AmericanBeauty

I'm a girl and I don't want to get married even though I'm getting to the "approrpiate age" for getting married.  In my opinion, marriage is not made for everyone and I don't believe everyone needs to get married in order to be happy.  I also believe that the fundmental function of a marriage is procreation. (Note: I do realize that there are a lot of happily married couples without any children and I hope to be like that in the future since I don't really want kids.)  If you did not want kids, your biggest gain from a marriage would be financial power. (ie. two incomes instead of one)  If you were in a position where you can make a decent living on your own, then the purpose of getting married would boil down to one question, "Do I really want to spend the rest of my life with this person?"  This may sound really silly, but being in such a position I found that it is the only way I can truely decide if the person I am considering to get married is "the one."  I have seen too many people who consider too many "factors" into the whole marriage thing: Is the person well off?  Can he provide me with a nice home?  Will she love me if I don't have this job anymore? etc, etc.  But really, what you want is to marry the person you love.  And in a world so complicated, it is not so easy to tell whether you love someone or not.  I think a lot too when I think about getting married, but the one question I must be able to answer is, "Do I really love this person so much to a point that I want to spend every day of my life with him?"