If there are effects of marriage, it seems fairly obvious that they are due to the explicit commitment that the two people have made to each other, not the government’s tickbox.
One large barrier to breakup is how much damage a breakup will do and how much effort it entails.
If a break up is very easy then small insults will lead to break up.
A marriage contract is.. a legal contract; thereby it can be a barrier to a break up.
I have considered breaking up with my girlfriend before yet the effort of splitting our things and ensuring that she has a nice continuation of a place to live comfortably has caused me to reevaluate if the reasons I want to break up are good enough. That's all the parent was suggesting. Does the marriage contract have any bearing on keeping people together.
The effect you describe could be sufficiently studied by comparing married partners to unmarried long term partners.
Not the ridiculous idea of people who thought they were married but were apparently not due to some technicality or bureaucratic error which they were not aware of.
One large barrier to breakup is how much damage a breakup will do and how much effort it entails.
If a break up is very easy then small insults will lead to break up.
A marriage contract is.. a legal contract; thereby it can be a barrier to a break up.
I have considered breaking up with my girlfriend before yet the effort of splitting our things and ensuring that she has a nice continuation of a place to live comfortably has caused me to reevaluate if the reasons I want to break up are good enough. That's all the parent was suggesting. Does the marriage contract have any bearing on keeping people together.