Marriage is a commitment of two people to share their lives together. You don't need a marriage certificate for such a pledge but it is a nice traditional way of doing it. The pressure of this can lead to "unhappy" marriages and to be fair to the institution, this does encourage you to ride out small issues that may look big ones at the time.

My first marriage lasted 20 years and once the boys had grown, sadly realised they were all that held us together and we parted. Still friends but there you go. Mrs Musket and I have been married now for seven years and each day just seems as great as the last.

Marriage does indeed have easier inheritance and other financial advantages despite advances in equality for long term partners cohabiting. This arrangement is increasingly popular. It depends what you want. Some friends of ours live together, have three young children and for them, marriage is just an unnecessary legal contract. For us, it was a great day of celebration, taking over a hotel and grounds for a couple of hundred friends and family. To be fair, other than that, the marriage was a day not a change of anything.

In the days when there was a social pressure to have children, marriage was the way forward, mainly due to religious superstition. Churches in The UK still claim some hold over marriage despite a church being merely a registered premises for marriage, like the McDonald's next to Scunthorpe United football ground.

Yes. I am very happily married and for us it works. I don't get concerned about the irrelevant baggage some feel it involves though. Our little boy is an alleged greyhound not the last shake of the bag.