Only a judge determining facts of a case should get that privilege, not the government.
Why is Marriage the default option? If anything, de-facto should be the default.
There are so many non-traditional types of relationships which are not legally recognised marriages let alone de-facto, that many couples are opting out of marriage, and what’s the public benefit of having marriage except to enforce morality of what a marriage usually means?
If a couple wants to be legally married, that’s okay too, the Marriage option is still there.
If a couple wants to be married under their own traditions but not with legal recognition, that should also be fine as long as it doesn’t break any other laws.
Peripheral matters should only be looked at according to the facts like dependance, income, amount contributed to the relationship, shared items, next of kin nomination, inheritance, etc.
For Children in the Family Court, things are already handled in the best interest of the child, don’t even matter if the parents were in a marriage, de-facto, one-night stand, etc.
Yeah I know it’s a lot of work to tip a current system on it’s head, and it doesn’t have to be done all at once, but it’s a libertarian thing of not having government involved in the running of our relationships itself, it should be up to the participants to decide how to run their relationship and make the necessary legal arrangements than have the government decide for them.