Most of us, especially those of us in our 30s or younger, have a friend or relative who lives with someone they love without getting married. Out of wedlock as they used to say. Government statistics place the percentage of unmarried U.S. couples at approaching 50 percent, and the annual number of marriages in the U.K. is at record-low levels.

People just aren't as willing to enter into long-term commitments any more. Being able to pick up and walk out of a relationship lessens the feeling of captivity, that you have to make the relationship work no matter how unhappy it gets. And let's face it, the world is a lot more complicated, less predictable and faster changing than it used to be. Where life takes you may not be where it takes your partner. Then there are the transactional costs of marriage. Ever priced out a basic wedding for 50 people? Big bucks. And if the marriage doesn't work out, even a no-fault divorce is going to set one of you back a few grand.

From my perch as an in-house lawyer who has negotiated many kinds of services contracts, I see a similar shift in the business world. For many companies, the future is too uncertain to allow for long-term planning or obligations. My company sells professional and cloud computing services to hospitals. Our services and the associated contract provisions are typically an easy sell, until we get to the length of the service term. Our customers may be in talks with other hospitals to merge or be acquired at the same time they are sitting down to negotiate with me. The hospitals are comfortable with contracting year-to-year. My company's service offerings are three years or longer. It's a big pill for the hospitals to swallow.