I think it's important to think about marriage separately from raising children. You can do the activities separately or together.
For me, my spouse is someone I can implicitly rely on and vice versa. We are a team working towards our shared purposes, but we are still individuals. We each have skills that make the others life easier. It's a lot easier to get a ride from a spouse than from a friend, and a spouse will be more available to help tend to sickness and injury. That sounds emotionless, but of course emotions and emotional support are important too.
For me, having a spouse where we have compatible ideas on children, money, climate, travel, and most things is like an easy button for life. Research and problem solving is easier with two people. Decision making can be harder though.
If you marry someone who doesn't have compatible ideas, there's going to be a lot more conflict and a lot more deep compromise, and that may not be as appealing. And, of course, people change, and exiting a long term commited relationship comes with trauma, so there's risk. Maybe none of this feels appealing to you, and that's fine. There's some social and legal pressure to marry for lots of reasons, but we live in a world full of social and legal pressures, and you should reject those pressures if they don't feel right to you.
Raising children is a whole other thing. I don't think people should be pressured into it, and it's best to be on the same page as a potential spouse before considering marriage, otherwise one spouse is likely to have to make a big compromise and that's not great. Personally, I find raising children to benefit from a team approach, but it's not required and a marriage is just one way to form a child raising team.
For me, my spouse is someone I can implicitly rely on and vice versa. We are a team working towards our shared purposes, but we are still individuals. We each have skills that make the others life easier. It's a lot easier to get a ride from a spouse than from a friend, and a spouse will be more available to help tend to sickness and injury. That sounds emotionless, but of course emotions and emotional support are important too.
For me, having a spouse where we have compatible ideas on children, money, climate, travel, and most things is like an easy button for life. Research and problem solving is easier with two people. Decision making can be harder though.
If you marry someone who doesn't have compatible ideas, there's going to be a lot more conflict and a lot more deep compromise, and that may not be as appealing. And, of course, people change, and exiting a long term commited relationship comes with trauma, so there's risk. Maybe none of this feels appealing to you, and that's fine. There's some social and legal pressure to marry for lots of reasons, but we live in a world full of social and legal pressures, and you should reject those pressures if they don't feel right to you.
Raising children is a whole other thing. I don't think people should be pressured into it, and it's best to be on the same page as a potential spouse before considering marriage, otherwise one spouse is likely to have to make a big compromise and that's not great. Personally, I find raising children to benefit from a team approach, but it's not required and a marriage is just one way to form a child raising team.