[aschen]

Kids are important to me, as they have brought me more joy than anything else by a huge margin.

You can have kids without a marriage, my son was born before I married my wife. I asked my wife to give up a lot to raise our kids, basically any ability to be financially successful. So besides being 0.1% sentimental/traditional our marriage serves as a pragmatic legal contract. In exchange for giving up your career, I agree to at least feed her if things don't work out (to paraphrase).


Or maybe the traditional family structure is right for you. Sweet, do what you like. The point of marriage is the same as the point of nearly everything else, up to the participant to decide.