> In what jurisdiction is this?

I live in NY, USA, I don't know about other areas.

I did find this while googling the Tricare thing: "The military does not recognize Common Law marriages or domestic partners unless they are legally married." I don't know if this applies equally to same-sex and opposite-sex partners, though, but being a US vet of 4 years in the USAF, I'm not terribly surprised if that's true, although it looks like the courts are slowly coming around.

> How do you enter such a relationship?

Signing a single piece of paper at the office of your local government

> How does dissolution work in such a relationship?

You sign another single piece of paper at the office of your local government. No lawyers necessary.

> What sort of "cruft" does marriage have that a "domestic partnership" lack?

Oh, where do I begin? The history of marriage is mostly the story of men owning women. Marriage is perversely incentivized against if the male has a vastly disproportionate net worth from his would-be spouse (this is the case in my case). Marriage has a 30-50% failure rate despite the fact that 100% of people, on their wedding day, would never imagine getting a divorce in a million years (why else would you get married and toss away all future romantic options, right?)... This speaks to a certain lack of realistic behavior on the part of humans who engage in it. Marriage dissolution is biased in favor of women and especially against fathers (see this Everyday Feminism article on it http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/bias-against-fathers/). The difficulty of entering and escaping a marriage to begin with perversely incentivizes taking your partner for granted, being lazy about keeping up your appeal, and generally being a worse person than you'd have to be if your partner could easily escape the arrangement at any point. Enforced sexual exclusivity (as opposed to sexual exclusivity by daily choice) perversely incentivizes lust for others outside the relationship. Weddings themselves are a giant waste of money and the marriage success rate is inversely proportional to the amount spent on them. Diamonds are only valuable because of a DeBeers monopoly and marketing campaign, and until recently had a lot of blood on their hands (to be fair, though, I did get her a fat-ass diamond ring, because she wanted SOME indicator of our commitment. I acquiesced to this silly trinket, because she insisted it would make her happier. Which it did. lol.)

I am generally of the opinion that financial incentives to marry are terrible. I have a low opinion of financial incentives to begin with (despite being successful in this regard, I have always prioritized financial incentives last... perhaps an entrepreneurial privilege); an institution that is supposedly romantic should not be tainted with financial interests.

Lastly, Steph and I once started a discussion about a potential prenup in a hypothetical marriage and within 5 seconds after throwing out a single figure, we got into a fight, so I tabled it indefinitely and said let's just do a DP instead.

Anyway, I'm an engineer. Parts with anything more than a 1% failure rate get replaced. Would you drive a car that had a 30-50% chance of putting you in a serious accident? How about a medical procedure that had a 30-50% chance of maiming you? If not, then why in the name of all that is good and rational would you roll the dice on marriage?

Steve Jobs believed with all his heart that his all-fruit diet would cure his pancreatic cancer. Steve Jobs is also no longer with us. Perhaps it's time to let the science and the data speak to us, instead of engaging in irrational flights of fancy. It seems to be working in every other area of life where it's applied...

I honestly think marriage should be a celebration you achieve AFTER being together for (say) 15 years. THEN you have a right to celebrate. But I don't make the rules, sadly. ;)

> Also does this "legal arrangement" carry over to other jurisdictions?

I don't know. Don't really intend to move elsewhere in the foreseeable future.

> And assuming we are talking about the US isn't "mutual health coverage" decided by the employer or plan administrator?

That's possible. It's working in our arrangement and with our jobs.

We also saw a lawyer about creating a will that mentioned each other, btw.