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Your problem is that you don't know what and why marriage is (summoning up some memories from the anthropology of marriage courses I took).

First, it is not a contract, it is not about love and it is not a religious institution.

Marriage is a world-wide human social institution to ensure the perpetuation of stable societies. Marriage is an institution created by all societies to ensure that the pair-bond between man and women (monogamy is the norm world-wide) is reinforced with social pressure. The reason this is needed is the fact that men are less likely then women to stay around their children. (marriage protects women and children)

Marriage is all about the needs of children.
Children need a mother and a father.
A pregnant women need's to have someone provision and protect both her and offspring. The natural biological outcome of this need is that the father does it. If the father fails to provision and protect, then the child will die (and probably the woman too). If too many children die, the societiy dies. Even if the children survive, those that are reared outside of the family structure tend to be defective (anti-social, think inner city America). This is why marriage is not a private matter and why most (or all) societies invest strongly in marriage rituals.

Marriage in America is weak but not dead. With the help of the elites that rule us, marriage may be redifined out of existence and IMO therefore America will be on it's last legs.

definition of family - the marriage ritual forms the family (husband and wife) children are born into a fully formed family (the social structure they need); widows and widowers with children still raise them in a fully formed family i.e they function as if the other parent is still present