Old religious indoctrination

It's amusing and annoying when older people find out my wife is pregnant. Most ask a similar question: are you going to get married now? Considering I'm wearing an atheist button on my coat and they know what I think about religion, I can't help but wonder how much social conditioning from TV and society they must have undergone. It's like they have been ingrained with the idea once you get pregnant you get married. Some even suggested we go to a civil ceremony. I guess it is from an age when ceremony was big. If I am by myself it is funnier since people then ask what if your wife wants to get wed? HA!! They don't know her very well! If she wanted to get married we'd not have lasted this long (going on 10 years). We've been together longer than most married couples and still like spending time together so from our perspective the world clearly has it wrong! Imagine after 10 years going out together and laughing, joking and having a great time all while doing something completely mundane like groceries! So my usual quip is, "don't fix what ain't broken."

Then of course there are some who think we would start attending church!?! As if my atheism is a "phase." Such arrogance, but then it been years of social conditioning to make these people think this way so I guess you can't blame them, they don't know any better. Luckily I learned a valuable lesson when I was young: If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you?