How did you end up as a spokesman for alternatives to marriage?

Dorian and I never set out to become poster children for unmarriage. We were like a lot of couples today -- we met in college but weren't in any rush to tie the knot. Marriage wasn't a big deal to us, but as the years ticked by it became clear that it was a big deal to everyone else. Friends and family were asking, nudging, hinting: "When are you going to get married?"

At one point we went looking for an apartment -- in the great liberal state of Massachusetts -- and the conversation went like this: Dorian says, "We're calling about the apartment," and the landlord's first question is, "How many people?" To which Dorian says, "Two. We're a couple." The landlord then pops the question, "Are you married?" to which Dorian answers, "No." He then says, "When are you getting married?"

We were stunned that at the top of the landlord's list was not whether we'd pay the rent on time, or take good care of the place, but whether or not we were married. Soon after that we had an insurance agency tell us we had to pay twice as much for two separate tenants insurance policies, even though we had been insured jointly for years in our previous house.

We also started noticing how unmarried relationships were talked about in the news. There was plenty of commentary from pundits who opposed cohabitation, and academics who studied it, but almost never any commentary from real, live unmarried people. We started researching, looking for the group that was speaking out for people like us, or a book about life as an unmarried couple. We walked down the street to the library and searched the Web and came up empty-handed. Eventually we got so frustrated that we said, "Well, I guess we'll have to do it ourselves," and in 1998 we founded the Alternatives to Marriage Project and started researching and writing "Unmarried to Each Other."

What kind of responses have you received to your work?

The response has been overwhelmingly positive. We receive a steady stream of e-mails and phone calls from people who are thrilled to have found the organization. My favorite e-mail came earlier this year after we were on "Morning Edition" on NPR. A woman in South Dakota wrote to us, "Every time my car breaks down or I get snowed in, people look at me with pity and say, 'You need a husband,' when what I really need is a wage that pays enough to afford a reliable car and a snow blower!" She said she loved the company of men, but she loved living alone even more. There's even a song about that idea, "Live Close By, Visit Often."

Of course, from time to time we also hear from those who think we're contributing to the downfall of Western civilization, not to mention sealing our fate in the afterlife. If any of them are Salon.com readers, you can reassure them that the family isn't going anywhere, it's just changing.

What is to prevent a slippery slope developing -- for example, roommates claiming marriage in order to receive marriage benefits?

You raise a couple of important issues here. The first and most basic: Why are some benefits available only to married people, in the first place? The other day a friend who works at Ohio State sent me an article from their newspaper about students marrying in order to get football tickets. If you won the ticket lottery and you were married, you'd get a second ticket for your spouse, but if you weren't married you'd only get one. In the case of football tickets, why not just let people bring one other person, anyone they choose? Maybe your dad's always dreamed of seeing the big game, and your spouse could care less. Change a policy like that one, and you'd have fewer people marrying for the wrong reasons.

Obviously, there's a lot more at stake here than tickets to a sporting event. When the stakes are high there are plenty of mechanisms in place to prevent a slippery slope. Domestic partner benefits, for example, require the signing of an affidavit that affirms, among other things, that this is a partner and not a roommate. But those questions are at Level 100, and right now we're at Level 10 in this discussion. The American Law Institute is talking about relationships that look like marriages in every way -- except that they don't have marriage licenses.

So in place of marriage, your organization offers suggestions for "commitment ceremonies," ways of recognizing the relationship without having an actual wedding. How does one plan a commitment ceremony?

It depends. When you receive that calligraphied envelope in the mail with a wedding invitation inside, you pretty much know what to expect. If the wedding ends up being a disaster, where the caterer is lousy and the officiant sounds like he's said these words a thousand times before, no one will complain. But with commitment ceremonies, because they often depart from tradition, the pressure is on for a couple to prove they can pull it off.

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