health and somewhat lower death risk. The association is not large — about as large as diet’s link to health. …
Near relatives in law are spouses, parents, children, siblings, and similar; a partner does not count. Without documents in advance, when one side is critically ill the other cannot decide for them. …
Marrying while hiding sexual orientation is not invalid in law and cannot be revoked; the only exit is divorce. …
Couples stuck in a relationship who finish couples therapy together are clearly more satisfied with the relationship; about seven tenths improve. Couples who only wait in line show basically no change. …
After February (2) 1994, holding only a wedding without registering is not marriage in law; it only counts as cohabitation. If the other person dies, you cannot inherit the estate as a spouse. …
If a spouse, without consulting you, uses joint money for large tips to streamers, you can ask a court to divide the joint property without divorcing. At divorce you can also have that side get less or nothing. …
Who the child lives with, how much is paid each month, and when you can see the child can be written into the agreement by negotiation. …
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