Why would anyone want to get married??

I think it depends entirely on the individual. Some (if not most?) are better emotionally suited to the notion of marriage(and relationships in general), while others aren't. People differ, as do their ideas and practice of what love means to them. Some people are just better at relationships and especially longterm relationships than others.

And failure of a marriage can have dire consequences, emotionally, socially and financially.

Gender comes into this as men usually suffer more in this respect. Men going through a divorce are over twice as likely to commit suicide than married or single men. Women going through divorce show no such effect. Link. The majority of divorces(and breakups) are instigated by women. Add in the idea of "no fault" divorce and men come away as the more vulnerable gender.

Then we get to the financial. The media is full of stories of rich men being "taken for all he's got", but you don't have to be rich. I know quite the number of ordinary guys who ended up in bedsit land while still paying a mortgage for the ex wife.

Then there is the access to children issue, which is a whole other tale of woe for many. Oh some of the stories I could tell ye on that one.

Now there most certainly are women who come out of relationship/marriage failure the worse off and there are also women who don't seek to take the ex for all he's got*. Indeed there are even cases where it's the woman who ends up supporting the ex husband(though rarely enough). There are even example of both here among Boardsies, but generally men simply take a bigger risk when saying "I do".

As for ratio of good marriages to bad? In my experience anyway truly bad marriages are rare enough, however truly good marriages where both grow and are nurtured by the marriage over time are rare enough too. Again in my experience most marriages(and long term relationships) I know and have known are "meh". Neither good not bad, just coasting along. I suppose what remains of the romantic in me buried under the deep weight of the cynic would hate to find myself in the "meh" camp for decades.

So for me, personality, emotional type and gender would be in the mix for whether marriage is always a good bet. And again personally, me as a man would be incredibly wary of entering into it



*I remember reading back in the day about Chris Evans and Billie Piper's divorce and there seemed to be quite the media shock over it for two reasons; one they remained close friends and more she refused point blank to take any money from him and given he was worth squillions at the time and her career wasn't exactly banging on the doors of Hollywood it seemed even more surprising. And refreshing and laudable. My respect for both of them went right up, but especially for her. She wanted to make her own way in the world and fair play.