Well at least financially, that’s what an article I just read advises and most of that advice doesn’t look half bad. Here are a few excerpts from the MSN write-up on marital finances.

Marriage makes people richer.

Not all marriages, of course, and “richer” is relative. But overall, people who get married and stay married build significantly more wealth than single folks:

• The median net worth of married-couple households in the latest Census Bureau wealth study, conducted in 2002, was $101,975. For single men, median wealth was $23,700. For single women, $20,217.

• A 15-year study of 9,000 people found that during that time, people who married and stayed married built up nearly twice the net worth of people who stayed single. Even when all other factors are held constant — stuff like income and education — just the fact that they were married contributed to a 4% annual rise in these couples’ wealth.

Here are the business skills they outline as most important.

1. Do your due diligence
2. Determine your goals for your partnership.
3. Create a plan to attain those goals
4. Appoint a chief financial officer
5. Stay up-to-date with your reporting requirements
6. Work out your conflicts

To read the entire article and check out the description for each point above you can check out the article here.