Une Avatar d'un Certain Age ... Quoi?

I've spent more time hanging out in Second Life by this point, maybe more time than I should have, and I'm learning a lot. Namely, just like in real life, some people are just plain great to know, some people are jerks or weirdos, and sometimes a weirdo can turn out to be just plain great to know. (For example, the person with the best, most formal manners we've met so far also turns out to be a member of every S&M/bondage group or club in the Metaverse. It's not something he brings up with Asimia, though, so it's all good. They have mostly talked about international politics.)

Also in parallel to real life, people are damned hard to get to sign up for art projects.

I thought for sure I'd be getting a few takers for my project, Stroll. And I was hopeful to have a few for my other project, Une Femme. Although Une Femme has come to be based more on age rather than marital/relationship status, and it's hard to tell how old someone's avatar is supposed to be. The one constant is that everyone seems to be "not old." But there are plenty of "partnered" avatars (like Asimia's landlords, Jazzy and Hab), so perhaps for SL I'll shift the focus a little bit and make it about relationship-building in SL. Clearly, the metaverse makes hooking up for anything remarkably easy. What makes two people decided to "get married" in SL? And how do you stay married? Certainly in real life, there are decided rationales and advantages, both legal and social: tax breaks, the advantages of pooled incomes, inheretance issues, child-rearing, societal expectations, on and on ... (and some people say they don't see why gay folks want the right to get married!)

In SL, though, the motivations have to be different. The advantages, aside from the pooled income thing, are not the same and in fact are all but non-existant. So what makes a SL marriage desirable? And what makes it work? What are an avatar's expectations of this kind of relationship, and how are the different than expectations in RL?

And if those expectations and experiences were laid out for us, I wonder could we tell which was which?

*bing*. New art project ...