[curryst]

Relationships often happen under circumstances where no sane person would sign a contract. My girlfriend and I currently both share an emotional risk. If one of us is unhappy in the relationship and leaves, the other suffers emotionally. That risk is roughly equal, though. The likelihood of harm and the magnitude of harm are equal, as is the likelihood of happiness and the magnitude thereof.

I am much better off than my girlfriend financially, though. Marriage introduces a financial element wherein I bear a substantial financial liability, in exchange for effectively no likelihood of financial gain. On the other hand, she bears no financial liability, and in fact gains a likelihood of financial gain. No sane person would sign a contract like that with a business. It would be like Amazon buying out a startup with a contract that says if the merger isn't successful, the startup gets to keep half of Amazon.

Another reason contracts aren't analogous is because marriage is an intensely emotional affair. There is no sane way, that I can think of, to make emotional restitution. What's the point of having a contract that's unenforceable because there is no reasonable restitution?

So you end up in a spot where for some people, the benefits of marriage are unenforceable (not that I'm saying they should be enforceable) but the liabilities are very much enforceable. I'm not aware of any common contracts in business, finance or housing that follow that kind of a paradigm.