Choosing to Say I Don't

Jack Halberstam, 51, a transgender professor at the University of Southern California, said he viewed marriage as a patriarchal institution that should not be a prerequisite for obtaining health care and deeming children “legitimate.”

“We love each other and have lived together for 30 years,” he said. “Why do we need to get married?”

The filmmaker John Waters once said: “I always thought the privilege of being gay is that we don’t have to get married or go in the Army.”

Not only are some gay couples rejecting marriage, they are also choosing to live apart. Erin McKeown, 36, a singer and songwriter, lives in a cottage in a rural hill town in Massachusetts; her girlfriend of three and a half years, Rachel Rybaczuk, 36, lives 17 miles away in a one-bedroom apartment. They relish the time they spend together, but they also like having their own spaces.

For Ms. McKeown, an integral part of identifying as queer was creating an alternative family, rather than following the well-worn path of pairing off, cohabiting and having children. But as more of her friends do just that, she feels that alternative group dwindling.

Ms. Rybaczuk, for her part, said she was worried that relationships like theirs, deeply committed but not traditional, would be further marginalized, even from other gay people.

People think “that because we don’t want to get married that we’re less invested in each other and less committed,” she said. “And that’s not true.”

The children of divorce may not see marriage as the key to happiness. John Carroll, 23, who is single and lives in the East Village, said that the amount of time and resources his parents spent on divorcing was “obscene.” The last thing he wants to do is go through the same torturous process, he said.

“Any time you mix emotions into that, it’s just a risky venture, emotionally and financially,” he said. Instead, he thinks marriages should be like cellphone contracts, “renewable every two years with an option to upgrade.”

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