It's not necessarily outdated. More people feel that the only necesity behind it is legality. Friends of the family (who are actually going to host my wedding in June) were together for 20 years before deciding to get married. there was no huge ceremony just a justice and a barbeque afterwards. Heh, many of us didn't know they had gotten married till we showed up at the bbq, or didn't know they weren't married till then. They got married to legally be allowed to deal with financial and heath matters relating to the other party. They had been together for so long that nothing else really mattered. It may not be a very romantic notion but they were already married in their hearts.
My Joseph and I are getting married after 3 years and this is also more for legality than anything else. We know that we love eachother and are not going anywhere. But I have children from my ex and if something happens to me he wont ever see them again and neither will his family. After my previous relationship falling apart after 5 years I decided that If I found someone that I loved we would get married. Might be a little insurance to be sure that we don't fall apart over an argument (you think things over MUCH more when a divorce is involved) but it's more legality reasons than anything else.
I think that if there was an option of a common law marriage (where you just go in or send in a form and don't have to to through a ceremony) more ppl would do that. At least in future generations. Currently many of our parents and grandparents still believe in the old traditions of if you live together you getmarried so there isa lot of family pressure. But I can see fewer people getting married in the future unless the legal system changes to accomodate that. Marriage happens in heart, that piece of paper means nothing.
